Knowledge and Geological techniques Comments understanding 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 Analysis of modern and fossil Candidates should be may be preserved assemblages to interpret the able to determine without appreciable degree of transportation prior to transport history based transportation (life burial. on the degree of assemblages) or fragmentation, sorting or preserved after alignment of specimens transportation (death within a fossil assemblages), or as assemblage. derived fossils re- deposited in later sediment. Candidates should be The fossil record is: aware of the importance biased, in favour of and limitations of a marine organisms, Lagerstätte in providing with body parts exceptional preservation resistant to decay, e.g. that lived in low Ediacaran energy (Precambrian), environments, and Burgess Shale suffered rapid burial (Cambrian), Wenlock incomplete, as Series (Silurian), natural processes Solnhofen (Jurassic). 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).
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