Podcasts about lagerstatte

It wouldn’t be outlandish to state that many a fossil collection has started with the acquisition of an ammonite. Their planispiral shells (termed a conch) are instantly recognisable and since that conch was originally composed of the relatively hard mineral aragonite, they better lend themselves to the fossilisation process. But how much do we actually know about the animal that produces the conch? We might be able to make superficial inferences based on comparisons with the modern Nautilus, but ammonites are actually closer related to squid and octopuses. So could you recognise an ammonite without its shell? Prof. Christian Klug of the University of Zurich has recently described just that: a naked ammonite. In this episode, we learn about ammonite soft body anatomy and sink our teeth into the mystery of how this ammonite lost its shell.

The Soom Shale is an Ordovician lagerstätte in the Western Cape of South Africa. Whilst it lacks the diversity of organisms seen in other lagerstätten, such as the Burgess Shale or Chengjiang, it more than makes up for it in the fidelity of preservation. The taphonomic pathway to the fantastic preservation in the Soom Shale is long and complex, reliant not only on local conditions, but also ties into global climatic events. It’s vitally important when interpreting fossils to understand the taphonomy as it provides so much context as to what you can see in fossils and, as equally important, what you can’t. Joining us for this episode is Prof. Sarah Gabbott, a taphonomist from the University of Leicester, UK.

Las Hoyas is a Early Cretaceous lagerstätte (site of special preservation) located close to the city of Cuenca, Spain. In this episode, we welcome Ángela Delgado Buscalioni and Francisco José Poyato-Ariza, both from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, to discuss the details of this remarkable site. Angela and Francisco have recently edited a comprehensive overview of the Las Hoyas site. Like most lagerstätten, Las Hoyas is most famous for its vertebrate fossils, but what other taxa can we find there? What was the palaeoenvironment like? And which processes have governed the preservation of the fossils?

Las Hoyas is a Early Cretaceous lagerstätte (site of special preservation) located close to the city of Cuenca, Spain. In this episode, we welcome Ángela Delgado Buscalioni and Francisco José Poyato-Ariza, both from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, to discuss the details of this remarkable site. Angela and Francisco have recently edited a comprehensive overview of the Las Hoyas site. Like most lagerstätten, Las Hoyas is most famous for its vertebrate fossils, but what other taxa can we find there? What was the palaeoenvironment like? And which processes have governed the preservation of the fossils?

Thanks to Audible for supporting this video. Get your free 30-day trial at https://www.audible.com/minuteearth Thanks also to our Patreon patrons: Today I Found Out, Maarten Bremer, Mark Roth, Jeff Straathof, Tony Fadell, Ahmed, Muhammad Shifaz, Vidhya Krishnaraj, Luka Leskovsek, Duhilio Patino, Alberto Bortoni, Valentin, Nicholas Buckendorf, and Antoine Coeur ___________________________________________ Want to learn more about the topic in this week’s video? Here are some keywords/phrases to get your googling started: – Mass Extinction Event: a significant, global decrease in the diversity of life – "Big 5": The five biggest mass extinction events since the Cambrian explosion of Life 550 million years ago – Biodiversity Crisis: Like a mass extinction, a biodiversity crisis is a marked depletion in diversity in the fossil record. Some scientists prefer to call the late-Devonian extinction a "biodiversity crisis" because a lack of speciation contributed to the loss in diversity just as much as extinction did. – Diversity curve: A line chart that shows the diversity of life (usually by genera, but sometimes by species or family) over time – Lagerstatte: a deposit of sedimentary rock that contains a profound number of fossils, often with excellent preservation – Shareholder Quorum Subsampling: A statistical method that corrects for some of the biases in the fossil record, allowing scientists to generate more accurate diversity curves ___________________________________________ Credits: Script Writer: Emily Elert (twitter:@eelert) Script Editor: Kate Yoshida (twitter:@KateYoshida) Video Illustrator: Ever Salazar (twitter:@eversalazar) Video Director: Emily Elert (twitter:@eelert) With Contributions From: Henry Reich (twitter:@minutephysics), Alex Reich (twitter:@alexhreich), Peter Reich Music by: Nathaniel Schroeder: http://www.soundcloud.com/drschroeder _________________________________________ Like our videos? Subscribe to MinuteEarth on YouTube: http://goo.gl/EpIDGd And for exclusive early access to all our videos, sign up with Vessel: https://goo.gl/hgD1iJ Already subscribed? Help us keep making MinuteEarth by supporting us on Patreon: https://goo.gl/ZVgLQZ Also, say hello on: Facebook: http://goo.gl/FpAvo6 Twitter: http://goo.gl/Y1aWVC And find us on itunes: https://goo.gl/sfwS6n ________________________ References: Alroy, J. (2015). Personal Communication. Alroy, J. (2008). Dynamics of origination and extinction in the marine fossil record. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 11536-11542. Retrieved April 8, 2015, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artic... Alroy, J. (n.d.). Accurate and precise estimates of origination and extinction rates. Paleobiology, 40(3), 374-397. Retrieved September 20, 2015, from https://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/~alroy/pdf... Benton, M. (2003). When life nearly died: The greatest mass extinction of all time. New York: Thames & Hudson. Barrett, Paul M. (2015). Personal Communication. Fossilworks: Gateway to the Paleobiology Database. http://fossilworks.org/?page=paleodb Lloyd, GT, Smith, AB and Young, JR, (2011). Quantifying the deep-sea rock and fossil record bias using coccolithophores. Geological Society Special Publication, 358 (1), 167-177. Mcghee, G., Clapham, M., Sheehan, P., Bottjer, D., & Droser, M. (2013). A new ecological-severity ranking of major Phanerozoic biodiversity crises. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 370, 260-270. Raup, D. (1979). Biases in the fossil record of species and genera. Bulletin of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History 13: 85–91. Raup, D., & Sepkoski, J. (1982). Mass Extinctions in the Marine Fossil Record. Science, 215(4539), 1501-1503. Vermeij, GJ. (2015). Personal Communication.

The Burgess Shale is probably the world's most famous lagerstätte (site of special preservation). Discovered in 1909 on Mt. Stephen, in the Canadian Rockies of British Colombia, Canada, this locality provided an early representation of the true biodiversity of the Cambrian Period. For decades, discoveries from this site have helped palaeontologists better understand the 'Cambrian Explosion' and the origins of modern lineages. Since that time, many more early lagerstätten have been discovered, so we asked Prof. Simon Conway Morris, from the University of Cambridge, if this well-studied locality still holds its relevance to modern palaeontology.

The Emu Bay shale is a Burgess Shale-type lagerstätte from the Early Cambrian of South Australia. We speak to Dr John Paterson, of the University of New England, all about the locality and the fossils it contains.