Rocks of Ediacaran age (~635–541 Ma) contain the oldest fossils of large, complex organisms and their behaviors. These fossils document developmental and ecological innovations, and suggest that extinctions helped to shape the trajectory of early animal evolution. Conventional methods divide Ediacaran macrofossil localities into taxonomically distinct clusters, which may represent evolutionary, environmental, or preservational variation. Here, we investigate these possibilities with network analysis of body and trace fossil occurrences. By partitioning multipartite networks of taxa, paleoenvironments, and geologic formations into community units, we distinguish between biostratigraphic zones and paleoenvironmentally restricted biotopes, and provide empirically robust and statistically significant evidence for a global, cosmopolitan assemblage unique to terminal Ediacaran strata. The assemblage is taxonomically depauperate but includes fossils of recognizable eumetazoans, which lived between two episodes of biotic turnover. These turnover events were the first major extinctions of complex life and paved the way for the Cambrian radiation of animals.

The fossil record of the terminal Ediacaran Period is typified by the iconic index fossil Cloudina and its relatives. These tube-dwellers are presumed to be primitive metazoans, but resolving their phylogenetic identity has remained a point of contention. The root of the problem is a lack of diagnostic features; that is, phylogenetic interpretations have largely centered on the only available source of information—their external tubes. Here, using tomographic analyses of fossils from the Wood Canyon Formation (Nevada, USA), we report evidence of recognizable soft tissues within their external tubes. Although alternative interpretations are plausible, these internal cylindrical structures may be most appropriately interpreted as digestive tracts, which would be, to date, the earliest-known occurrence of such features in the fossil record. If this interpretation is correct, their nature as one-way through-guts not only provides evidence for establishing these fossils as definitive bilaterians but also has implications for the long-debated phylogenetic position of the broader cloudinomorphs.

Local depositional variation affects geological recording of globally recognized biogeochemical events such as the Cambrian SPICE.

This paper addresses the taphonomic processes responsible for fossil preservation in calcium phosphate, or phosphatization. Aside from silicification and rarer examples of carbonaceous compression, phosphatization is the only taphonomic mode claimed to preserve putative subcellular structures. Because this fossilization window can record such valuable information, a comprehensive understanding of its patterns of occurrence and the geochemical processes involved in the replication of soft tissues are critical endeavors. Fossil phosphatization was most abundant during the latest Neoproterozoic through the early Paleozoic, coinciding with the decline of non-pelletal phosphorite deposits. Its temporal abundance during this timeframe makes it a particularly valuable window for the study of early animal evolution. Several occurrences of phosphatization from the Ediacaran through the Permian Period, including Doushantuo-type preservation of embryo-like fossils and acritarchs, phosphatized gut tracts within Burgess Shale-type carbonaceous compressions, Orsten-type preservation of meiofaunas, and other cases from the later Paleozoic are reviewed. In addition, a comprehensive description of the geochemical controls of calcium phosphate precipitation from seawater is provided, with a focus on the rates of phosphate nucleation and growth, favorable nucleation substrates, and properties of substrate tissue and pore-fluid chemistry. It is hoped that the paleontological and geochemical summaries provided here offer a practical and valuable guide to the Neoproterozoic–Paleozoic phosphatization window.

Owing to their temporal position during the decline of the classic Ediacara biota and the appearance of the more recognizable metazoans of the Cambrian Period, the terminal Ediacaran (∼551–539 Ma) assemblages of tubular fossil forms hold potential to improve understanding of biotic turnover near the end of the Ediacaran Period. Cloudinid taxa, including the terminal Ediacaran index fossil Cloudina, are the most well studied of these Ediacaran tubular forms due to their global palaeogeographical distribution. Recent reports revealed ecosystems of tubicolous organisms from the Great Basin region, Nevada, USA, and assigned taxa to such genera as Conotubus, Gaojiashania and Wutubus, well known from contemporaneous Chinese deposits. Appreciating the role that these organisms may have played in the evolutionary history of metazoans and recognizing their potential global distribution, however, requires careful taxonomic study. Here, we detail pyritized fossils from the Deep Spring and Wood Canyon formations of Esmeralda and Nye counties, Nevada, USA, respectively. Our investigation focused on the most abundant tubular taxon from the Nevada sites, which was previously generically assigned to Conotubus. While outwardly similar in morphology to this Gaojiashan taxon, our investigation determines that those fossils previously figured as Conotubus are instead two distinct taxa. The first represents a new species of Saarina – Saarina hagadorni sp. nov. – a genus previously known only from the East European platform, and the second is established as a novel genus and species, Costatubus bibendi gen. et sp. nov. http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:CC391194-FF96-4BDF-B9B2-E4361DA64A5B