Rachel L. Surprenant - Scientific Illustrations

Droser et al. 2022 -

FIGURE 7 | Schematic of the two scenarios through which complex Funisia dorothea TOS is hypothesized to have formed. (A) A living community of densely packed individuals of Funisia. (B) Death of the Funisia population in the absence of sediment deposition, creating a thick TOS. (C) The Funisia population is buried soon after death, resulting in the casting of the Funisia TOS on the base of the depositional event. (D) In an alternate scenario, the dead Funisia population remains unburied on the seafloor for an ecologically significant period of time, background sedimentation occurs and mobile organisms begin to colonize the surface. (E) The dead Funisia population remains exposed on the seafloor and Funisia begin to decay while new TOS begins to form on top. More macroorganisms, including sessile taxa, begin to colonize the decaying Funisia surface. (F) The fossil surface resulting from the burial of this time averaged Funisia surface preserves the TOS “Groove”, representing the build up of sediment and TOS between decaying Funisia associated with a community of mobile and sessile macroorganisms.

Droser et al. 2022 -

FIGURE 6 | Schematic of mat development over time (T1-T5) and its associated sedimentological and ecological impacts. Thickness of the “Ripple muting” and “Adhesion” triangles corresponds to the intensity of the variable, i.e., the thickest part of each triangle represents strong adhesion or ripple muting whereas the thinnest part represents weak adhesion or rippling muting. T1 represents a newly deposited sediment package with newly formed ripples and no mat, this surface would exhibit high adhesion and no ripple muting. T2 represents the same surface after a short period of time during which it has developed an immature mat, adhesion is moderate and ripples are only slightly muted. The same surface in T3 has a higher maturity mat and has begun to be colonized by mobile and sessile macrobiota, adhesion is moderate-to-weak and ripples are moderately muted. T4 illustrates that mat continues to develop and become more complex in texture and the community of Ediacaran macroorganisms becomes larger and more diverse, adhesion is weak and ripple muting is strong. T5 represents a mature surface that has been exposed for a long period of time, illustrating a thick and texturally diverse mat that is populated by a high-density and high-diversity community of macrobiota, at this stage there is no adhesion and ripple muting is strong.

Droser et al. 2022 -

FIGURE 5 | Schematic of depositional scenarios with thick sediment packages and with thin sediment packages or “shims”. (A) Immediately after deposition, the uppermost sediments are rippled and have not yet developed TOS. (B) Over an ecologically significant period time, TOS develops on the sediment package and Ediacara macrobiota begin to colonize the substrate. (C) A thick sediment package is deposited on top of the TOS and macrobiota community, representing final burial of this surface. (D) The resulting fossil surface is preserved on the base of the thick depositional event and preserves TOS associated with Ediacara macrofossils on one surface. (E) An alternate scenario wherein the TOS macrobiota community is overlain by a thin “shim” of sediment that does not completely bury sessile organisms such as Tribrachidium and allows mobile organisms such as Dickinsonia to escape. (F) Over an ecologically significant period of time this shim develops TOS and partially buried sessile organisms and unburied mobile organisms continue to live. (G) A thick sediment package is deposited on top of the shim so that the underlying community is completely buried. (H) The resulting fossil surface preserves both the shim and the overlying thick sediment package as discrete surfaces. The shim preserves the TOS from the original community and holes in the shim are left where organisms were partially buried. The thick sediment package preserves themacrofossils of organisms that were living on top of the shim and that were partially partially buried or onlapped by the shim.

In Jonnalagedda et al. 2021: Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition

Reconstruction of Funisia dorothea in life position with hypothesized cross-section of internal morphology.

In Surprenant et al. 2020, volume 35 of PALAIOS

Schematic illustrating the process of Funisia dorothea death and degradation.

In Surprenant et al. 2020, volume 35 of PALAIOS

Reconstruction of Funisia dorothea taphonomic variability.

In Surprenant et al. 2020, volume 35 of PALAIOS

Schematic of taphonomic pathways observed for Ediacaran frondose organisms Arborea

In Droser et al. 2020, volume 10 of Interface Focus

Schematic illustration of the distinct depositional conditions and their resulting impact on the rock record in the Precambrian and the Phanerozoic

In Jonnalagedda et al. 2021: Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition

Reconstruction of Funisia dorothea in life position with hypothesized cross-section of internal morphology.

In Surprenant et al. 2020, volume 35 of PALAIOS

Schematic illustrating the process of Funisia dorothea death and degradation.

In Surprenant et al. 2020, volume 35 of PALAIOS

Reconstruction of Funisia dorothea taphonomic variability.

In Surprenant et al. 2020, volume 35 of PALAIOS

Schematic of taphonomic pathways observed for Ediacaran frondose organisms Arborea