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Science 18 February 1977:
Vol. 195. no. 4279, pp. 676 - 679
DOI: 10.1126/science.195.4279.676
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Articles

Chitinozoans from the Late Precambrian Chuar Group of the Grand Canyon, Arizona

BONNIE BLOESER 1, J. WILLIAM SCHOPF 1, ROBERT J. HORODYSKI 2, and WILLIAM J. BREED 3

1 Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles 90024
2 Department of Earth Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
3 Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff 86001

Carbonaceous shales of the late Precambrian Chuar Group of the Grand Canyon, Arizona, contain abundant and well-preserved chitinozoans. The occurrence of these distinctive, tear- and flask-shaped microfossils, the oldest chitinozoans now known and the first to be reported from the Precambrian, seems to suggest that heterotrophic protists (or primitive metaozoans) were extant at least as early as about 750 ± 100 million years ago.

Submitted on September 13, 1976


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
VASE-SHAPED MICROFOSSILS FROM THE NEOPROTEROZOIC CHUAR GROUP, GRAND CANYON: A CLASSIFICATION GUIDED BY MODERN TESTATE AMOEBAE.
(2003)
Journal of Paleontology 77, 409-429
Testate amoebae in the Neoproterozoic Era: evidence from vase-shaped microfossils in the Chuar Group, Grand Canyon.
(2000)
Paleobiology 26, 360-385
1400-Million-Year-Old Shale-Facies Microbiota from the Lower Belt Supergroup, Montana.
R. J. Horodyski, R. J. HORODYSKI, and B. BLOESER (1978)
Science 199, 682-684
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