PRE-EDIACARIAN FAUNA FROM TIMAN (ANNELIDOMORPHS OF THE LATE RIPHEAN)

Abstract

The Timan biota from Russia and Huainan biota from China proved the pre-Ediacarian Metazoa did exist in the past. In Russia, the genus Parmia Gnilovskaya of the pre-Ediacarian annelidomorphs, whose construction has distinct homonomous metamerization of their bodies, is established for the first time in the Upper Riphean deposits of the Dzhezhim Parma borehole section (southern Timan). Diverse assemblage of organic-walled microfossils also known from the Upper Riphean in Siberia, southern Urals, and China is recovered from the Parmia-bearing beds. The distinguished, most ancient Metazoa and coexisting microfossils are described, and annelidomorphs of Timan are compared with their counterparts from the Late Riphean Huainan biota of eastern China. The comparative morphological analysis of annelidomorphs from both macrobiotas is also presented.