Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T18:42:48.407Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The significance of vertebrate microfossil size and shape distributions for faunal abundance reconstructions: a Late Cretaceous example

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2016

Richard W. Blob  and
Anthony R. Fiorillo
Richard W. Blob
Affiliation:
Committee on Evolutionary Biology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, [email protected]
Anthony R. Fiorillo
Affiliation:
Dallas Museum of Natural History, Post Office Box 150349, Dallas, Texas 75315, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Faunal abundance and fossil size and shape data from microvertebrate localities in the Upper Cretaceous Judith River Formation of south-central Montana illustrate that even when located in similar sedimentary facies, concentrations of vertebrate microfossils may exhibit strikingly different taphonomic profiles. Degrees of microfossil size and shape sorting may vary even among sites from the same sedimentary facies. In some instances, such variations may make it impossible to disregard taphonomic causes for differences sites exhibit in paleofaunal abundances. To limit the possibility that taphonomically generated faunal differences might be mistaken for true differences in paleoecology, comparisons of paleofaunal abundances should be restricted to microvertebrate sites both from similar sedimentary facies and with similar profiles of fossil sizes and shapes.

Type
Articles
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , Summer 1996 , pp. 422 - 435
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Literature Cited

Badgley, C. E. 1986. Counting individuals in mammalian fossil assemblages from fluvial environments. Palaios 1:328–338.Google Scholar
Behrensmeyer, A. K. 1978. Taphonomic and ecologic information from bone weathering. Paleobiology 4:150–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Behrensmeyer, A. K. 1991. Terrestrial vertebrate accumulations. pp. 291–335In Allison, P. A. and Briggs, D. E. G., eds. Taphonomy: releasing the data locked in the fossil record. Plenum, New York.Google Scholar
Behrensmeyer, A. K., Hook, R. W., Badgley, C. E., Boy, J. A., Chapman, R. E., Dodson, P., Gastaldo, R. A., Graham, R. W., Martin, L. D., Olsen, P. E., Spicer, R. A., Taggart, R. E., and Wilson, M. V. H. 1992. Pp. 15–136In Behrensmeyer, A. K., Damuth, J. D., DiMichele, W. A., Potts, R., Sues, H.-D., and Wing, S. L., eds. Terrestrial ecosystems through time: evolutionary paleoecology of terrestrial plants and animals. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Blob, R. W. In press. Relative hydrodynamic dispersal potentials of soft-shelled turtle elements: implications for interpreting skeletal sorting in assemblages of non-mammalian terrestrial vertebrates. Palaios.Google Scholar
Blob, R. W., and Dodson, P. 1993. Quantitative analysis of faunal patterns among Late Cretaceous microfossil localities from Montana and Alberta. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 13:27A.Google Scholar
Brinkman, D. B. 1990. Paleoecology of the Judith River Formation (Campanian) of Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, Canada: evidence from vertebrate microfossil localities. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 78:37–54.Google Scholar
Dodson, P. 1973. The significance of small bones in paleoecological interpretation. Contributions to Geology, University of Wyoming 12:15–19.Google Scholar
Dodson, P. 1986. Avaceratops lammersi: a new ceratopsid from the Judith River Formation of Montana. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 138:305–317.Google Scholar
Dodson, P. 1987. Microfaunal studies of dinosaur paleoecology, Judith River Formation of southern Alberta. pp. 70–75In Currie, P. J. and Koster, E., eds. Fourth Symposium on Mesozoic Terrestrial Ecosystems, Short Papers. Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology Occasional Paper 3. Drumheller, Alberta, Canada.Google Scholar
Eberth, D. A. 1990. Stratigraphy and sedimentology of vertebrate microfossil sites in the uppermost Judith River Formation (Campanian), Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, Canada. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 78:1–36.Google Scholar
Eberth, D. A., and Hamblin, A. P. 1993. Tectonic, stratigraphic, and sedimentologic significance of a regional discontinuity in the upper Judith River Group (Belly River Wedge) of southern Alberta, Saskatchewan, and northern Montana. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 30:174–200.Google Scholar
Estes, R., and Berberian, P. 1970. Paleoecology of a Late Cretaceous vertebrate community from Montana. Breviora 343:1–35.Google Scholar
Fiorillo, A. R. 1987. Significance of juvenile dinosaurs from Careless Creek Quarry (Judith River Formation), Wheatland County, Montana. pp. 88–95In Currie, P. J. and Koster, E. eds. Fourth Symposium on Mesozoic Terrestrial Ecosystems, Short Papers. Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology Occasional Paper 3. Drumheller, Alberta, Canada.Google Scholar
Fiorillo, A. R. 1989. The vertebrate fauna from the Judith River Formation (Late Cretaceous) of Wheatland and Golden Valley Counties, Montana. The Mosasaur 4:127–142.Google Scholar
Fiorillo, A. R. 1991. Taphonomy and depositional setting of Careless Creek Quarry (Judith River Formation), Wheatland County, Montana, U. S. A. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 81:281–311.Google Scholar
Fiorillo, A. R., and Currie, P. J. 1994. Theropod teeth from the Judith River Formation (Upper Cretaceous) of south-central Montana. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 14:74–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutchison, J. H., and Archibald, J. D. 1986. Diversity of turtles across the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary in northeastern Montana. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 55:1–22.Google Scholar
Korth, W. W. 1979. Taphonomy of microvertebrate assemblages. Annals of the Carnegie Museum 48:235–285.Google Scholar
Leidy, J. 1856. Notices of the remains of extinct reptiles and fishes discovered by Dr. F. V. Hayden in the badlands of the Judith River, Nebraska Territory. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 8:72–73.Google Scholar
Maas, M. C. 1985. Taphonomy of a Late Eocene microvertebrate locality, Wind River Basin, Wyoming (U. S. A.). Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 52:123–142.Google Scholar
Mellett, J. S. 1974. Scatological origin of microvertebrate fossil accumulations. Science 185:349–350.Google Scholar
Moore, D. S., and McCabe, G. P. 1993. Introduction to the practice of statistics, 2d ed.W. H. Freeman, New York.Google Scholar
Sneed, E. D., and Folk, R. L. 1958. Pebbles in the Lower Colorado River, Texas, a study in particle morphogenesis. Journal of Geology 66:114–150.Google Scholar
Sokal, R. R., and Rohlf, F. J. 1981. Biometry, 2d ed.W. H. Freeman, San Francisco.Google Scholar
Westrop, S. R. 1986. Taphonomic versus ecologic controls on taxonomic relative abundance patterns in tempestites. Lethaia 19:123–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wing, S. L., Sues, H.-D., Potts, R., DiMichele, W. A., and Behrensmeyer, A. K. 1992. Evolutionary paleoecology. pp. 1–13In Behrensmeyer, A. K., Damuth, J. D., DiMichele, W. A., Potts, R., Sues, H.-D., and Wing, S. L., eds. Terrestrial ecosystems through time: evolutionary paleoecology of terrestrial plants and animals. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Wolff, R. G. 1973. Hydrodynamic sorting and ecology of a Pleistocene mammalian assemblage from California (U. S. A.). Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 13:91–101.Google Scholar
Wolff, R. G. 1975. Sampling and sample size in ecological analyses of fossil mammals. Paleobiology 1:195–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar