The problem with the Paleozoic

Unfossiliferous marine sedimentary rocks of Phanerozoic age are known to all field-oriented paleontologists. These troublesome units are often encountered in the field, perhaps cursed roundly for a moment or two, and usually shrugged off in pursuit of the next fossiliferous interval. Paleontologists...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Paleobiology 2007-03, Vol.33 (2), p.165-181
Main Author: Peters, Shanan E
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Basins
biologic evolution
Brackish water
Carbonates
dysaerobic environment
Ecological effects
Environmental conditions
Environmental effects
epicontinental seas
Field study
Field tests
fossil record
Fossils
Geology
Hypoxia
marine environment
Marine sediments
Matters of the Record
Oxygen
paleo-oceanography
Paleobiology
paleoecology
paleoenvironment
paleogeography
Paleontology
paleosalinity
Paleozoic
Salinity
Sea level changes
Seas
Sedimentary rocks
Sedimentation rates
Sediments
Stratigraphy
Taphonomy
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Summary:Unfossiliferous marine sedimentary rocks of Phanerozoic age are known to all field-oriented paleontologists. These troublesome units are often encountered in the field, perhaps cursed roundly for a moment or two, and usually shrugged off in pursuit of the next fossiliferous interval. Paleontologists tend not to discuss barren units, and they rarely publish on the absence of a fauna from what appears to be unaltered marine rock. But aren't barren marine sediments revealing something important about their paleoenvironment and possibly about the paleoenvironments of conformably adjacent fossil-bearing units? Shouldn't paleontologists be just as interested in knowing the locations and ages of unfossiliferous sediments as they are fossiliferous strata?
ISSN:0094-8373
1938-5331
DOI:10.1666/06067.1