RT Journal Article
T1 New fossil assemblages from the Early Ordovician Fezouata Biota
A1 Saleh, Farid
A1 Vaucher, Romain
A1 Vidal, Muriel
A1 El Hariri, Khadija
A1 Laibl, Lukáš
A1 Daley, Allison C.
A1 Gutiérrez Marco, Juan Carlos
A1 Candela, Yves
A1 Harper, David
A1 Ortega Hernández, Javier
A1 Ma, Xiaoya
A1 Rida, Ariba
A1 Vizcaïno, Daniel
A1 Lefebvre, Bertrand
AB The Fezouata Biota (Morocco) is a unique Early Ordovician fossil assemblage. The discovery of this biota revolutionized our understanding of Earth’s early animal diversifications—the Cambrian Explosion and the Ordovician Radiation—by suggesting an evolutionary continuum between both events. Herein, we describe Taichoute, a new fossil locality from the Fezouata Shale. This locality extends the temporal distribution of fossil preservation from this formation into the upper Floian, while also expanding the range of depositional environments to more distal parts of the shelf. In Taichoute, most animals were transported by density flows, unlike the in-situ preservation of animals recovered in previously investigated Fezouata sites. Taichoute is dominated by three-dimensionally preserved, and heavily sclerotized fragments of large euarthropods—possibly representing nektobenthic/nektic bivalved taxa and/or hurdiid radiodonts. Resolving whether this dominance reflects a legitimate aspect of the original ecosystem or a preservational bias requires an in-depth assessment of the environmental conditions at this site. Nevertheless, Taichoute provides novel preservational and palaeontological insights during a key evolutionary transition in the history of life on Earth.
PB Nature publishing group
SN 2045-2322
YR 2022
FD 2022-12
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/72827
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/72827
LA eng
NO Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN)
NO Chinese Postdoctoral Science Foundation
NO University of Lausanne
NO Swiss National Science Foundation
NO Czech Science Foundation
NO Institute of Geology of the Czech Academy of Sciences
NO National Science Foundation
NO CNRS
NO IGCP
DS Docta Complutense
RD 12 abr 2025