Stratigraphic paleobiology of an evolutionary radiation: taphonomy and facies distribution of cetaceans in the last 23 million years

Stefano Dominici¹, Simone Cau², Alessandro Freschi²

¹ Museo di Storia Naturale, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Firenze, Italy; stefano.dominici@unifi.it
² Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche, della Vita e della Sostenibilità Ambientale, Università degli Studi di Parma, Parma, Italy; cau.simone2@gmail.com, freschiales@gmail.com

How to cite: Dominici et al. (2018). Stratigraphic paleobiology of an evolutionary radiation: taphonomy and facies
distribution of cetaceans in the last 23 million years. Fossilia, Volume 2018: 15-17. https://doi.org/10.32774/FosRepPal.20.1810.051517

Bullet-Points Abstract

• The majority of cetacean fossils are in Zanclean and Piacenzian deposits
• Cetacean fossils are preferentially found in offshore paleosettings
• Pleistocene findings drop to a minimum, notwithstanding offshore strata are well represented in the record
• A taphonomic imprinting on the cetacean fossil record is hypothesised, connected with a radiation of whale-bone consumers of modern type.

Keywords: Neogene; Pliocene; Cetaceans; Taphonomy.

Fig. 1. A, Distribution (%) of the findings (N = 255) per time interval, standardized for the duration of each time interval (N/Ma); B, Distribution of fossils (N = 131) and facies for time bin.

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