Taphonomic analysis of new material from Vendian sequences of the White Sea and southwestern Ukraine provides data for a better definition of both the widely distributed fossil taxa of Beltanelloides and Nemiana. A new type of Beltanelloides preservation is described, so it is now possible to attribute some sandstone imprints to this taxon. Nemiana simplex seems to have a lifestyle and level of body organization comparable with that of sponges. The narrow range of facies in which Nemiana occurs, when compared to the much broader range of Beltanelloides, is compelling evidence for a benthic lifestyle of Nemiana.

Complexes of microfossils, consisting of spheromorphic acritarchs, and coccoid and filamentous cyanobacterial colonies, characterize distinct levels of the Upper Vendian sequence (Ediacaran) of the White Sea region. Three discrete assemblages of algal macrofossils have been recognized in this succession. The oldest assemblage is characteristic of the Lyamtsa Formation of Early Redkino age, the middle assemblage, the Verkhovka, Zimnegory and lowermost Yorga formations of Late Redkino age, and (provisionally) the youngest assemblage, preserved in the upper part of the Yorga Formation of Early Kotlin age. The Vendian succession studied here can be correlated with a similar succession in the Podolia region of Ukraine.

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