IGCP587 Report from South Australia Jim Gehling (Senior Research

IGCP 587 1 Nov 2013

Jim Gehling (Senior Research Scientist, Palaeontology. S.A. Museum & Sprigg Geobiology Centre, University of Adelaide) is working on palaeoecology, taphonomy and environmental setting of the Ediacara biota in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia in cooperation with Mary Droser (University of California, Riverside, with six long-term volunteers and several students, for more than a decade. In that time we have excavated more than 400 sq m of Ediacara fossil beds from 6 sites in the National Heritage Listed Ediacara Fossil Site at Nilpena. Our aim is to conserve the Nilpena site as a long-term field laboratory, as this area includes fossiliferous facies from no less than five different depositional environments with distinctive assemblages of fossils. In 2013 we have obtained a permit to make a trial excavation in the Ediacara Conservation Park, near Reg Sprigg’s famous discovery site. As a result we have discovered the source beds of some of the classic type material dating back to the late 1950’s. The Ediacara Fossil Gallery will be completed before the end of 2013, exhibiting a composite sample of a fossil bed from the Ediacara CP, in addition to the wall display of a fossil bed from the Heysen Range, south of Parachilna Gorge. In recent years new Ediacara fossil sites have been discovered throughout the Flinders Ranges that, when expertise and funding allows, will be subject to closer investigation. Our prime aim is to discourage the itinerant and highly subjective collecting methods of the past, which largely destroyed the valuable contextual evidence preserved on whole fossil beds. Apart from the discovery of many new taxa and modes of preservation, the existence of fossils in the 1-10 mm size range as moulds and casts has opened new avenues of phylogenetic investigation of the Ediacara biota. The preservation of 3D preservation of Ediacara body fossils in mass- flow sandstones beds has opened new prospects for discovery. Working field sites are not open to unguided visitation simply because we are anxious to conserve the contextual sedimentary and stratigraphic evidence along with serially excavated fossil beds, by banning any collection without SA Museum authorization, and then only for taxonomic description. Accordingly, we have set up networks of surveillance using local lease-holders and custodians, along with electronic security.

Publications (2011-2013) Clites, E.C., Droser, M.L. and Gehling, J.G. 2012. The advent of hard-part structural support among the Ediacara biota: Ediacaran harbinger of a Cambrian mode of body construction. Geology 40: 307-310. Gehling, J.G. and Droser, M.L., 2013. How well do fossil assemblages of the Ediacara Biota time? Geology 41, 447-450. Droser, M. L., Gehling, J. G. 2012. Old and Groovy. Science 336, 1646-1647. Gehling, J.G. and Droser, M.L. 2012. Ediacaran stratigraphy and the biota of the Adelaide Geosyncline, South Australia. Episodes 35, 236-246. Gehling, J.G., Jago, J.B., Paterson, J.R., Brock, G.A. and Droser, M.L. 2012. Ediacaran-Cambrian of South Australia. Field Trip 11-18 Aug. S-4. 34th International Geological Congress, 5-10 Aug, 2012. Brisbane, pp 36. Gehling, J.G., Jago, J.B., Paterson, J.R., Garcia-Bellido, D. C. and Edgecombe, G.D. 2011. The Geological context of the Lower Cambrian (Series 2) Emu Bay Shale

IGCP 587 2 Nov 2013

Lagerstätte and adjacent stratigraphic units, Kangaroo Island, South Australia. Australian Journal of Earth Sciences 58, 243-257. Hall, P.A., McKirdy, D.M., Halverson, G.P., Jago, J.B. and Gehling, J.G. 2011. Biomarker and isotopic signatures of an early Cambrian Lagerstätte in the Stansbury Basin, South Australia. Organic Geochemistry 42, 1324–1330. Jago, J.B., Gehling, J.G., Paterson, J.R., Brock, G.A. and Zang, W. 2012. Cambrian stratigraphy and biostratigraphy of the Flinders Ranges and the north coast of Kangaroo Island, South Australia. Episodes 35, 247-255. Jago, J.B., and Gehling, J.G., Paterson, J.R. and Brock, G.A. 2012. Comments on Retallack, G.J. 2011: Problematic megafossils in Cambrian palaeosols of South Australia. Palaeontology, 55, 913–917. Lee, M.S.Y., Jago, J.B., García-Bellido, D.C., Edgecombe, G.D., Gehling J.G. and Paterson, J.R. 2011. Modern optics in exceptionally preserved eyes of Early Cambrian arthropods from Australia. Nature 474, 631-634. Nettle, D., Halverson, G.P., M. Grant, M Cox, Collins, A.S., Schmitz, M., Gehling, J.G., Johnson, P.R., and Kadi, K. 2013. A middle–late Ediacaran volcano- sedimentary record from the eastern Arabian-Nubian shield. Terra Nova, in press. Sappenfield, A., Droser, M.L. and Gehling, J.G. 2011. Problematica, trace fossils, and tubes within the Ediacara Member (South Australia): redefining the Ediacaran trace fossil record one tube at a time. Journal of Paleontology 85, 256- 265. Xiao, S., Droser, M.L., Gehling, J.G., Hughes, I.V, Wan, B., Chen, Z. and Yuan, X. 2013. Affirming life aquatic for the Ediacara biota in China and Australia. Geology 41, 1095-1098, doi:10.1130/G34691.1.

Personal details.

James G Gehling. PhD. Affil. Prof. South Australian Museum, Sprigg Geobiology Centre, University of Adelaide.North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia 5000. Telephone number: (08) 8207-7441 Fax number: (08) 8207-7222 E-mail: [email protected]