2025/05/01 by Loren E. Babcock · 1 voice
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · #Marine Biology and Ecology Research #Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils #Isotope Analysis in Ecology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/jpa.2025.2
openalex publication_date 2025/05/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Abstract Fossil-Lagerstätten, or Lagerstätten, have played a critical role in our understanding of the diversity, abundance, evolution, and systematics of marine arthropods. The tendency toward preservation of Phanerozoic marine arthropods as fossils generally increases as a factor of biomineralization. Concentration deposits (Konzentrat-Lagerstätten) tend to have an abundance of biomineralized arthropod taxa, whereas conservation deposits (Konservat-Lagerstätten) tend to produce a higher biodiversity that includes biomineralizing and non-biomineralizing taxa. Some Lagerstätten incorporate aspects of both concentration and conservation deposits, indicating that these concepts are idealizations, or preservational end members. For arthropod occurrences, it is useful to consider another dimension of Lagerstätten: their taphonomic associations. This leads to a more nuanced understanding of arthropod fossilization history. Four taphonomic associations account for a substantial number of marine arthropod occurrences: (1) concretions, (2) clusters, (3) event beds, and (4) microbially sealed sediments. Each of these occurrences can blur the distinctions between, or the means of recognizing, the idealized genetic categories of concentration deposits and conservation deposits.