Knowledge and Geological Comments understanding techniques and skills f. Preservation can give rise to a wide range of fossil materials: actual remains, hard parts, petrification by mineral replacement (calcification, silicification, pyritisation), carbonisation, moulds/casts. g. Fossil accumulations may Analysis of modern and fossil Candidates should be able be preserved without assemblages to interpret the to determine transport appreciable transportation degree of transportation prior history based on the (life assemblages) or to burial. degree of fragmentation, preserved after sorting or alignment of transportation (death specimens within a fossil assemblages), or as assemblage. derived fossils re- deposited in later sediment. The fossil record is: Candidates should be aware of the importance biased, in favour of and limitations of a marine organisms, with Lagerstätte in providing body parts resistant to exceptional preservation decay, that lived in low e.g. energy environments, Ediacaran (Precambrian), and suffered rapid Burgess Shale (Cambrian), burial Wenlock Series (Silurian), incomplete, as natural Solnhofen (Jurassic). processes can distort or destroy fossil evidence (predation, scavenging, diagenesis, bacterial decay, weathering, erosion, metamorphism)
Knowledge and understanding Geological techniques and skills Comments f. Preservation can give rise to a wide range of fossil materials: actual remains, hard parts, petrification by mineral replacement (calcification, silicification, pyritisation), carbonisation, moulds/casts. g. Fossil accumulations may be preserved without appreciable transportation (life assemblages) or preserved after transportation (death assemblages), or as derived fossils re- deposited in later sediment. Analysis of modern and fossil assemblages to interpret the degree of transportation prior to burial. Candidates should be able to determine transport history based on the degree of fragmentation, sorting or alignment of specimens within a fossil assemblage. The fossil record is: biased, in favour of marine organisms, with body parts resistant to decay, that lived in low energy environments, and suffered rapid burial incomplete, as natural processes can distort or destroy fossil evidence (predation, scavenging, diagenesis, bacterial decay, weathering, erosion, metamorphism) Candidates should be aware of the importance and limitations of a Lagerstätte in providing exceptional preservation e.g. Ediacaran (Precambrian), Burgess Shale (Cambrian), Wenlock Series (Silurian), Solnhofen (Jurassic).