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A fresh look at sideritic “coprolites”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2016

Adolf Seilacher ,
Cynthia Marshall ,
H. Catherine W. Skinner  and
Takanobu Tsuihiji
Adolf Seilacher
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520. E-mail: geodolf@gmx.de
Cynthia Marshall
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520
H. Catherine W. Skinner
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520. E-mail: catherine.skinner@yale.edu
Takanobu Tsuihiji
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520
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Abstract

Sideritic “coprolites” from the late Miocene of southwest Washington, the Upper Cretaceous of Saskatchewan and Madagascar, and the Permian of China have often been claimed to be pseudofossils. They are here interpreted as intestinal casts (cololites) prefossilized by bacterial activity and later transformed into siderite with no traces of original food particles left. All occurrences are found within fluvial overbank deposits that carry no other vertebrate remains. Their absence could be due to aquifer roll-fronts that destroyed phosphatic bones and teeth but favored siderite precipitation.

Type
Articles
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , Winter 2001 , pp. 7 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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