The late Ordovician Soom Shale Lagerstatte; an extraordinary post-glacial fossil and sedimentary record
The late Ordovician Soom Shale Lagerstatte; an extraordinary post-glacial fossil and sedimentary record
Journal of the Geological Society of London (October 2016) 174 (1): 1-9
- Africa
- algae
- anaerobic environment
- Annelida
- Arthropoda
- assemblages
- bottom water
- Brachiopoda
- Cephalopoda
- Chordata
- Conodonta
- fossil localities
- glaciation
- Hirnantian
- Invertebrata
- Lagerstatten
- microfossils
- Mollusca
- Nautiloidea
- Ordovician
- paleoecology
- Paleozoic
- Pisces
- Plantae
- preservation
- problematic fossils
- soft parts
- South Africa
- Southern Africa
- Table Mountain Group
- taphonomy
- Trilobita
- Trilobitomorpha
- Upper Ordovician
- Vermes
- Vertebrata
- Western Cape Province South Africa
- Cedarberg Formation
- Soom Shale
- Soom Shale Lagerstatte
Fossils of the Late Ordovician Soom Shale Lagerstatte are characterized by exceptional preservation of their soft tissues in clay minerals. The low-diversity community lived in an unusual cold-water setting, dominated by anoxic bottom waters, in the immediate aftermath of the Hirnantian glaciation. Giant conodonts represented by complete tooth sets, and one with trunk musculature and liver preserved, unarmoured jawless fish, lobopods and enigmatic taxa are some of the more important fossils. Furthermore, this Lagerstatte also preserves biomineralized Ordovician taxa such as brachiopods, orthoconic nautiloids and trilobites. It is important in capturing the only known examples of many taxa, extending temporal ranges of others and providing a unique glimpse of a post-glacial refugium, at a time when other Lagerstatten are unknown.