Horizontal surface traces from the Fermeuse Formation, Ferryland (Newfoundland, Canada), and their place within the late Ediacaran ichnological revolution
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In recent years, multiple studies have emerged that claim to document metazoan locomotion within the late Ediacaran Period, between ~585 and 541 Ma. Most of this evidence is limited to simple horizontal burrows and surface trace fossils, but these have undergone little in the way of critical analysis to determine whether they truly result from metazoan activity. Here, we review the evidence for metazoan locomotion from Avalonian biotic assemblages, and demonstrate that locomotory behaviour, largely in the form of horizontal surface trails, may not be as rare in those regions as has previously been considered. Furthermore, Avalonian trace fossils likely predate claims of metazoan locomotion from most other global localities. New evidence for horizontal surface traces from rocks of the Fermeuse Formation, ~560 Ma, is also presented. When discussed in the context of the global Ediacaran to Cambrian ichnofossil record, it becomes evident that a gradual increase in abundance of horizontal surface locomotion is observed through the latest Ediacaran. Vertical movement within the sediment appears ~560 Ma, with evidence for organisms forming equilibrium traces in response to low levels of sediment input. Evidence for extensive vertical burrowing and pervasive bioturbation is not yet convincingly demonstrated until at or near the Ediacaran–Cambrian boundary, ~541 Ma.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".