陕南地区新发现的埃迪卡拉纪末期化石生物群研究

埃迪卡拉纪末期出现了地球上目前已知最老的矿化动物化石。这是早期生命演化史上的重大革新事件。这些动物群与寒武纪早期的带壳动物群展示出越来越密切的演化关系，为研究生命在前寒武纪–寒武纪过渡时期的演化历史提供了全新的线索。本项目以最新发现于陕南地区埃迪卡拉系灯影组中的三套化石组合带为研究对象，通过野外大规模系统发掘、综合信息观察，加上室内冰醋酸浸泡、化石切片、MicroCT扫描等研究手段，对它们开展化石古生物学、生物地层学、生物矿物学研究。最终探讨它们在埃迪卡拉纪–寒武纪过渡时期的详细演化历史以及它们与寒武纪早期带壳化石动物群之间的关系，为复原“寒武纪生命大爆发”这一重大演化事件的详细过程提供证据支持。

The oldest biomineralizing metazoans occurred in the terminal Ediacaran Period, a major biological innovation in the history of life. The terminal Ediacaran biomineralizing fauna and the early Cambrian shelly fauna show increasingly intimate evolutionary links, shedding new insights into the study of the evolutionary history of life at the Precambrian–Cambrian transition. This project is focused on the paleobiology, biomineralization, and biostratigraphy of a newly discovered fauna, containing three assemblages, from the Ediacaran Dengying Formation in southern Shaanxi Province. On the basis of large-scale excavations, the fossiliferous samples will be subjected to acetic acid maceration. Fossil individuals are handpicked and analyzed through multiple approaches, including SEM and MicroCT analyses. These combined investigation would help to reconstruct more detailed evolutionary history of biomineralizing metazoans in the Ediacaran–Cambrian transition.