Evaluating the existence of vertebrate deadfall communities from the Early Jurassic posidonienschiefer formation
Maxwell, Erin E. (Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart)
Cooper, Samuel L. A. (Hohenheim University. Department of Paleontology)
Mujal, Eudald (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)
Miedema, Feiko (Hohenheim University. Department of Paleontology)
Serafini, Giovanni (Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia. Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche e Geologiche)
Schweigert, Günter (Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart)

Data:	2022
Resum:	Large vertebrate carcasses contain significant amounts of nutrients that upon death are transferred from the water column to the benthos, enriching the immediate environment. The organisms exploiting these ephemeral resources vary as the carcass decays, creating an ecological succession: mobile scavengers arrive first, followed by enrichment opportunists, sulfophilic taxa, and lastly reef species encrusting the exposed bones. Such communities have been postulated to subsist on the carcasses of Mesozoic marine vertebrates, but are rarely documented in the Jurassic. In particular, these communities are virtually unknown from the Early Jurassic, despite the occurrence of several productive fossil Lagerstätte that have produced thousands of vertebrate bones and skeletons. We review published occurrences and present new findings related to the development of deadfall communities in the Toarcian Posidonienschiefer Formation of southwestern Germany, focusing on the classic locality of Holzmaden. We report the presence of the mobile scavenger, enrichment opportunist, and reef stages, and found potential evidence for the poorly documented sulfophilic stage. Although rare in the Posidonienschiefer Formation, such communities do occur in association with exceptionally preserved vertebrate specimens, complementing a growing body of evidence that a temporarily oxygenated benthic environment does not preclude exceptional vertebrate fossil preservation.
Nota:	Altres ajuts: CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya
Drets:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Llengua:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Matèria:	Jurassic ; Toarcian ; Posidonienschiefer Formation ; Ichthyosauria ; Fossil Lagerstätte ; Taphonomy
Publicat a:	Geosciences, Vol. 12, Issue 4 (April 2022) , art. 158, ISSN 2076-3263

DOI: 10.3390/geosciences12040158

29 p, 6.2 MB

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