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Molluscan Taphonomy As a Proxy for Recognizing Fossil Seagrass Beds Jill Suzanne Leonard-Pingel Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College

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Molluscan Taphonomy As a Proxy for Recognizing Fossil Seagrass Beds Jill Suzanne Leonard-Pingel Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Master's Theses Graduate School 2005 Molluscan taphonomy as a proxy for recognizing fossil seagrass beds Jill Suzanne Leonard-Pingel Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses Part of the Earth Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Leonard-Pingel, Jill Suzanne, "Molluscan taphonomy as a proxy for recognizing fossil seagrass beds" (2005). LSU Master's Theses. 1678. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses/1678 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Master's Theses by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MOLLUSCAN TAPHONOMY AS A PROXY FOR RECOGNIZING FOSSIL SEAGRASS BEDS A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in The Department of Geology and Geophysics by Jill Suzanne Leonard-Pingel B.A., Cornell College, 2003 August, 2005 Acknowledgements I am indebted to many people who assisted me with this project. I would first like to thank Dr. Laurie Anderson for her ideas, guidance, expertise, and encouragement. Her knowledge has been an invaluable resource. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Jeff Agnew and Audrey Aronowsky for their assistance with fieldwork, and their willingness to brave the elements. In addition I would like to thank the members of my committee, Dr. Samuel Bentley and Dr. John Wrenn for their ideas and suggestions on my project as well as on this manuscript. Dr. Xiagong Xie provided valuable assistance in the SEM lab. I would also like to thank Dr. Barry Moser and Rebecca Frederick for their assistance with the statistical analysis and SAS programming. Dr. Gary Stringer was kind enough to take me into the field with him and to assist with the collection of samples. Travis Smith and Dr. Aaron O’Dea were willing to allow me to borrow samples. Last but not least Rick Young deserves thanks for putting up with smelly vans and being the distributor of cute kittens. In addition to those individuals I would also like to thank institutions that provided financial support for this project, especially the Department of Geology and Geophysics, Louisiana State University, the Shreveport Geological Society, and the American Mineralogical Society. Finally I would like to thank Josh Pingel for his interest, support, and concern over the past two years. ii Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………ii LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………………………………...v LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………………………………………vi ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………… vii INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………..….1 1.1 Seagrass Biology……………………………………………………….….... 3 1.2 Seagrass Ecosystems...…………………………...………………………… 7 1.2.1 Infauna………………………………………………………………. 8 1.2.2 Epifauna……………………………………………………………….8 1.2.3 Nektonic Fauna……………………………………………………... 9 1.3 Seagrass Distribution Through Time………………………………………… 9 1.3.1 Cretaceous…………………………………………………………… 9 1.3.2 Paleocene-Eocene……………………………………………………10 1.3.3 Oligocene…………………………………………………………. 12 1.3.4 Miocene…………………………………………………………… 12 1.3.5 Plio-Pleistocene………………………………………………………12 PREVIOUS WORK……………………………………………………………………...13 2.1 Taphonomy and Taphofacies……………………………………………….. 13 2.2 Seagrass in the Fossil Record……………………………………………….. 15 STUDY AREA………………………………………………………………………… 17 3.1 San Salvador Island, Bahamas……………………………………………….. 17 3.1.1 French Bay………………………………………………………….. 17 3.1.2 Pigeon Creek………………………………………………………... 18 3.2 Florida Keys………………………………………………………………….. 19 3.2.1 Big Torch Key………………………………………………………. 19 3.2.2 Ohio Key..………………………………………………………… 19 3.3 Laguna de Términos, Mexico……………………………………………… 19 3.4 Florida Gulf Coast…………………………………………………………. ... 21 3.4.1 Manasota Key and Lemon Bay…………………………………… 21 3.4.2 Pine Island………………………………………………………… 22 3.5 Fossil Seagrass Beds…………………………………………………………. 22 3.5.1 Eocene, Moodys Branch Formation, Copenhagen, Louisiana……… 22 3.5.2 Unnamed Pleistocene Unit, Colon Island, Bocas del Toro, Panama……………...…………………………………………. ……24 METHODS………………………………………………………………………………26 4.1 Sampling Technique………………………………………………………... 26 4.2 Taphonomic Evaluation……………………………………………………….27 iii 4.2.1 Encrustation………………………………………………………… 27 4.2.2 Bioerosion……………………………………………………………28 4.2.3 Abrasion……………………………………………………………...33 4.2.4 Dissolution………………………………………………………….. 34 4.2.5 Fragmentation………………………………………………………..38 4.2.6 Edge Chipping…………………………………………………… 39 4.2.7 Edge Rounding………………………………………………………39 4.3 Ternary Taphograms………………………………………………………….39 4.4 Multivariate Statistical Analyses………..……………………………………40 RESULTS………………………………………………………………………………. 42 5.1 Environmental Comparisons………………………………………………… 42 5.2 Carbonate vs. Siliciclastic Depositional Settings…………………………… 42 5.3 Multivariate Statistical Analyses…………………………………………… 47 5.3.1 Canonical Discriminant Analysis………………………………… 47 5.3.2 Assignment Analysis……………………………………………….. 54 DISCUSSION…………………………………………………………………………... 57 6.1 Taphonomic Characteristics………………………………………………….. 57 6.1.1 Edge Rounding……………………………………………………… 57 6.1.2 Abrasion…………………………………………………………… 58 6.1.3 Dissolution…………………………………………………………...59 6.1.4 Fragmentation……………………………………………………... 60 6.1.5 Bioerosion …………………………………………………………...60 6.1.6 Edge Chipping……………………………………………………… 62 6.1.7 Encrustation………………………………………………………… 63 6.2 Transport and Taphonomic Fidelity…………………………………………. 64 6.3 Taphonomy and Taxa…………………………………………………………66 6.4 Assignment Tests……………………………………………………………..68 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS……………………………………………………70 LITERATURE CITED…………………………………………………………………. 73 APPENDIX A: SUMMAY OF DATA COLLECTED………………………………… 82 APPENDIX B: CANONICAL DISCRIMINANT ANALYSIS OUTPUT…….………107 APPENDIX C: ASSIGNMENT TEST OUTPUT…..………………………………… 111 VITA……………………………………………………………………………………132 iv List of Tables 1.1 Global seagrass species diversity organized by family…………………………….….5 3.1 Matrix of Recent sampling localities listing climatic zone and sediment type of each locality……………………………………………………………………………………17 4.1 Taphonomic features examined on each bioclast in each sample……….…………...29 5.1 Table listing coefficient values of each canonical discriminant function for each of the seven taphonomic characteristics………………………………………………………...52 5.2 Error rates for assignment analysis determined by cross-validation with bins set proportional to population sizes and k=40………………………………………….……55 5.3 Number of individuals from Eocene Moodys Branch Formation sample assigned to each environment………………………………………………….……………………. 56 5.4 Number of individuals from unnamed Pleistocene unit sample assigned to each environment……………………………………………………………………………...56 v List of Figures 1.1 Historical record of decline of marine ecosystems and consumer guilds from before anthropogenic influence to present……………………………………...….... 2 1.2 Illustration of ecological niches often represented in seagrass beds…………….... 11 3.1 Map of San Salvador Island, Bahamas……………………………………..………18 3.2 Map of the Florida Keys showing location of Big Torch Key and Ohio Key……………………………….…………………………………………..………....20 3.3 Map of Mexico showing location of Laguna de Términos, Gulf of Mexico………………………………………………………………….….…………...21 3.4 Map of Florida showing Manasota Key and Pine Island…………………………...23 3.5 Map of Louisiana showing location of Caldwell Parish and Heison Landing locality of Moodys Branch Formation sampled for this study…………………………………..24 3.6 Map of Panama showing location of unnamed Pleistocene unit sampled on Colon Island……………………………………………………………………………………25 4.1 Illustration of taphonomic characters used to describe shells in this study…………………………………………………………………………………. 31 4.2 Common encrusting organisms……………………………………………………. 32 4.3 Types of bioerosion…………………………………………………………………35 5.1 Ternary taphograms for each taphonomic characteristic described showing differences among environments………………………………………………………..43 5.2 Ternary taphograms comparing taphonomic characters of seagrass beds in carbonate and siliciclastic sediment regimes……………………………………………………….48 5.3 Graph of first canonical function against third canonical function of CDA……… 53 5.4 Comparison of median values, including lower and upper limit error bars, for genera that were collected from more than one environment…………...………………………54 vi Abstract Seagrass beds, important marine ecosystems both economically and environmentally, have a poor fossil record. As a result, little is known about the geographic distribution of seagrasses over historic and geologic time, or their abundance when unaltered by anthropogenic effects. The purpose of this study is to define a taphonomic signature unique to seagrass beds that can be used as a proxy for identifying the seagrass habitat in the fossil record. In order to develop this proxy, sediment samples from Recent seagrass and non-seagrass environments were collected, and the molluscan bioclasts from these samples were categorically ranked for the following taphonomic characteristics: encrustation, bioerosion, abrasion, dissolution, fragmentation, edge chipping, and edge rounding. Samples of faunal assemblages associated with deposits inferred to be from seagrass beds were collected from the Eocene Moodys Branch Formation (Copenhagen, LA) and an unnamed Pleistocene unit from Bocas del Toro, Panama. The molluscs from these samples
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