In a new paper in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, paleontologists described the diversity of the Cabrières Biota, a new Early Ordovician site from Montagne Noire, southern France. During the Early Ordovician, the area was an open marine environment located in the southern hemisphere at high polar latitudes on the margin of the supercontinent Gondwana.
“Early Paleozoic sites with soft-tissue preservation provide a wealth of information on the evolution of past life and enhance our understanding of previous ecosystems, but are unequally distributed in time and space,” said University of Lausanne paleontologist Farid Saleh and his colleagues.
“While approximately 100 assemblages with soft-tissue preservation have been described from the Cambrian, around 30 are known from the Ordovician period, and only a few sites are discovered in Early Ordovician rocks.”
“The distribution of Early Paleozoic sites is also paleogeographically skewed, as approximately 97% of discovered biotas represent tropical and temperate ecosystems within 65° north and south of the paleoequator.”
“This pattern is particularly true for the Ordovician, where very few sites are known from polar environments.”
“Among the most famous Ordovician sites, the Soom Shale in South Africa, Big Hill and Winneshiek in the United States are indicative of tropical ecosystems.”
“Considering the rarity of Ordovician sites and their skewed paleogeographic distribution, the discovery of new biotas with soft-tissue preservation beyond the aforementioned paleogeographic zones and environments is crucial for expanding our understanding of this time period and gaining better insights into the factors driving the rise of animal diversity on Earth.”
In their new paper, the paleontologists described a 470-million-year-old (Early Ordovician) fossil assemblage, named the Cabrières Biota, from southern Montagne Noire, France.
The fossil site was discovered by two French amateurs, Eric…
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