The Morphology and Chemical Composition of Siliceous Spicules of the Early Cambrian Sponge Lenica unica Gorjansky, 1977.

The chemical composition of sponge spicules was studied based on the debatable fossil early Cambrian sponge Lenica unica Gorjansky, 1977 from the Siberian Platform. The study has shown that the skeleton of this giant sponge is built of large monaxon megascleres that are a natural carbonate–silica–organic compound with a complicated chemical composition. The data we obtained confirm that the earliest early Cambrian sponges formed skeletal elements of a mixed carbonate–biosilica composition. The authors suggest that this skeleton composition was the initial for all spiculate sponges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]