Local and global controls for exceptional fossil preservation in Jurassic-Cretaceous fossiliferous units of Brazil

• Grant number: 23/17293-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: March 01, 2024
• End date: February 29, 2028
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Physics - Nuclear Physics
• Principal Investigator: Gabriel Ladeira Oses
• Grantee: Silvio Cesar Marqui Limeira Junior
• Host Institution: Instituto de Física (IF). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 22/06485-5 - Expanding the frontiers of research in biomineralization and fossil preservation, AP.GR

Abstract

Konservat-Lagerstätten are exceptionally preserved fossil deposits, in many cases with the record of soft tissues. These deposits allow scientists to acquire more information about the diversity and ecology of past biocenoses compared to the conventional fossil record. Thus, understanding the environmental factors that control the decomposition and fossilization of organisms is of great value for the interpretation of paleobiology and paleoecology. These factors can be local, relating to processes restricted to the depositional system, or global, whose action covers a wide territorial extension and different sedimentary basins. However, the relationship between local and global factors in the formation of Konservat-Lagerstätten is not yet fully understood. It is not clear, for example, the local and global factors for the establishment of environmental conditions that led to the exceptional preservation of fossils in Jurassic-Cretaceous fossiliferous units in Brazil. To uncover these local controls and relate them on a more global scale, techniques based on physical and chemical principles (1) will be used for mineralogical and chemical characterization of fossils, such as electron microscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and x-ray diffraction; and, geochemical proxies (elementary and isotopic techniques) will be used (2) to assess environmental and diagenetic conditions involved in fossilization processes, such as weathering, eutrophication and redox conditions.