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Full-Text Articles in Paleobiology

A Geographic Information Systems Approach To The 19th Century Excavation Of Brixham Cavern, Devon, England, Donald A. Mcfarlane, Joyce Lundberg, Warren Roberts Jan 2010

A Geographic Information Systems Approach To The 19th Century Excavation Of Brixham Cavern, Devon, England, Donald A. Mcfarlane, Joyce Lundberg, Warren Roberts

WM Keck Science Faculty Papers

The oldest known spatially-explicit archaeological excavation, conducted in Brixham cave, Devon, in 1858, is reconstructed using geographic information systems technology. Two dimensional plots of individual fossil taxa and flint artefacts demonstrate the utility of the technique for elucidating taphonomy and palaeobiology. The cave served as a den for hibernating brown bears, as a den for hyena and cave lion, and as a reliquary for their prey.


New Approaches To Understanding The Mechanics Of Burgess Shale-Type Deposits: From The Micron Scale To The Global Picture, Robert Gaines, Mary L. Droser Jan 2005

New Approaches To Understanding The Mechanics Of Burgess Shale-Type Deposits: From The Micron Scale To The Global Picture, Robert Gaines, Mary L. Droser

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

Cambrian Burgess Shale-type (BST) deposits are among the most significant deposits for understanding the “Cambrian explosion” because they contain the fossilized tissues of nonmineralized organisms and provide a substantially different window on the radiation of the Metazoa than is afforded by the more “typical” fossil record of skeletal parts of biomineralized organisms. Despite nearly a century of research, BST deposits remain poorly investigated as sedimentologic entities largely because they comprise fine-grained mudrocks. Here,we describe a new, integrative approach to understanding a single BST deposit, the middle Cambrian Wheeler Formation of Utah, which reveals a dynamic interplay of paleoenvironmental, paleoecologic, and …