Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Google Scholar Articles by Pyenson, N. D. Articles by McLeod, S. A. GeoRef GeoRef Citation

Origin of a widespread marine bonebed deposited during the middle Miocene Climatic Optimum

Nicholas D. Pyenson^1,*, Randall B. Irmis^1,, Jere H. Lipps¹, Lawrence G. Barnes², Edward D. Mitchell, Jr.² and Samuel A. McLeod²

¹ Museum of Paleontology and Department of Integrative Biology, University of California–Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720-4780, USA
² Department of Vertebrate Paleontology, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California 90007, USA

Bonebeds are vertebrate bioclast concentrations in beds that are local to basinal in extent. The middle Miocene Sharktooth Hill bonebed in the southeastern San Joaquin Basin of California is among the largest of such deposits, exposed over 15 km and containing a rich assemblage of marine vertebrates, with a mean density of ~200 specimens/m². It ranks among the most widespread and richest bonebeds known, yet its genesis is poorly understood. Hypotheses for its origin and formation include mass death from shark predation, volcanic or red tide poisoning, accumulation from a calving ground for marine mammals, and condensed accumulation over a long period of time. Based on multiple kinds of evidence, we conclude that the bonebed formed over a protracted time interval of little to no net clastic sedimentation, coincident with a significant transgressive-regressive cycle between 16 and 15 Ma ago, during the middle Miocene Climatic Optimum (MMCO). Geochronological constraints bracket the duration of bonebed formation to no longer than 700 ka, indicating that time averaging is a critical consideration for paleoecological analyses of North Pacific Ocean biotic richness during the MMCO.