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Rare earth elements in Solnhofen biogenic apatite: geochemical clues to the palaeoenvironment

✍ Scribed by Richard A Kemp; Clive N Trueman


Book ID
104165386
Publisher
Elsevier Science
Year
2003
Tongue
English
Weight
578 KB
Volume
155
Category
Article
ISSN
0037-0738

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✦ Synopsis


Rare earth element (REE) concentrations in biogenic apatite samples (coprolite, bone and soft-tissue) were used to investigate the environment of deposition of the celebrated Solnhofen fossil Lagersta ¨tten. The measured REE patterns are similar between different localities, lithologies (flinz, fa ¨ule) and levels in the Upper Solnhofen Plattenkalk, suggestive of a stable REE supply during deposition. The behaviour of cerium in the Solnhofen samples implies that bottom water conditions were not anoxic, and variations in the cerium anomaly can be explained by differences in burial rate. These results provide further geochemical support for current depositional models [Barthel, K.W.,