The Rise and Fall of the Ediacaran Biota

The Proterozoic and early Phanerozoic was a time punctuated by a series of significant events in Earth history. Glaciations of global scale wracked the planet, interfingered with dramatic changes in oceanic and atmospheric chemistry and marked changes in continental configuration. It was during these dynamic and ‘weedy’ times that metazoans first appeared. Their subsequent diversification culminated in the appearance of hard tissue skeletons and deep ‘farming’ of the marine substrate in late Proterozoic and first few millions of years of the Phanerozoic. The papers in this book deal specifically with the precise timing of physical events and teasing out of the effects which these changing environments, climates, global chemistry and palaeogeography had on the development and diversification of animals, resulting in the spectacular Ediacaran/Vendian faunas of the late Precambrian.
Ediacaran rocks from the Cadomian basement of the Saxo-Thuringian Zone (NE Bohemian Massif, Germany): age constraints, geotectonic setting and basin development
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Published:January 01, 2007
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CiteCitation
U. Linnemann, 2007. "Ediacaran rocks from the Cadomian basement of the Saxo-Thuringian Zone (NE Bohemian Massif, Germany): age constraints, geotectonic setting and basin development", The Rise and Fall of the Ediacaran Biota, Patricia Vickers-Rich, Patricia Komarower
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Abstract
This paper is focused on a compilation of known data from the low-grade metamorphosed rocks of the Ediacaran period in the German part of the Saxo-Thuringian Zone at the northeastern margin of the Bohemian Massif. The geotectonic setting during the formation of Ediacaran rock units is characterized by Cadomian orogenic processes from c. 650–540 Ma at the periphery of the West African Craton. The basin development during that time is characterized by the formation of a Cadomian backarc basin with a passive margin, and the outboard sitting Cadomian magmatic arc originated at c. 570–560 Ma. This arc-marginal basin system was formed on stretched continental crust in a strike-slip regime and reflects an active-margin setting in a style similar to the recent West Pacific. The backarc basin was closed between c. 560–540 Ma by the collision of the Cadomian magmatic arc with the cratonic hinterland: this resulted in the closure of the backarc basin and the formation of a Cadomian retroarc basin. Collision of an oceanic ridge with the Cadomian Orogenic Belt led to a slab break-off of the subducted oceanic plate resulting in an extreme heat flow, and a magmatic and anatectic event culminating at c. 540 Ma that was responsible for the intrusion of voluminous granitoid plutons.
- basement
- basins
- biofacies
- Bohemian Massif
- Central Europe
- clastic rocks
- Ediacaran
- Europe
- geologic maps
- Germany
- IGCP
- lithofacies
- lithostratigraphy
- maps
- mudstone
- Neoproterozoic
- paleogeography
- Precambrian
- Proterozoic
- Saxony-Thuringia
- sedimentary rocks
- stratigraphic units
- tectonics
- upper Precambrian
- Vendian
- Cadomian Basin