Taphonomy
A Process Approach

The first book to review the entire field of taphonomy for advanced students and professionals.

Ronald E. Martin (Author)

9780521598330, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 28 October 1999

526 pages, 94 b/w illus. 33 tables
24.4 x 17 x 2.7 cm, 0.83 kg

'Taphonomy: A Process Approach is a good measure of how far taphonomy and paleontology have come in the past decades … This synthesis is enormously valuable … makes excellent use of the research literature. Karl W. Flessa, Science

Taphonomy: A Process Approach is the first book to review the entire field of taphonomy, or the science of fossil preservation. It describes the formation of animal and plant fossils in marine and terrestrial settings and how this affects deciphering the ecology and extinction of past lifeforms and the environments in which they lived. The volume emphasises a process approach to taphonomy and reviews the taphonomic behaviour of all important taxa, plant and animal. It will be useful to anyone interested in the preservation of fossils and the formation of fossil assemblages, but it is aimed primarily at advanced students and professionals working in paleontology, stratigraphy, sedimentology, climate modeling and biogeochemistry.

Preface
1. Introduction: the science of taphonomy
2. Biostratinomy I: necrolysis, transport and abrasion
3. Biostratinomy II: dissolution and diagenesis
4. Bioturbation
5. Time-averaging of fossil assemblages: taphonomy and temporal resolution
6. Exceptional preservation
7. Sedimentation and stratigraphy
8. Megabiases I: cycles of preservation and biomineralization
9. Megabiases II: secular trends in preservation
10. Applied taphonomy
11. Taphonomy as an historical science
References.

Subject Areas: Environmental science, engineering & technology [TQ], Palaeontology [RBX]