Exceptionally preserved fossil assemblages through geologic time and space

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorMuscente, A. D.
dc.contributor.authorSchiffbauer, James D.
dc.contributor.authorBroce, Jesse
dc.contributor.authorLaflamme, Marc
dc.contributor.authorO'Donnell, Kenneth
dc.contributor.authorBoag, Thomas H.
dc.contributor.authorMeyer, Michael
dc.contributor.authorHawkins, Andrew D.
dc.contributor.authorHuntley, John Warren
dc.contributor.authorMcNamara, Maria E.
dc.contributor.authorMacKenzie, Lindsay A.
dc.contributor.authorStanley Jr, George D.
dc.contributor.authorHinman, Nancy W.
dc.contributor.authorHofmann, Michael H.
dc.contributor.authorXiao, Shuhai
dc.contributor.funderW. M. Keck Foundationen
dc.contributor.funderNational Science Foundationen
dc.contributor.funderNational Aeronautics and Space Administrationen
dc.contributor.funderNatural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canadaen
dc.date.accessioned2017-08-30T10:46:13Z
dc.date.available2017-08-30T10:46:13Z
dc.date.issued2017-04-26
dc.date.updated2017-08-30T09:17:12Z
dc.description.abstractGeologic deposits containing fossils with remains of non-biomineralized tissues (i.e. Konservat-Lagerstätten) provide key insights into ancient organisms and ecosystems. Such deposits are not evenly distributed through geologic time or space, suggesting that global phenomena play a key role in exceptional fossil preservation. Nonetheless, establishing the influence of global phenomena requires documenting temporal and spatial trends in occurrences of exceptionally preserved fossil assemblages. To this end, we compiled and analyzed a dataset of 694 globally distributed exceptional fossil assemblages spanning the history of complex eukaryotic life (~ 610 to 3 Ma). Our analyses demonstrate that assemblages with similar ages and depositional settings commonly occur in clusters, each signifying an ancient geographic region (up to hundreds of kilometers in scale), which repeatedly developed conditions conducive to soft tissue preservation. Using a novel hierarchical clustering approach, we show that these clusters decrease in number and shift from open marine to transitional and non-marine settings across the Cambrian-Ordovician interval. Conditions conducive to exceptional preservation declined worldwide during the early Paleozoic in response to transformations of near-surface environments that promoted degradation of tissues and curbed authigenic mineralization potential. We propose a holistic explanation relating these environmental transitions to ocean oxygenation and bioturbation, which affected virtually all taphonomic pathways, in addition to changes in seawater chemistry that disproportionately affected processes of soft tissue conservation. After these transitions, exceptional preservation rarely occurred in open marine settings, excepting times of widespread oceanic anoxia, when low oxygen levels set the stage. With these patterns, non-marine cluster count is correlated with non-marine rock quantity, and generally decreases with age. This result suggests that geologic processes, which progressively destroy terrestrial rocks over time, limit sampling of non-marine deposits on a global scale. Future efforts should aim to assess the impacts of such phenomena on evolutionary and ecological patterns in the fossil record.en
dc.description.sponsorshipW. M. Keck Foundation (The Co-Evolution of the Geo- and Biospheres: An Integrated Program for Data-Driven Abductive Discovery in the Earth Sciences); National Science Foundation (EAR-1528553); National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Exobiology: NNX15AL27G); Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Discovery Grant RGPIN 435402)en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionAccepted Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationMuscente, A. D., Schiffbauer, J. D., Broce, J., Laflamme, M., O’Donnell, K., Boag, T. H., Meyer, M., Hawkins, A. D., Huntley, J. W., McNamara, M. E., MacKenzie, L. A., Stanley Jr, G. D., Hinman, N. W., Hofmann, M. H. and Xiao, S. (2017) 'Exceptionally preserved fossil assemblages through geologic time and space', Gondwana Research, 48, pp. 164-188. doi:10.1016/j.gr.2017.04.020en
dc.identifier.doi10.1016/j.gr.2017.04.020
dc.identifier.endpage188en
dc.identifier.issn1342-937X
dc.identifier.journaltitleGondwana Researchen
dc.identifier.startpage164en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/4593
dc.identifier.volume48en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherElsevier Ltden
dc.rights© 2017, International Association for Gondwana Research. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.en
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/en
dc.subjectTaphonomyen
dc.subjectBig dataen
dc.subjectBioturbationen
dc.subjectOcean oxygenationen
dc.subjectRock record biasen
dc.subjectLagerstättenen
dc.titleExceptionally preserved fossil assemblages through geologic time and spaceen
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
Thumbnail Image
Name:
2893.pdf
Size:
4.74 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Accepted Version
Download
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Supplementary Information.pdf
Size:
3.61 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Supplementary Information
Download
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Supplementary Dataset.xlsx
Size:
8.81 MB
Format:
Microsoft Excel XML
Description:
Download
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Animation S1.mp4
Size:
8.79 MB
Format:
Moving Picture Experts Group
Description:
Download
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Animation S2.mp4
Size:
9.81 MB
Format:
Moving Picture Experts Group
Description:
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
license.txt
Size:
2.71 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description:
Download
Collections
Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences - Journal Articles