Gyrolithes

Gyrolithes is a trace fossil consisting of a vertically spiraling burrow, known from Cambrian strata onward.

A picture published with the record for Gyrolithes. What it shows has not been checked.

Nchazarra · CC BY 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
IchnofossilsPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 525 million years on record.

The record covers at least 529 Mya to 3.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 538.8 Mya to 2.58 Mya.

Cambrian — about 2 of 6 occurrencesCambrianOrdovician — about 1 of 6 occurrencesSilurian — about 0 of 6 occurrencesDevonian — about 0 of 6 occurrencesCarboniferous — about 0 of 6 occurrencesPermian — about 0 of 6 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 6 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 6 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 6 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 6 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 1 of 6 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 6 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 6 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 6 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 6 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 6 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 6 occurrencesMiocene — about 0 of 6 occurrencesPliocene — about 1 of 6 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 6 occurrences550–531 Mya — about 1 occurrence531–513 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences495–476 Mya — about 1 occurrence183–165 Mya — about 1 occurrence55–37 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences37–18 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences18–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence529 Mya3.6 Mya550 Mya0 Mya

6 occurrences of Gyrolithes on record, most of them in the Cambrian. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

6 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

6 formations

Breivik — 70.90°N, 28.67°EOpalinuston — 47.43°N, 8.15°EVoosi — 59.12°N, 23.82°EBeach — 47.63°N, 52.92°WCaracoles — 15.53°S, 74.74°WCozla — 47.33°N, 23.42°E

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The named rock units Gyrolithes has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Gyrolithes and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Gyrolithes and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

53 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Gyrolithes, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

6 references

Each of the 6 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Gyrolithes

Credit
Nchazarra
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itIchnofossils through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. de Saporta 1884