Northernmost (Subarctic) and deepest record of Paleodictyon: paleoecological and biological implications.

Paleodictyon is one of the most iconic and widespread of trace fossils in the geological record. However, modern examples are less well known and restricted to deep-sea settings at relatively low latitudes. Here, we report the distribution of Paleodictyon at six abyssal sites near the Aleutian Trench.

Mineralogy and geochemistry of the main glauconite bed in the Middle Eocene of Texas: paleoenvironmental implications for the verdine facies.

The Main Glauconite Bed (MGB) is a pelleted greensand located at Stone City Bluff on the south bank of the Brazos River in Burleson County, Texas. It was deposited during the Middle Eocene regional transgression on the Texas Gulf Coastal Plain. Stratigraphically it lies in the upper Stone City Member, Crockett Formation, Claiborne Group.

Fossil worm burrows reveal very early terrestrial animal activity and shed light on trophic resources after the end-cretaceous mass extinction.

The widespread mass extinctions at the end of the Cretaceous caused world-wide disruption of ecosystems, and faunal responses to the one-two punch of severe environmental perturbation and ecosystem collapse are still unclear. Here we report the discovery of in situ terrestrial fossil burrows from just above the impact-defined Cretaceous-Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary in southwestern North Dakota. The crisscrossing networks of horizontal burrows occur at the interface of a lignitic coal and silty sandstone, and reveal intense faunal activity within centimeters of the boundary clay.

Chondrites: a trace fossil indicator of anoxia in sediments.

The trace fossil Chondrites, a highly branched burrow system of unknown endobenthic deposit feeders, occurs in all types of sediment, including those deposited under anaerobic conditions. In some cases, such as the Jurassic Posidonienschiefer Formation of Germany, Chondrites occurs in black, laminated, carbonaceous sediment that was deposited in chemically reducing conditions. In other cases, such as numerous oxic clastic and carbonate units throughout the geologic column, Chondrites typically represents the last trace fossil in a biotutbation sequence.

Graphoglyptid burrows in modern deep-sea sediment.

The complex, highly patterned, invertebrate burrow systems known as "graphoglyptids" in ancient sedimentary rocks have now been recovered in box cores of modern deep-sea sediment. Spiroraphe, Cosmoraphe, and Paleodictyon occur as grooves in the tops of washed cores, and they apparently were produced and maintained as horizontal tunnel systems just a few millimeters below the sediment surface. These burrows, which are important as indicators of deepwater sedimentary environments in ancient strata, have been predicted in the modern deep sea but have not been found there until now.