Virtual taphonomy of trilobite heads: understanding compressive deformation using 3D modeling and rigid body simulation

Abstract

Abstract Shape deformation during fossilization can prevent accurate reconstruction of an organism's form during life, hampering areas of paleontology ranging from functional morphology to systematics. Retrodeformation attempts to restore the original shape of deformed fossil specimens and requires an adequate knowledge of the deformation process. Although tectonic processes and retrodeformation are relatively well understood, research on quantifying the effect of compressive deformation on fossil morphology is scant. Here we investigate the factors that can cause changes in the shape of fossil specimens during compressive deformation. Three-dimensional (3D) models of trilobite cranidia/cephala are subjected to simulated deposition and compaction using rigid body simulation and scaling features of the open-source 3D software Blender. The variation in pitch and roll angle is lowest on flat surfaces, intermediate on tilted surfaces, and highest on irregular surfaces. These trends are reflected in the morphological differences captured by principal component scores in geometric morphometric analyses using landmarks. In addition, the different shapes of trilobite cranidia/cephala according to their systematic affinity influence the degree of angular variation, which in turn affects their posture—normal or inverted. Inverted cranidia/cephala show greater morphological variability than those with normal postures.