Sirius Passet
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Sirius Passet is a Cambrian Lagerstätte in Greenland. The Sirius Passet Lagerstätte was named after the Sirius sledge patrol that operates in North Greenland. It is located on the eastern shore of J.P. Koch Fjord in the far north of Greenland. It was discovered in 1984 by A. Higgins of the Geological Survey of Greenland. A preliminary account was published by Simon Conway Morris in 1987, but since then, three expeditions led by J. S. Peel and Simon Conway Morris have returned to the site, in 1989, 1991 and 1994, and a field collection of perhaps 10,000 fossil specimens has been amassed.
The fauna is inevitably compared to that of the Burgess Shale, although it is probably ten to fifteen million years older – 518 vs. 505 Ma (Martin et. al. 2000) – and more closely contemporaneous with that from Chengjiang.
Although the fauna has not yet been fully described, it is known to consist of a moderate number of arthropods and sponges, together with rare representatives of other groups. It has yielded three highly problematic taxa, Halkieria, Kerygmachela and Pambdelurion, all of which have played prominent roles in discussions about the origins of the modern animal phyla.
[edit] Taxa from the Sirius Passet fauna
Halkieria evangelista
Buenaspis forteyi
Kerygmachela kierkegaardi
Pambdelurion whittingtoni
Hadranax augustus
Buenellus higginsi
Kleptothule rasmusseni
Pauloterminus spinodorsalis
[edit] References
- Martin, M.W.; Grazhdankin, D.V.; Bowring, S.A.; Evans, D.A.D.; Fedonkin, M.A.; Kirschvink, J.L. (2000). "Age of Neoproterozoic Bilaterian Body and Trace Fossils, White Sea, Russia: Implications for Metazoan Evolution". Science 288: 841-845.
[edit] External links
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