University of Bristol EARTH SCIENCES

Experimental Taphonomy

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Welcome to the web site that's likely to turn your stomach...if you have recently eaten please feel free to visit one of our other sites...if you've the stomach enough and don't mind dead and decaying beasties, then.... enter here!

1. Taphonomy Begins with Death

2. So Why Experiment?

3. Experimental Taphonomy or How are Fossils Created?

4. The Experiments

5. Death and Decay Experiments

6. The Miracle of Minerals

7. Flash Pyrolysis-Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry

8. Case study - Decay and Preservation of polychaetes: taphonomic thresholds in soft bodied organisms

9. Case study - Chemical preservation of insect cuticle from the Pleistocene asphalt deposits of California, USA

10. Disintegration and Transportation

11. Glossary of terms

12. Further Reading

13. References