Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-ndmmz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-13T07:38:26.889Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Taphonomy and an Intertidal Palimpsest Surface: Implications for the Fossil Record

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2017

Ronald R. West ,
Harold B. Rollins  and
Richard M. Busch
Ronald R. West
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506
Harold B. Rollins
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Planetary Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Richard M. Busch
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Astronomy, West Chester University, West Chester, PA 19383
Get access

Extract

Lateral fluctuations of shoreline positions along shallow basinal margins often result in spatially and temporally overprinted (palimpsested) firmground or hardground surfaces (Frey and Basan, 1981). Recent palimpsested surfaces can teach us a great deal about the fossil record, particularly when we view them taphonomically. For the last few years we have been studying such surfaces along the seaward coast of St. Catherines Island, Georgia. In this paper we will first briefly discuss the modern salt marsh at St. Catherines Island, and its invertebrate inhabitants. This will form a basis for recognition and description of relict marsh surfaces. We will next describe the relict salt marsh surface that is currently being exhumed by coastal erosion and palimpsested by other invertebrate communities. Such palimpsested events also represent heterochronous community replacement–the disjunct temporal and (usually) spatial overprinting of an older community (or biogenic surface) by one (or more) younger communities. This interprets “replacement” as a passive, generally species non-interactive, phenomenon (contra Miller, 1986). Lastly, we will make some rather broad comparisons between the St. Catherines Island setting and what we interpret as analogous situations recorded in the Carboniferous strata of the Appalachian Basin.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Paleontological Society Special Publications , Volume 5: Paleocommunity Temporal Dynamics: The Long-Term Development of Multispecies Assemblies , 1990 , pp. 351 - 369
Copyright
Copyright © 1990 Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Basan, P.B., and Frey, R.W. 1977. Actual-paleontology and neoichnology of salt marshes near Sapelo Island, Georgia, p. 41–70. In Crimes, T.P. and Harper, J.C. (eds.). Trace Fossils 2. Geological Journal, Special Issue 9.Google Scholar
Frey, R. W., and Basan, P. B. 1978. Coastal salt marshes, p. 101–109. In Davis, R.A. (ed.). Coastal Sedimentary Environments. Springer, New York.Google Scholar
Frey, R. W., 1981. Taphonomy of relict Holocene salt marsh deposits, Cabretta Island, Georgia. Senckenbergiana Maritima, 13:111–155.Google Scholar
Howard, J. D., and Frey, R. W. 1980. Holocene depositional environments of the Georgia coast and continental shelf, p. 66–134. In Howard, J. D. et al. (eds.), Excursions in Southeastern Geology: The Archaeology-Geology of the Georgia Coast. Geological Society of America, Guidebook 20, Annual meeting, Atlanta, Georgia.Google Scholar
Howard, J. D., 1985. Physical and biogenic aspects of backbarrier sedimentary sequences, Georgia coast, U.S.A. Marine Geology, 63:77–127.Google Scholar
Miller, W. III. 1986 Paleoecology of benthic community replacement. Lethaia, 19:225–231.Google Scholar
Morris, R. W., and Rollins, H. B. 1977. Observations on intertidal organism associations of St. Catherines Island, Georgia. I. General description and paleoecological implications. Bulletin American Museum of Natural History, 159(3):87–128.Google Scholar
Pemberton, S. G., and Frey, R. W. 1985. The Glossifungites ichnofacies: modern examples from the Georgia coast, U.S.A., p. 237–259. In Curran, H.A. (ed.), Biogenic Structures: Their Use in Interpreting Depositional Environments. Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists, Special Publication No. 35.Google Scholar
Rollins, H.B., Carothers, M., and Donahue, J. 1979. Transgression, regression, and fossil community succession. Lethaia, 12:89–104.Google Scholar
Rollins, H.B., West, R. R., and Busch, R. M. This volume. Heirarchical genetic stratigraphy and marine paleoecology.Google Scholar
Thomas, D. H., Jones, G. D., Durham, R., and Larsen, C. C. 1978. The anthropology of St. Catherines Island: natural and cultural history. Anthropological Papers, American Museum Natural History, 55(2):155–248.Google Scholar
West, R. R., and Matsumoto, R. 1986. A Glossifungites, and associated Trypanites, ichnofacies in the Pennsylvanian of Kansas. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, 18(6):786.Google Scholar
Ziegler, J. M. 1959. Origin of the sea islands of the southeastern United States. Geographical Review, 49:222–237.Google Scholar