Professor YIN Leiming from Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and his colleagues recently made a new progress in the search for Cambrian ‘Cryptospore-like’ microfossils which has been selected as the cover of the SCIENCE CHINA Earth Sciences.

Abundant specimens of cryptospore-like microfossils, including dyads, tetrads and monads, have been collected by palynological maceration from rock sample of the “Middle” Cambrian Log Cabin Member of the Pioche Shale in eastern Nevada, USA. Some specimens preserved in situ were observed by using SEM. Compared with organic-walled microfossils obtained from the Cambrian Kaili Formation in eastern Guizhou Province, China, some specimens of leiosphers may be inferred to be similar cryptospore-like microfossils. The new fossil record would be the oldest known specimens of cryptospore-like microfossils during the Cambrian Period. The Cambrian cryptospore-like microfossils might have originated from quite shallow water plant sporoderm forms. Although the Cambrian cryptospore-like microfossils have been recovered with a primitive spore wall structure as “protoembryophytes”, their phylobiology and living habits still require additional fossil discoveries to confirm their paleoecology and phylogeny.

Related information of this paper: YIN LeiMing, ZHAO YuanLong, BIAN LiZeng, PENG Jin, 2013, Comparison between cryptospores from the Cambrian Log Cabin Member, Pioche Shale, Nevada, USA and similar specimens from the Cambrian Kaili Formation, Guizhou, China. SCIENCE CHINA Earth Sciences, 2013, 56(5): 703-709