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Lower Cambrian demosponges and hexactinellid sponges from Yunnan, China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2015

J. Keith Rigby
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602, USA
Hou Xian-Guang
Affiliation:
Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Academia Sinica, Nanjing, China

Abstract

The assemblage of demosponge and hexactinellid sponges described here was collected from the Lower Cambrian, Atdabanian, Yu'anshan Member of the Chiungchussu Formation, at the Maotianshan and Xiaolantian sections in Chengjiang County, Yunnan Province, 70 km southeast of Kunming. The sponges occur in relatively massive to weakly graded-bedded, grayish-yellow mudstone and silty mudstone. They are associated with other soft-bodied and skeletonized fossils. The new demosponge species and genera Choiaella radiata, Allantospongia mica, and the questionable sponge Parvulonoda dubia are described, along with new specimens of Leptomitus teretiusculus Chen, Hou, and Lu, 1989, the hexactinellid sponge, Triticispongia diagonata Mehl and Reitner, 1993 and the probable hexactinellid sponge, Saetaspongia densa Mehl and Reitner, 1993.

The sponges occur in what may be distal turbidite deposits, and they may have been buried essentially in situ by these argillaceous accumulations.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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