Taphonomy

MUÑOZ, A. S.; MONDINI, M.

Encyclopedia of Geography

SAGE

Año: 2010; p. 2775 - 2776

Taphonomy is a multidisciplinary, multitasking discipline that studies the processes affecting organic remains after death, that is, the transition of these remains from the biosphere into the lithosphere. Taphonomic studies are key to paleobiology, paleontology, archaeology, geology, and geography, among other disciplines, as they impinge directly upon our capacity to reconstruct paleoenvironments and past biotas [see Biotas and climate, Environmental history]. They do so by understanding postmortem processes on biological materials and how they affect the fossil record –broadly defined as the set of nonliving remains and traces of organisms– and the information therein.