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Preservation of Tissue Structures in Late Cretaceous Vertebrate Remains from Alberta, Canada
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- Author / Creator
- van der Reest, Aaron
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Here I investigate the rates of preserved original organic tissue and their quality within vertebrate bones that were preserved during the late Cretaceous of Alberta. Specimens recovered from the Dinosaur Park Formation provide a baseline for comparison to four other Alberta Formations (Brazeau, Foremost, Horseshoe Canyon, and Wapiti). Formations are all limited to approximately 13 MYA of one another, in order to eliminate excessive temporal variation in specimens. The formations studied were also chosen to cover a virtual transect of depositional settings from upland near source, to upper shoreface marine environments. This provides the opportunity to investigate if the general depositional environments play a major role in the preservation of original organic tissues in vertebrate remains from deep time. In addition to depositional environment, other previously proposed preservational factors are addressed, including the associated depositional matrix and amount of weathering before burial (degree of articulation). Findings reveal a general trend of greater tissue degradation across the terrestrial transect of depositional environments from upland to coastal plains. A marked increase in the preservation frequency and quality of tissues in upper shoreface facies reveals the potential of further investigations into tissues of extinct marine reptiles. Although groundwater quality during deposition of each of the formations has not been addressed in the literature, evidence addressed herein indicates that slight alkaline conditions were present in upland environments and slightly acidic conditions were present in those of coastal plains. Research done in an archaeological context has shown that groundwater pH plays the most significant role in the preservation of bone and its organic component. Findings made during this research indicate that initial pH levels not only have short term effects on the mineral and organic phases of bone, but also play a major role in preserving them into deep time.
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- Graduation date
- Fall 2020
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- Type of Item
- Thesis
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- Degree
- Master of Science
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- License
- Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission.