Ichnology & Sedimentology Of Shallow To Marginal Marine Systems (Short Course Notes)

Ichnology & Sedimentology Of Shallow To Marginal Marine Systems

A Solid, Well-Illustrated Guide to Trace Fossils, September 20, 2006

This book provides a large number of diagrams and photographs to help illustrate trace fossils and how they affect the sediment. Attention is devoted to deep burrowers, such as the thalassinid shrimp, Axius serratus. It gives rise to the ichnofossil Ophiomorpha.

Of course, the same individual organism can produce different trace fossils, and different organisms can produce the same trace fossil. Yet ichnofossils are invaluable for paleoenvironmental analysis. Pemberton et al. point out that the greatest strength of ichnology is the bridging of sedimentology and paleontology.

The authors also include photographs of common trace fossils that constitute each one of the Seilacherian ichnofacies (though not all specialists believe that these ichnofacies are as useful as once believed). There is a fascinating discussion of "doomed pioneers", and even this is profusely illustrated (p. 146). "Doomed pioneers" are organisms that have been washed downslope into an inhospitable marine environment, where they can burrow the sediment for awhile before perishing, either from inhospitable local conditions or because of being buried by a successive pulse of sediment.