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Molluscan Taphonomy As A Proxy For Recognizing Fossil Seagrass Beds, Jill Suzanne Leonard-Pingel
Molluscan Taphonomy As A Proxy For Recognizing Fossil Seagrass Beds, Jill Suzanne Leonard-Pingel
LSU Master's Theses
Seagrass beds, important marine ecosystems both economically and environmentally, have a poor fossil record. As a result, little is known about the geographic distribution of seagrasses over historic and geologic time, or their abundance when unaltered by anthropogenic effects. The purpose of this study is to define a taphonomic signature unique to seagrass beds that can be used as a proxy for identifying the seagrass habitat in the fossil record. In order to develop this proxy, sediment samples from Recent seagrass and non-seagrass environments were collected, and the molluscan bioclasts from these samples were categorically ranked for the following taphonomic …