Experimental Approaches to Understanding Fossil Organisms: Lessons from the Living (Topics in Geobiology Book 41)

Paleontologists and geologists struggle with research questions often complicated by the loss or even absence of key paleobiological and paleoenvironmental information. Insight into this missing data can be gained through direct exploration of analogous living organisms and modern environments. Creative, experimental and interdisciplinary treatments of such ancient-Earth analogs form the basis of Lessons from the Living. This volume unites a diverse range of expert paleontologists, neontologists and geologists presenting case studies that cover a spectrum of topics, including functional morphology, taphonomy, environments and organism-substrate interactions. Front Matter....Pages i-xvii Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Crinoids Aweigh: Experimental Biomechanics of Ancyrocrinus Holdfasts....Pages 3-20 Ultra-elongate Freshwater Pearly Mussels (Unionida): Roles for Function and Constraint in Multiple Morphologic Convergences with Marine Taxa....Pages 21-47 Relationships of Internal Shell Features to Chemosymbiosis, Life Position, and Geometric Constraints Within the Lucinidae (Bivalvia)....Pages 49-72 Modern Analogs for the Study of Eurypterid Paleobiology....Pages 73-88 New Applications for Constrained Ordination: Reconstructing Feeding Behaviors in Fossil Remingtonocetinae (Cetacea: Mammalia)....Pages 89-107 Front Matter....Pages 109-109 Patterns in Microbialites Throughout Geologic Time: Is the Present Really the Key to the Past?....Pages 111-142 The Relationship Between Modern Mollusk Assemblages and Their Expression in Subsurface Sediment in a Carbonate Lagoon, St. Croix, US Virgin Islands....Pages 143-167 Biotic Segregation in an Upper Mesotidal Dissipative Ridge and Runnel Succession, West Salish Sea, Vancouver Island, British Columbia....Pages 169-194 Using X-ray Radiography to Observe Fe Distributions in Bioturbated Sediment....Pages 195-206 Phytoliths as Tracers of Recent Environmental Change....Pages 207-225 Front Matter....Pages 227-227 Large Complex Burrows of Terrestrial Invertebrates: Neoichnology of Pandinus imperator (Scorpiones: Scorpionidae)....Pages 229-263 Biomechanical Analysis of Fish Swimming Trace Fossils ( Undichna ): Preservation and Mode of Locomotion....Pages 265-303 The Neoichnology of Two Terrestrial Ambystomatid Salamanders: Quantifying Amphibian Burrows Using Modern Analogs....Pages 305-341 Biogenic Structures of Burrowing Skinks: Neoichnology of Mabuya multifaciata (Squamata: Scincidae)....Pages 343-369 Novel Neoichnology of Elephants: Nonlocomotive Interactions with Sediment, Locomotion Traces in Partially Snow-Covered Sediment, and Implications for Proboscidean Paleoichnology....Pages 371-393 Burrows and Related Traces in Snow and Vegetation Produced by the Norwegian Lemming ( Lemmus lemmus )....Pages 395-404 Near-Surface Imaging (GPR) of Biogenic Structures in Siliciclastic, Carbonate, and Gypsum Dunes....Pages 405-418 Back Matter....Pages 419-420 Paleontologists and geologists struggle with research questions often complicated by the loss or even absence of key paleobiological and paleoenvironmental information. Insight into this missing data can be gained through direct exploration of analogous living organisms and modern environments. Creative, experimental, and interdisciplinary treatments of such ancient-Earth analogs form the basis of this volume. It unites a diverse range of expert paleontologists, neontologists, and geologists presenting case studies that cover a spectrum of topics, including functional morphology, taphonomy, environments, and organism-substrate interactions