Taphonomic pathway of exceptionally preserved fossils in the Lower Ordovician of Morocco

Abstract

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Insights into soft-part preservation from the Early Ordovician Fezouata Biota

“…The sedimentary structures found in the Fezouata Shale are typical of a storm-wave dominated environment (Fig. 4A) (Martin et al, 2016;Vaucher et al, 2016Vaucher et al, , 2017Saleh et al, 2020a). These storms were erosive, and their deposits are characterized by the presence of normally graded beds (Fig.…”

“…A statistical correlation between sedimentological data from cores and palaeontological data from outcrops showed that exceptional preservation is associated with one of the most distal facies of the Fezouata Shale (Fig. 5) (Saleh et al, 2020a). This facies is characterized with an abundance of mudstones (i.e.…”

“…The lithology of the Fezouata Shale varies from claystone to fine-grained sandstone (Vaucher et al, 2016(Vaucher et al, , 2017Saleh et al, 2020a), while most of the sedimentary succession of this formation is constituted of siltstones (Vaucher et al, 2016(Vaucher et al, , 2017Saleh et al, 2020a). The sedimentary structures found in the Fezouata Shale are typical of a storm-wave dominated environment (Fig.…”

“…These storms were erosive, and their deposits are characterized by the presence of normally graded beds (Fig. 4A, C) (Saleh et al, 2020a), and by oscillatory ripples that were increasing in wavelength from distal (null to millimetric wavelength) to proximal settings (metric to plurimetric wavelength) (Fig. 4B, D) (Vaucher et al, 2016(Vaucher et al, , 2017.…”

A new Devonian euthycarcinoid reveals the use of different respiratory strategies during the marine-to-terrestrial transition in the myriapod lineage

“…Replacement of fossil tissues by iron oxides often results from the oxidation of pyrite (e.g. [44][45][46]), which forms in large quantities in such organically rich depositional environments, especially considering that sulfate was present (see below). Besides Fe, major-to-trace elemental mapping using SRS-XRF (figure 2, electronic supplementary material, figure S1, S2) shows that the fossil is also enriched in Cu, As (figure 2b,c,e) and to a lesser extent Ca.…”