Taphonomy: Process and Bias Through Time

ISBN-13: 9789400734036 / Angielski / Miękka / 2013 / 600 str.

Peter A. Allison;David J. Bottjer

Opis

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.

Recenzje

From the reviews of the second edition:

"Taphonomy remains an essential component in resolving biases inherent in the fossil record ... . Allison (Imperial College London, UK) and Bottjer (Univ. of Southern California) assembled an impressive cast of leading authorities for the completely rewritten second edition of Taphonomy ... . The text is well written and consistent across chapter authors, and ample illustrations and an extensive index ... . Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals/practitioners." (C. A. McRoberts, Choice, Vol. 48 (10), June, 2011)

Spis treści

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 & Timothy M. Demko

8. Hierarchical control of terrestrial vertebrate taphonomy over space and time: Discussion of mechanisms and implications for vertebrate paleobiology

Christopher Noto

9. Taphonomy of carbonate microfacies through time

James Nebelsick, Michael Rasser, & Davide Bassi

10. Taphonomy of reefs through time

Rachel Wood

11. Silicification through time

Susan Butts and D.E.G. Briggs

12. Phosphatization through the Phanerozoic

Steve Dornbos

13. Three-dimensional morphological (CLSM) and chemical (Raman) imagery of cellularly mineralized fossils

J. William Schopf, Abhishek B. Tripathi, & Anatoliy B. Kudryavtsev

14. Taphonomy in temporally unique settings: Precambrian Lagerstätte - out of this world?

Nicola McLoughlin, David Wacey, & Martin Brasier

15. Taphonomy in temporally unique settings: the Ediacaran interval

Jonathan Antcliffe, Richard Callow, & Martin Brasier

16. Mass extinctions and changing taphonomic processes

Margaret L. Fraiser, Matthew Clapham, & David J, Bottjer

O autorze

Peter Allison graduated from the University of Hull with a Geology B.Sc. in 1983. After a short spell as a journalist writing market surveys for Industrial Minerals Magazine he went back to university to do a Ph.D. at the University of Bristol, graduating in 1987. Following post-doctoral positions at the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Laboratories and the Department of Geology at Kochi University, Japan, he took a faculty position at the Postgraduate Research Institute for Sedimentology at the University of Reading. From there he joined the Earth Science and Engineering Department at Imperial College in 1997.

David J. Bottjer was born in New York City and attended Haverford College outside of Philadelphia (where he majored in Geology at neighboring Bryn Mawr College), and received an M.A. from the State University of New York at Binghamton and his Ph.D. from Indiana University (1978). After leaving Indiana he spent a post-doctoral year with the United States Geological Survey at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. He began as Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California in 1979, where he is currently Professor of Earth and Biological Sciences and Chair of the Department of Earth Sciences. He has engaged in extensive professional service through his career, including a past editorship of Palaios, a present editorship of Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, and election to the presidency of the Paleontological Society for 2004-2006