Reconstructing the Paleocommunity from the Fossil Assem- blage: Comparative Analysis of Taphonomy and Time Averagingin Modern Death Assemblages of the Marine Environment

解释化石记录的一个主要障碍 对它造成的偏见的认识不足（1） 通过埋藏改变原始的生物组合， 生物体和（2）通过混合或时间平均的时间 不同的动物群 该项目的目标是改善我们的 通过埋藏学的比较研究来理解这些偏见 主要沉积环境的时间平均 产于墨西哥湾和邻近的沃茨。 在过去6 多年来，在得克萨斯州海湾和得克萨斯州的选定社区 大陆架进行了采样和分析， 两种动物学家可用的技术（对于生物群落） 和古生物学家（死亡组合）。 参数 调查包括分类组成，营养结构， 生物多样性、种群动态、生物量以及 物理干扰现象和生物相互作用， 确定生活社区和 死亡集会 研究的过程包括埋藏 外壳材料的改性和损失， 外壳材料和时间平均。 一个很好的工作模式， 这些过程影响死亡组合的形成， 生活社区和使用上述参数 在古生态重建期间， 德克萨斯州海岸带，并延伸到大陆架和上层 坡 详细的岩相分析已在 一系列主要的沉积环境。 我们 我将深入分析，首先包括 时间，时间平均的详细比较分析。 我们 建议通过扩大研究范围来扩大这一分析的范围 在墨西哥湾和邻近地区增加爆炸物处理计划， 沃茨。 这样我们就能研究化石组合 在海洋环境中形成，并确定 适用的模型开发的死亡组合在得克萨斯州海湾 而德克萨斯大陆架上的化石 记录

A major impediment in the interpretation of the fossil record has been the inadequate understanding of the biases in it caused (1) by the taphonomic alteration of the original assemblage of living organisms and (2) by the mixing or time averaging of temporally distinct faunas. The objective of this project is to improve our understanding of these biases by a comparative study of taphonomy and time averaging among the major environments of deposition found in the Gulf of Mexico and adjacent waters. Over the past 6 years, selected communities in Texas bays and the Texas continental shelf were sampled and analyzed using the best techniques available to both zoologists (for the living community) and paleontologists (for the death assemblage). Parameters investigated included taxonomic composition, trophic structure, diversity, population dynamics, biomass and the influence of physical disturbance phenomena and biological interactions in determining community structure for both the living community and the death assemblage. Processes studied included taphonomic modification and loss of shell material, local transportation of shell material, and time averaging. A good working model of how these processes affect the formation of the death assemblage from the living community and the use of the parameters listed above during paleoecological reconstruction has been developed for the Texas coastal zone and extended out onto the shelf and upper slope. A detailed taphofacies analysis has been conducted in a suite of major environments of deposition in these same areas. We will extend this analysis in depth by including, for the first time, a detailed comparative analysis of time averaging. We propose to extend this analysis in scope by broadening the study to include additional EOD's within the Gulf of Mexico and adjacent waters. In this way, we can investigate how fossil assemblages form in the marine environment and determine how broadly applicable the model developed for death assemblages in Texas bays and the Texas shelf is to a much larger fraction of the fossil record.