Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-jr42d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T23:17:59.841Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Taphonomic approaches to time resolution in fossil assemblages: Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2017

Susan M. Kidwell
Affiliation:
Department of Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago 5734, South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637
Anna K. Behrensmeyer
Affiliation:
Department of Paleobiology, MRC NHB 121, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560

Extract

Since their inception in 1978, the annual short courses sponsored by the Paleontological Society have aimed to broaden and to enhance the professional education of paleontologists, including students new to the field. The 1993 short course continues in that tradition, but differs from many previous courses in focussing not on a taxonomic group but on a broader aspect of the fossil record, namely the time resolution of fossil assemblages. This seemed an especially good topic for a short course because questions of absolute and relative time – how old? how fast? how synchronously? – pervade paleontology and historical geology in general.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1993 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

Allison, P.A., and Briggs, D.E.G., eds. 1991. Taphonomy: Releasing the Data Locked in the Fossil Record. Plenum Press, New York, 560p.Google Scholar
Allison, P.A., and Briggs, D.E.G. 1993. Paleolatitudinal sampling bias, Phanerozoic species diversity, and the end-Permian extinction. Geology, 21:6568.Google Scholar
Aronson, R.B. 1992. Decline of the Burgess Shale fauna: ecologic or taphonomic restriction? Lethaia, 25:225229.Google Scholar
Behrensmeyer, A.K., and Hook, R.W. 1992. Paleoenvironmental contexts and taphonomic modes in the terrestrial fossil record, p. 15136. In Behrensmeyer, A.K., Damuth, J.D., DiMichele, W.A., Potts, R., Sues, H.-D., and Wing, S.L., (eds.), The Evolutionary Paleoecology of Terrestrial Plants and Animals. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Behrensmeyer, A.K., and Schindel, D. 1983. Resolving time in paleobiology. Paleobiology, 9:18.Google Scholar
Bell, M.A., Wells, C.E., and Marshall, J.A. 1989. Mass-mortality layers of fossil stickleback fish: catastrophic kills of polymorphic schools. Evolution, 43:607619.Google Scholar
Brett, C.E., and Baird, G.C. 1986. Comparative taphonomy: a key to paleoenvironmental interpretation based on fossil preservation. Palaios, 1:207227.Google Scholar
Donovan, S.K. 1991. The Processes of Fossilization. Columbia University Press, New York, 303p.Google Scholar
Efremov, I.A. 1940. Taphonomy: a new branch of paleontology. Pan-American Geologist, 74:8193.Google Scholar
Fursich, F.T., and Oschmann, W. 1993. Shell beds as tools in basin analysis: the Jurassic Kachchh, western India. Journal of the Geological Society of London, 150:169185.Google Scholar
Gastaldo, R.A. 1992. Taphonomic considerations for plant evolutionary investigations. Palaeobotanist, 41:211223.Google Scholar
Johnson, R.G. 1960. Models and methods for analysis of the mode of formation of fossil assemblages. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 71:10751086.Google Scholar
Kidwell, S.M. 1990. Phanerozoic evolution of macroinvertebrate shell accumulations: preliminary data from the Jurassic of Great Britain, p. 309327. In Miller, W.M. III, (ed.), Paleocommunity Temporal Dynamics. Paleontological Society Special Publication, 5.Google Scholar
Kidwell, S.M. 1993. Taphonomic expressions of sedimentary hiatuses: field observations on bioclastic concentrations and sequence anatomy in low, moderate and high subsidence settings. Geologische Rundschau, 82:in press.Google Scholar
Kidwell, S.M., and Bosence, D.W.J. 1991. Taphonomy and time-averaging of marine shelly faunas, p. 115209. In Allison, P.A. and Briggs, D.E.G., (eds.), Taphonomy: Releasing the Data Locked in the Fossil Record. Plenum Press, New York.Google Scholar
Knoll, A.H., Strother, P.K., and Rossi, S. 1988. Distribution and diagenesis of microfossils from the lower Proterozoic Duck Creek Dolomite, western Australia. Precambrian Research, 38:257279.Google Scholar
Koch, C.F. 1991. Species extinction across the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary: observed patterns versus predicted sampling effects, stepwise or otherwise? Historical Biology, 5:355361.Google Scholar
Lidgard, S., and Crane, P.R. 1990. Angiosperm diversification and Cretaceous floristic trends: a comparison of palynofloras and leaf macrofloras. Paleobiology, 16:7793.Google Scholar
Loubere, P., and Gary, A. 1990. Taphonomic process and species microhabitats in the living to fossil assemblage transition of deeper water benthic Foraminifera. Palaios, 5:375381.Google Scholar
Marshall, C.R. 1991. Estimation of taxonomic ranges from the fossil record, p. 1938. In Gilinsky, N.L. and Signor, P.W., (eds.), Analytical Paleobiology. Paleontological Society Short Course in Paleontology, 4.Google Scholar
Martin, R.E., and Liddell, W.D. 1991. The taphonomy of Foraminifera in modern carbonate environments: implications for the formation of foraminiferal assemblages, p. 170193. In Donovan, S.K., (ed.), The Processes of Fossilization. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Maxwell, W.D., and Benton, M.J. 1990. Historical tests of the absolute completeness of the fossil record. of tetrapods. Paleobiology, 16:322335.Google Scholar
Meyer, D.L., Ausich, W.I., and Terry, R.E. 1989. Comparative taphonomy of echinoderms in carbonate facies: Fort Payne Formation (lower Mississippian) of Kentucky and Tennessee. Palaios, 4:533552.Google Scholar
Olson, E.C. 1958. Fauna of the Vale and Choza: 14. Summary, review, and integration of the geology and the faunas. Fieldiana Geology, 10:397448.Google Scholar
Paul, C.R.C. 1985. The adequacy of the fossil record reconsidered. Special Papers in Palaeontology, 33:715.Google Scholar
Paul, C.R.C. 1992. How complete does the fossil record have to be? Revista Espanola de Paleontologia, 7:127133.Google Scholar
Peterson, C.H. 1977. The paleontological significance of undetected short-term temporal variability. Journal of Paleontology, 51: 976981.Google Scholar
Potts, R. 1986. Temporal span of bone accumulations at Olduvai Gorge and implications for early hominid foraging behavior. Paleobiology, 12: 2531.Google Scholar
Raup, D.M. 1976. Species diversity in the Phanerozoic: a tabulation. Paleobiology, 2:279288.Google Scholar
Raup, D.M. 1989. The case for extraterrestrial causes of extinction. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B, 325:421435.Google Scholar
Raymond, A. 1987. Interpreting ancient swamp communities: can we see the forest in the peat? Reviews of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 52:217231.Google Scholar
Seilacher, A. 1973. Biostratinomy: the sedimentology of biologically standardized particles, p. 159177. In Ginsburg, R.N., (ed.), Evolving Concepts in Sedimentology. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.Google Scholar
Seilacher, A., Reif, W.E., and Westphal, F. 1985. Sedimentological, ecological and temporal patterns of fossil Lagerstttten. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B, 311:523.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J.J. Jr., Bambach, R.K., Raup, D.M., and Valentine, J.W. 1981. Phanerozoic marine diversity and the fossil record. Nature, 293:435437.Google Scholar
Smith, R.K. 1987. Fossilization potential in modern shallow-water benthic foraminiferal assemblages. Journal of Foraminiferal Research, 17:117122.Google Scholar
Springer, M.A. 1990 The effect of random range truncations on patterns of evolution in the fossil record. Paleobiology, 16:512520.Google Scholar
Staff, G.M., Stanton, R.J. Jr., Powell, E.N., and Cummins, H. 1986. Time-averaging, taphonomy, and their impact on paleocommunity reconstruction: death assemblages in Texas bays. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 97:428443.Google Scholar
Walker, K.R., and Bambach, R.K. 1971. The significance of fossil assemblages from fine grained sediments: time-averaged communities. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, 3:783784.Google Scholar
Walther, J. 1893–1894. Einleitung in die Geologie als historische Wissenschaft. Fischer Verlag, Jena.Google Scholar