Diversified calcimicrobes in dendrolites of the Zhangxia Formation, Miaolingian Series (Middle Cambrian) of the North China craton

As a type of non-laminated microbial carbonates, dendrolites are dominated by isolated dendritic clusters of calcimicrobes and are distinct from stromatolites and thrombolites. The dendrolites in the upper part of the Miaolingian Zhangxia Formation at Anjiazhuang section in Feicheng city of Shandong Province, China, provide an excellent example for further understanding of both growth pattern and forming mechanism of dendrolites. These dendrolites are featured by sedimentary fabrics and composition of calcified microbes as follows. (1) The strata of massive limestones, composed of dendrolites with thickness of more than one hundred meters, intergrade with thick-bedded to massive leiolites, formimg the upper part of a third-order depositional sequence that constitutes a forced regressive systems tract. (2) A centimeter-sized bush-like fabric (shrub) typically produced by calcified microbes is similar to the mesoclot in thrombolites but distinctive from clotted fabrics of thrombolites. This bush-like fabric is actually constituted by diversified calcified microbes like the modern shrub as a result of gliding mobility of filamentous cyanobacteria. Such forms traditionally include: the Epiphyton group (which actually has uncertain biological affinity), the Hedstroemia group which closely resembles modern rivulariacean cyanobacteria, and the possible calcified cyanobacteria of the Lithocodium – Bacinella group. (3) Significantly, dense micrite of leiolite is associated with sponge fossils and burrows, and is covered by microstromatolite. The Lithocodium – Bacinella group is a controversial group of interpreted calcified cyanobacteria in the Cambrian that has also been widely observed and described in the Mesozoic. Therefore, dendrolites with symbiosis of leiolites in the studied section provide an extraordinary example for further understanding of growing style of bush-like fabrics (shrubs) of the dendrolites dominated by cyanobacterial mats. Furthermore, the present research provides some useful thinking approaches for better understanding of the history of the Early Paleozoic skeletal reefs and the microbe–metazoan transitions of the Cambrian.