Ediacaran fauna of the Nama Group

The Ediacaran to Cambrian-aged Nama Group is a >3000 meter thick succession of interbedded shallow marine carbonates and siliciclastics, deposited on an extensive peneplain on the southern foreland of the Damara Orogen as part of the Neoproterozoic pan-African orogeny (Germs, 1983). In the present day, the Nama Basin extends over 1000 km from Gobabis in the north to the banks of the Orange River in the south, and is subdivided into 3 subbasins – the Witvlei, Zaris, and Witputs. The succession preserves numerous, iconic fossil deposits that have been studied since the 1930’s. Quartzites belonging to the Dabis Formation on Farms Aar, Plateau and Pockenbank contain enigmatic soft-bodied fossils that continue to influence debate surrounding the early evolution of animals. In the north, Farms Omkyk and Driedoornvlagte host extensive reef tracts that include the oldest calcifying metazoans (Grotzinger et al., 2000; Penny et al., 2014). Higher in the stratigraphic column, the Urusis Formation on Farm Swartpunt preserves among the youngest Ediacaran fossils in the world, alongside complex trace fossils that augur the beginning of the Cambrian substrate revolution (Narbonne et al., 1997). Radiometric dating of ash beds in the succession provides geochronological context for these fossils, helping to refine the age of the Ediacaran-Cambrian boundary (Linnemann et al., 2019).