Poster Number 170
See more from this Division: General Discipline Sessions
See more from this Session: Paleontology (Posters) II - Paleoecology, Taphonomy, and Traces
Abstract:
Implications of the burial scenario include recognition that tissues of these large bivalves, once expired, gravitated to the bottom half of each vertically oriented specimen, becoming infiltrated by entombing sediments. Over twenty years since being collected, a pattern of museum weathering has been recognized in several specimens suggesting localized, early mineralization within confines of the valves. In some, it appears that reducing conditions were created during tissue decay creating diagenesis of pyrite or marcasite which subsequently became unstable reacting with and damaging the shell from the inside out in stereotypical locations on the valves. Encasing sandstone is grain-supported very fine and fine quartz sand whereas the sand filling the interior is matrix-supported often with angular quartz grains floating in clay matrix which includes the cement. To investigate the diagenetic process we are using EDAX to identify chemical signatures throughout the fabric of a cross section of the specimen. Relative values are then contoured. In the first specimen, which has approximately 2 percent early siderite cement, maps of carbon and phosphorous suggest distributions controlled by presence of soft parts, whereas calcium does not. Additional data are being generated. Field work under NSFURPGY-9761 and EDAX under NSFDBI-0116408 to SLU.
See more from this Division: General Discipline Sessions
See more from this Session: Paleontology (Posters) II - Paleoecology, Taphonomy, and Traces