Polymerid Trilobites from the Cambrian of Northwestern Hunan, China / Полимерные трилобиты из кембрия северо-западной провинции Хунань, Китай Пэн Шанчи

The Wulingshan Mountains region of northwestern Hunan and eastern Guizhou provinces, China, contains some of the most complete and fossiliferous strata known in the upper part of the Cambrian. Easy access to good exposures has helped make this area the subject of numerous systematic, biostratigraphic, lithostratigraphic, chemostratigraphic, and sequence-stratigraphic studies.
The purpose of this two-volume set is to document the polymerid (or non-agnostoid) trilobites from the Huaqiao Formation of northwestern Hunan. A total of 196 species, some in open nomenclature, are reported, including a large number of new genera and new species. Some additional individual sclerites remain undetermined, however, so the true diversity of polymerid taxa in the Huaqiao Formation is slightly greater than that reported here based on good, identifiable material. The polymerids have paleogeographic distributions ranging from regional to intercontinental. Most of the genera and some of the species are useful as biostratigraphic zonal indicators within Gondwana, and a few have utility inter-continentally.
Volume 1 of this set contains general geologic information concerning the Huaqiao Formation of northwestern Hunan, lithostratigraphic data, biostratigraphic zonation, detailed descriptions of three stratigraphic sections, and the systematics of corynexochid, lichid, and as aphid trilobites. Volume 2 contains systematic treatments of ptychopariids, eodiscids, trilobites of uncertain affinity, and some undetermined sclerites. In both volumes, considerable effort was made to re-illustrate type material of many previously described taxa. In some older literature, illustrations were not always reproduced well, so the new illustrations should help to clarify taxonomic concepts.