Taphonomy Process and Bias Through Time [Paperback]

Taphonomic bias is a pervasive feature of the fossil record. A pressing concern, however, is the extent to which taphonomic processes have varied through the ages. It is one thing to work with a biased data set and quite another to work with a bias that has changed with time. This book includes work from both new and established researchers who are using laboratory, field and data-base techniques to characterise and quantify the temporal and spatial variation in taphonomic bias. It may not provide all the answers but it will at least shed light on the right questions.

This book includes work from both new and established researchers who are using laboratory, field and data-base techniques to characterize and quantify the temporal and spatial variation in taphonomic bias.

1. Taphonomy: bias and process through time

Peter A. Allison & David J. Bottjer

2. Taphonomic overprints on biodiversity: a database approach to the quantification of Phanerozoic trends

Austin Hendy & Carl Brett

3. Taphonomy of shelly taxa through time: were aragonitic infauna selectively dissolved?

V.Paul Wright & Lesley Cherns

4. Taphonomy of shelly taxa through time: shell durability in mixed carbonate/clastic sequences

Carl E. Brett, Austin Hendy, Peter A. Allison

5. Taphonomy of animal organic skeletons though time

Neal Gupta & D.E.G.Briggs

6. Molecular taphonomy of plant organic skeletons

Margaret E. Collinson

7. The relationship between continental landscape evolution and the plant-fossil record: Long term hydrologic controls on preservation

Robert A. Gastaldo & Timlß