Marpolia Cambrian Fossil Cyanobacterium

Description: Marpolia is a twisted filamentous alga or cyanobacterium better known from the roughly contemporary Burgess Shale. It may have been a floating type, or lived attached to substrates in the water column. Some specimens are sufficiently well preserved that the arrangement of individual cells can be seen under the microscope, supporting the identification of this genus as a cyanobacterium.