Taphonomy

Abstract

Taphonomy is the study of how organic remains pass from the biosphere to the lithosphere, and this includes processes affecting remains from the time of death of an organism (or the discard of shed parts) through decomposition, burial, and preservation as mineralized fossils or other stable biomaterials. Taphonomy can be studied in all types of organisms, from protists to complex eukaryotes—microbes, plants, invertebrates, and vertebrates. Although taphonomy usually focuses on the material remains of the organism itself, it can include biomolecules and traces such as trackways, burrows, fecal matter. Only a tiny fraction of the organisms that have inhabited the earth are preserved as fossils, but some organic remains are relatively abundant, while many others are rare to absent. Taphonomy is essential to understanding what the limited samples of past life mean—including biases caused by the types of organisms and habitats that are and are not represented in the fossil record. The field of taphonomy, broadly speaking, aims to understand all kinds of physical, chemical, and biological processes that cause changes in organic remains, together with evidence (clues) that can be used to identify these processes. It is strongly interdisciplinary and provides many opportunities for research at the intersections of biology, geology, paleontology, anthropology, archeology, forensic science, ecology, and biogeochemistry in both modern and ancient time periods. Taphonomy continues to expand and gain importance in different scientific arenas, such as Conservation Paleobiology. This new field of study examines human impacts on modern ecosystems, and one approach uses taphonomy in “live-dead” studies to reveal differences between the number of species of living shelly marine invertebrates and the remains of older communities that flourished prior to the time of human disturbance.