“…Analysis of specific taphonomic variables can be highly useful in delineating both the taphonomic path of an individual fossil (Meldahl and Flessa, 1990) and the characteristics of the environment in which it was deposited (Brett and Baird, 1986), in many cases providing information that is not available from sedimentological, faunal, or ecological datasets alone (e.g., Meldahl and Flessa, 1990;Zuschin et al, 1999;Tomašových, 2004a;Mancuso and Marsicano, 2008;Aguirre et al, 2011). Studies of the fossil record have focused on attributes such as fragmentation, corrasion, disarticulation, reorientation, and the presence and type of borings or encrusting organisms, while actualistic studies have incorporated additional taphonomic variables that are typically more accessible in the subfossil record, such as shell color and sheen (Powell et al, 2002;Lazo, 2004;Best, 2008;Mapes et al, 2010;Rodrigues and Simõ es, 2010).…”