On the origin of metazoan reefs

Presented here is a dataset of all occurrences of palaeoecology (carbonate platform setting, hydrodynamic energy, substrate preferences, reef setting, and ecological growth position) or earliest reef-associated metazoans from the Ediacaran (550-538 million years ago, Ma), and the earliest Cambrian of the Siberian Platform (527-521.5 Ma). To quantify the range of ecological settings occupied by early skeletal metazoans, whether ecological setting was conserved in any given species, and the distribution of substrate preferences, we collated data from all known global in situ (= in life, growth position) occurrences of the terminal Ediacaran (ca. 550-533 Ma) metazoan Cloudina spp. (16 occurrences), and from mainly in situ occurrences of archaeocyath sponge species (n=43 species) and some additional sessile reef-associated groups (coralomorphs, radiocyaths) from the earliest Cambrian (pre-Tommotian and Tommotian, late Fortunian – Cambrian Stage 2, 527-521 Ma), from the Lena-Aldan area on the Siberia Platform (261 occurrences). We define an occurrence as the presence of an in situ assemblage of species in a stratum occupying a limited stratigraphic interval at any given locality (Zhuravlev et al., 2015). Each such occurrence was studied to identify species, sedimentary facies and their ecological, spatial relationships. Lower Cambrian data were subdivided into five time intervals. These data can be potentially be re-purposed for other analyses. There are no legal or ethical considerations.