Palaeoecological implications of the preservation potential of soft-bodied organisms in sediment-density flows: testing turbulent waters.

Interpreting how far organisms within fossil assemblages may have been transported and if they all originated from the same location is fundamental to understanding whether they represent true palaeocommunities. In a three-factorial experimental design, we used an annular flume to generate actualistic sandy sediment-density flows that were fast (2 ms) and fully turbulent in order to test the effects of flow duration, sediment concentration, and grain angularity on the states of bodily damage experienced by the freshly euthanized polychaete . Results identified statistically significant effects of flow duration and grain angularity.