The Cabrières Biota Reveals a Polar Marine Ecosystem of the Early Ordovician
- 演化之聲
- Mar 14
- 3 min read
Lagerstätten are sedimentary deposits that preserve unusually rich fossil assemblages, often including delicate soft tissues that rarely survive the fossilization process. Because these deposits capture such a wide array of organisms, they provide an exceptional window into the ecological structure of ancient environments. Most Lagerstätten known from the Cambrian and Ordovician periods come from regions that were located in tropical or temperate climates. Fossil deposits from within the polar circle during the early Paleozoic are extremely rare, which means that our understanding of Cambrian–Ordovician ecosystems in polar regions has long remained limited.
A newly discovered fossil deposit in the Montagne Noire of southern France now sheds light on this poorly known environment. The site preserves an Early Ordovician Lagerstätte that, during the Ordovician period, lay within the Antarctic Circle. This assemblage is known as the Cabrières Biota. At that time, the region formed part of a southern polar sea adjacent to the supercontinent Gondwana. The fossils occur in strata corresponding to the Landeyran Formation, dated to the Floian stage of the Early Ordovician. Geological evidence indicates that these sediments accumulated in an offshore marine setting.
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