A Primary Taphonomic Study On Miocene Shanwang Biota, Shandong

Shanwang is a worldwide famous place in which contains a large amount of exquisite Middle Miocene fossils in Shandong, China. Taphonomic research of fossils in this area is significant and important. Taphonomy is a scientific subject which specially studies the burial condition of fossils and the cause of formation. It mainly deals with the whole process from the death to fossilization of organisms. It infers burial condition by analyzing the degree of abrasion of fossils, the sorting degree of fossils and the sedimentary features of surrounding rocks. It can speculate the original living environments of biocoenosis and reconstruct paleoenvironment.During the field works, the author observed near 300 fossils of fishes, plants, insects, large mammals and other vertebrates from the Miocene Shanwang Formation. Their burial features are described in detail in this paper, based on their burial condition, morphological features and lithologic characters of surrounding rocks. According to sedimentary features of the surrounding rocks of fossils, it can be divided into three taphonomic facies: laminated diatomaceous shale facies, diatomaceous argillutite facies, and turbidity argillite facies. Laminated diatomaceous shale facies infers a burial environment with low hydrodynamic, fast buried speed and rapid deposition, its binary configuration represents an annual season change. Diatomaceous argillutite facies infers a warm and rich oxygen water environment with low hydrodynamic. Turbidity argillite facies infers temporary turbidity flows which affected lake deposition. Refer to former result, it can be inferred that Shanwang had a warm and humid climate during the Miocene period, organisms were diversed. Shanwang Lake is a maar lake, served a water source for creatures. It had low hydrodynamic, it tended to be shallower in depth and higher in temperature.