Fossilization processes

The course taken by any particular fossilization process is, therefore, determined by the physical and chemical factors prevalent in the environment of the dead remains. The physical factors include temperature, degree of aeration, and rate of flow of groundwater. The nature of minerals and rocks, and of the groundwater at the site of burial, are the most important chemical factors. Reconstructing and explaining the processes undergone by dead remains, from the time of death to when they are fully fossilized, is the concern of taphonomy, the study of the processes taking place when dead remains pass from the biosphere to the lithosphere (see Textbox 69). 

Laulainen, N., and E. Trexler, Assessing the Relative Contribution of Biogenic and Fossil Processes to Visibility-Scattering Aerosols Found in Remote Areas Near-Term Organic Research Program, J. Air Waste Manage. Assoc., 47, 212-215 (1997). 

Schumann-Kindel, G., Bergbauer, M., Manz, W., Szewzyk, U., and Reitner, J., Aerobic and anaerobic microorganisms in modem sponges a possible relationship to fossilization-processes, Facies, 36, 268, 1997. 

Amber is soft, has a low melting point, and a very low density. Most amber will float in saturated salt water. It may be transparent, translucent or opaque, and varies in color. Most often it is yellow or brown, but specimens of red, blue, and green are known. Inclusions of insects, plant parts, dust, and other debris are sometimes found in amber formed from resin that was extruded onto the outside of a plant. There is lots of amber, however, that formed on the inside of plants, and this material rarely carries inclusions. Amber is very important to paleontologists because it preserves organisms, both plant and animal, that are far too delicate to be preserved by the normal fossilization processes of burial and dehydration. 

Cady L. and Farmer J. D. (1996) Fossilization processes in siliceous thermal springs trends in preservation along thermal gradients. In Evolution of Hydrothermal Ecosystems on Earth (and Mars ). Wiley, Chichester, pp. 150-173. 

From the above-mentioned results with the oil shale retorting products, the pertinent question of whether the inorganic arsenic and organoarsenic compounds were actually natural products that were formed in the fossilization process of oil shale formation or were pyrolysis products formed during retorting, needed to be answered. 

The implications are that these organoarsonic acids are natural products and hence have a biogeochemical origin in the oil shale taphonomy (fossilization) process. It is also interesting to note that no examples of biophenylation have been reported, whereas biomethylation of arsenic compounds is a well known reaction. (31) How the phenylarsonic acid forms will have to be answered with the examination of precursors to the oil shale such as freshwater marine algal mats as well as other biogeochemical samples ... 

Under drastic geological conditions, the decarboxylation of 7-CH2-CH2COOH and the ring scission of cyclopentane ring can be realized, i,e. the conversion to DPEP. The conditions can only be realized when the biostratinomy and fossilization processes are at depths where geothermal temperatures are elevated (150°C). If age can be traded with temperature, certainly this conversion of decarboxylation has already taken place in recent sediments. ... 

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