The earliest known Spongeliomorpha from the Lower Devonian of the northwestern Yangtze Platform, South China
Introduction
Crustacean burrows rank among the most abundant of trace fossils in the marine settings during the geological time (Bromley, 1996; Carmona et al., 2004; Seilacher, 2007) as they are in modern environments (Atkinson and Taylor, 1988; Scott et al., 1988; Griffis and Suchanek, 1991; Nickell and Atkinson, 1995). They played an important role in biotic community construction and may serve as a perfect tool to study community structures and composition of ancient ecosystems (Bromley, 1996; Seilacher, 2007; Buatois and Mángano, 2011; Mángano and Buatois, 2016). While crustaceans are powerful engineers to the environment (Scott et al., 1988; Griffis and Suchanek, 1991; Nickell and Atkinson, 1995), their burrows serve as ideal agents in palaeoenvironmental interpretations as well as to explore the evolution history of crustaceans (Bromley, 1996; Buatois and Mángano, 2011; Knaust and Bromley, 2012).
Spongeliomorpha is a three-dimensional tunnel network with vertical shafts connecting to the sediment-water interface (Gibert and Robles, 2005; Gibert and Ekdale, 2010). Various animals, especially decapod crustaceans (D'Alessandro and Bromley, 1995; Bromley, 1996; Muñiz and Mayoral, 2001; Seilacher, 2007) and stomatopod crustaceans (Carmona et al., 2004; Lewy and Goldring, 2006) are believed to be constructors of this ichnofossil. As a facies-crossing trace fossil (Carey, 1979; Uchman, 1998; Carmona et al., 2004; Miguez-Salas et al., 2018) with an earliest occurrence during the Emsian Stage of the Early Devonian (Zhang and Zhao, 2016; Buatois and Mángano, 2018), it displays diverse and complex functions including feeding, dwelling and breeding (Frey et al., 1984; D'Alessandro and Bromley, 1995; Muñiz and Mayoral, 2001; Gibert and Robles, 2005; Lewy and Goldring, 2006). Nevertheless, evolutionary path of Spongeliomorpha ichnofossils, including their morphological and functional features, and trace maker identity prior to the Emsian is still an enigma.
The Lower Devonian Pingyipu Formation in the northwestern Yangtze Platform, South China is a succession of siliciclastic deposits. Unusually large (segments up to 58 mm across), three-dimensional burrow systems assigned to Spongeliomorpha locally occur in several horizons. The well-preserved morphological details provide information to explore by far the earliest known Spongeliomorpha in multiple scopes. Based on systematic observations, this paper aims to: 1) carry out an analysis on the sedimentary environment and give a proper taxonomic assignation to the burrow system; 2) reconstruct the morphological and taphonomic frameworks, and discuss the potential biological and ecological features of the constructor; 3) explore the potential significance in the appearance of large Spongeliomorpha ichnofossils.
Section snippets
Geological setting
The northwestern margin of the Yangtze Platform of South China (Fig. 1A) has gone through a stepwise uplift during the late Silurian, and Early Devonian to early Permian periods, respectively (Wang et al., 2011; Rong et al., 2018). As a result, the Lower Devonian system was restricted to those briefly flooded areas (Haq and Schutter, 2008; Ma et al., 2009), forming depositional hiatuses with both the overlying and underlying strata. In the studied area (Fig. 1B), the Lower Devonian succession
Materials and methods
The studied material includes specimens housed in the fossil collection of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology (NIGP), numbering DLS (87–171). The field work was undertaken in the Majia section that is located in an abandoned quarry near the Xuanhe Town (Fig. 1B) (32°39′59″ N, 105°57′52″ E). Here, a well-exposed succession provides perfect horizontal and vertical observations throughout a 60-m interval. Systematic measurements of the Pingyipu Formation were carried out, with a
Sedimentology of ichnofossil-bearing strata
The Pingyipu Formation can be assigned to two lithofacies units, i.e. unit one, the medium- to thick-bedded sandstone (Fig. 3A–D), and unit two, thin-bedded sandstone, siltstone and mudstone (Fig. 3E–H). The former shows sharp contacts with the underlying sediments, where large mud clasts (3–4 cm in diameter) (Fig. 3B), trough cross-stratification (Fig. 3C) and tabular cross-bedding (Fig. 3D) are common. These features suggest a high-energy environment most likely reflecting an upper shoreface
Taxonomic assignation
Morphology of the burrow system suggests branched, scratched, three-dimensional boxwork probably with vertical shafts connecting to the sediment-water interface (Fig. 9A). These features allow an assignation of the burrows to the ichnogenus Spongeliomorpha Saporta, 1887 (Fürsich, 1973; Bromley and Frey, 1974; Calzada, 1981; Ekdale et al., 1984; Muñiz and Mayoral, 2001; Schlirf, 2005; Melchor et al., 2009). In the trace fossil record, several open burrows show high superficial similarities to
Conclusions
Large burrow systems are reported from the lower shoreface setting of the Lower Devonian Pingyipu Formation, northwestern Yangtze Platform, South China. The three-dimensional burrow system is dominated by horizontal branching networks, which may have been connected to the sediment-water interface by vertical shafts. The burrow system, characterized by ridges and bundles of striae, are tentatively assigned to Spongeliomorpha aff. S. chevronensis Muñiz and Mayoral, 2001. Analysis of their
Acknowledgements
This study is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 41530103, 41521061); Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant number XDB26000000); and State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant number 20192112). The comments from the reviewers (Professor Alfred Uchman, Professor Lijun Zhang and an anonymous reviewer) and editor (Professor
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