Publication: Ammonite Taphocycles in Carbonate Epicontinental Platforms
Loading...
Official URL
Full text at PDC
Publication Date
1998
Advisors (or tutors)
Editors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Trans Tech Publications
Citations
Exportar
Abstract
Variations of preservational features of the successive recorded associations of
ammonites in carbonate epicontinental platforms enable distinction of taphonomic cycles induced
by relative sea-level changes. A taphocycle comprises two or more successive recorded-associations
showing cyclical variations in their taphonomic characters, resulting from an environmental cycle.
Shallowing-upwards sequences in carbonate outer platforms, and positive taphosequences, were
formed during phases of increasing water turbulence and decreasing rate of sedimentation. Positive
and negative taphosequences, (or taphosequences of increasing and decreasing turbulence), enable
identification of shallowing-upwards sequences and infilling sequences of fifth-order respectively.
Condensed sections show different characters in shallow and proximal environments in relation to
deep and distal environments of the carbonate epicontinental platforms. The degree of taphonomic
condensation in preserved ammonite associations reaches the highest values in shallow and
proximal environments of the platform, not in deep and distal environments, though the degree of
taphonomic heritage (i.e., the ratio of reelaborated (reworked) elements to total recorded elements)
can, in both cases, reach 100%. These taphonomic data are of stratigraphic interest since they
provide an independent test of the cycles distinguished in sequence stratigraphy.