Taphonomy of soft-tissue preservation in ferricrete at the McGraths Flat Lagerstätte

IF 7.2 1区地球科学 Q1 GEOSCIENCES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY

Gondwana Research Pub Date : 2025-09-14 DOI:10.1016/j.gr.2025.08.012

Tara Djokic , Patrick M. Smith , Jeff R. Havig , Michael Frese , Paulo Vasconcelos , Jochen Brocks , Michael Ellwood , David J. Cantrill , Dayna McGeeney , Ross Pogson , Chris Ryan , Yu Wang , Ai Nguyen , Matilda L. Rosas , Matthew R. McCurry

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Abstract

Locating new fossil sites with exceptional soft-tissue preservation is vital for addressing taphonomic bias and accurately reconstructing the fossil record. McGraths Flat, a Miocene rainforest lake Konservat-Lagerstätte, uniquely preserves nanometre-scale soft-tissue structures in laminated Fe-oxyhydroxide (goethite) or ‘ferricrete’. However, constraints on the source of Fe, depositional conditions, and mechanisms that drove the exceptional soft-tissue preservation were lacking. Here, we demonstrate that warm, seasonally wet rainforest conditions generated acidic soils and transported dissolved Fe(II) from weathering basaltic bedrock into an oxbow lake. Fe(III)-oxyhydroxide precipitation then drove fossil burial and mineralization. Our findings suggest that ‘McGraths Flat-type’ fossil preservation may be common and could represent an untapped record of life on land.

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McGraths平原铁层软组织保存的埋藏法Lagerstätte

寻找具有特殊软组织保存的新化石遗址对于解决地语学偏见和准确重建化石记录至关重要。McGraths Flat是一个中新世的雨林湖Konservat-Lagerstätte，它独特地保存了纳米级的软组织结构，这些软组织结构是在层压的铁氧化铁（针铁矿）或“铁铁矿”中保存的。然而，对铁的来源、沉积条件和驱动异常软组织保存的机制的限制是缺乏的。在这里，我们证明了温暖、季节性潮湿的雨林条件产生了酸性土壤，并将溶解的铁（II）从风化玄武岩基岩输送到牛轭湖。铁(III)-氢氧化物沉淀驱动化石埋藏和成矿作用。我们的研究结果表明，“麦格拉思扁平型”化石保存可能很常见，可能代表了陆地上尚未开发的生命记录。

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来源期刊

Gondwana Research 地学-地球科学综合

CiteScore

12.90

自引率

6.60%

发文量

298

审稿时长

65 days

期刊介绍： Gondwana Research (GR) is an International Journal aimed to promote high quality research publications on all topics related to solid Earth, particularly with reference to the origin and evolution of continents, continental assemblies and their resources. GR is an "all earth science" journal with no restrictions on geological time, terrane or theme and covers a wide spectrum of topics in geosciences such as geology, geomorphology, palaeontology, structure, petrology, geochemistry, stable isotopes, geochronology, economic geology, exploration geology, engineering geology, geophysics, and environmental geology among other themes, and provides an appropriate forum to integrate studies from different disciplines and different terrains. In addition to regular articles and thematic issues, the journal invites high profile state-of-the-art reviews on thrust area topics for its column, ''GR FOCUS''. Focus articles include short biographies and photographs of the authors. Short articles (within ten printed pages) for rapid publication reporting important discoveries or innovative models of global interest will be considered under the category ''GR LETTERS''.