Diversity of organic-walled microfossils in the phosphates of the ca. 1 Ga Diabaig Formation, Torridon Group, NW Scotland

Precambrian organic-walled microfossils preserved in fine-grained sedimentary rocks constitute the earliest fossil record of eukaryotic life. The Mesoproterozoic–Neoproterozoic transition coincided with major innovations in the evolution of early eukaryotes, including the radiation of crown-group lineages, represented in these rocks by candidate red algae, green algae, and fungi. However, the diversity of these early eukaryotes is yet to be fully explored. Here, we present a systematic description of the microfossil assemblage preserved in exceptional detail within sedimentary phosphatic nodules and bands in the Diabaig Formation of the ca. 1 Ga Torridon Group of northwest Scotland. Recent work has highlighted the lacustrine or estuarine nature of its depositional environment and confirmed that these fossils may include the oldest known non-marine eukaryotes. We identify 11 morphotaxa from new collected material, including the new species Minimarmilla multicatenaria gen. et sp. nov, two..., , # Diversity of organic-walled microfossils in the phosphates of the ca. 1 Ga Diabaig Formation, Torridon Group, NW Scotland

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.9ghx3ffvp](10.5061/dryad.9ghx3ffvp)

## **Description of the data and file structure**

\"SupData_1_SHERPA_datasets_(v.2).xls\" has 14 sheets with the data used for SHERPA software analysis of the cell shape of multiple *Eosynechococcus* spp. and *Eohalothece lacustrina* specimens from different studies, including ours. The first sheet contains the final comparison of counted and analysed fossil cells, which was used to create the Supplementary Information Figure 2. The second sheet has the information of each dataset analysed with SHERPA software. The rest of the sheets have the individual results obtained after each SHERPA analysis performed on a given dataset. Each dataset is labelled by study name as shown in the second sheet.

\"SupData_2_Fossil_assemblages_and_Eohalothece_(v.2).xls\" contains 3 sheets with fossil taxa data from differ...,