Gordia

Gordia is an ichnofossil known from Precambrian to modern sediments and is the most common trace fossil in the Kaili biota displaying "smooth, cylindrical or subcylindrical, non-branching, winding and irregularly curving burrows, commonly self-overcrossing". Probably made by a worm-like creature displaying fodinichnial behaviour. It takes the form of unlined, curving parallel-walled burrows that often end with a nub, probably created as the creature probed the over- or under-lying sediment. It resembles Helminthopsis and Haplotichnus.

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

Smithsonian Institution · CC0 · via Smithsonian. 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 337 million years on record.

The record covers at least 538.8 Mya to 201.4 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 1000 Mya to 199.5 Mya.

Cambrian — about 4 of 19 occurrencesOrdovician — about 2 of 19 occurrencesSilurian — about 0 of 19 occurrencesDevonian — about 0 of 19 occurrencesCarboniferous — about 1 of 19 occurrencesPermian — about 0 of 19 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 19 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 1 of 19 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 19 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 1 of 19 occurrences1016–988 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences988–961 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences961–933 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences933–905 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences905–877 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences877–850 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences850–822 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences822–794 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences794–766 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences766–739 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences739–711 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences711–683 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences683–655 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences655–628 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences628–600 Mya — about 2 occurrences600–572 Mya — about 2 occurrences572–544 Mya — about 2 occurrences544–516 Mya — about 3 occurrences516–489 Mya — about 1 occurrence489–461 Mya — about 2 occurrences322–294 Mya — about 1 occurrence267–239 Mya — about 1 occurrence211–183 Mya — about 1 occurrence538.8 Mya201.4 Mya1016 Mya183 Mya

19 occurrences of Gordia 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

19 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

15 formations

Urusis — 27.45°S, 16.56°EStranger — 38.57°N, 95.31°WKessyusa — 71.33°N, 123.97°EWulongqing — 24.93°N, 102.82°EChulaktau — 43.47°N, 69.87°EBaranów — 51.03°N, 20.87°EPowers Steps — 47.63°N, 52.99°WOchre Cove — 47.66°N, 52.94°WLufeng — 24.94°N, 102.00°EFloyd Church — 35.42°N, 80.33°WEstenilla — 39.67°N, 5.03°WCíjara — 39.67°N, 5.03°WPusa Shale — 39.67°N, 5.03°WEast Twin — 53.08°N, 118.63°WChernyi Kamen — 58.58°N, 57.38°E

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The named rock units Gordia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Gordia and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Gordia and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

102 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Gordia, 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

14 references

Each of the 19 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. 2 further references are not listed. 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 Gordia

Source
Smithsonian
Credit
Smithsonian Institution
Licence
CC0 — this site’s default, not the record’s
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

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. Emmons 1844