Abstract
Biominerals are recorders of evolution and palaeoenvironments. Predation is one of the most frequent modes leading to the concentration of small vertebrates in fossil assemblages. Consumption by predators produces damages on bones and teeth from prey species, and one of the greatest challenges to taphonomists is differentiating original biological and secondary, geologically altered attributes of fossils. Excellent morphological preservation is often used to assume that the structure and composition of fossils are not modified. Nevertheless, during predation and fossilization, both the physical structure and chemical composition of enamel, dentine and bone are altered, the degree and extent of which varies from site to site, depending on the nature of the burial environment. A relationship between the surficial alterations and the compositional changes which take place during fossilization has yet to be established. Herein, I present a review of old and recent taphonomic studies that collectively reveal the wide diversity of microstructural and chemical changes that typically take place during fossilization of vertebrate remains, including common taphonomic biases and the challenges inherent to reconstructing the history of vertebrate fossil assemblages.
Highlights
Bones and teeth are a mixture of organic and mineral components. It is well-known that the ratios of organic and mineral contents differ in enamel, dentine and bone, but most often values are given without any precision
Bones and teeth are a mixture of organic and mineral com10 of 26 ponents
Molecular weights of the soluble organic matrices extracted from fossil bones are often smaller than those of their present-day counterparts [19], and using a refractometric detector, it is visible that sugars are strongly destroyed by diagenesis (Figure 13a)
Summary
Studies of present-day biodiversity are done using direct observations of organisms or traces of activity such as imprints, moulted skin, feathers . . . or droppings. To estimate the biodiversity evolution through geological times, hard parts of organisms are the dominant tools. These remains, fossils, have undergone modifications, sometimes difficult to detect. ”. So, reconstructions of past life, environment and biodiversity are strongly dependent on our knowledge of the origins of modifications induced from death of the organisms until the discovery of the sample. Taphonomy was defined as “the laws of embedding” [3], but most studies involve the cause of the death of the organism. Whatever the term, these processes induce changes in the fossil samples. Given the diversity of the multiple factors involved in the fossilization processes, only some questions, problems and techniques are addressed
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