The late-stage "ferruginization" of the Ediacara Member (Rawnsley Quartzite, South Australia): Insights from uranium isotopes.

The paleoenvironmental setting in which the Ediacara Biota lived, died, and was preserved in the eponymous Ediacara Member of the Rawnsley Quartzite of South Australia is an issue of long-standing interest and recent debate. Over the past few decades, interpretations have ranged from deep marine to shallow marine to terrestrial. One of the key features invoked by adherents of the terrestrial paleoenvironment hypothesis is the presence of iron oxide coatings, inferred to represent the upper horizons of paleosols, along fossiliferous sandstone beds of the Ediacara Member.