Where: San Salvador, Bahamas (24.1° N, 74.5° W: paleocoordinates 24.1° N, 74.5° W)

• coordinate stated in text

When: Holocene (0.0 - 0.0 Ma)

• It is not known how much time is represented by the death assemblages used in this study, but assemblages collected in comparable settings yielded radiocarbon ages between 0 and 4805 years and represented time spans between 175 years in the Bahamas and 3085 years in Baja California (Taft and Harbaugh 1964). Strasser and Samankassou (2003) dated Holocene shell material in lagoonal and intertidal settings in Florida Bay and Bermuda at about 1000 to 5600 years and calculated sediment accumulation rates ranging from 0.5 to 1.1 mm/a. However, their samples derived from deeper sediments (65 to 130 cm) than the material used in this study, which was collected from the seafloor.

Environment/lithology: marine; poorly lithified, sandy carbonate

Size classes: macrofossils, mesofossils, microfossils

• Observed taphonomic features of the present shells are fragmentation, edge rounding, abrasion, and carbonate coating (Fig. 3). The number of indeterminate gastropods as an indication for taphonomic alteration ranges from 0 to 64 (Table 2).

Collection methods: surface (in situ), sieve,

• Sampling at all five localities was carried out within a 0.25 meters squared large frame using the same sieve (mesh width = 1 mm, d = 30 cm). Samples were washed over a 1 mm sieve, dried, and sorted for shells. The volume of sediment residue that was sorted to yield 200 specimens was weighed, and the number of specimens was divided by the weight of sorted material, and used as an estimate of shell abundance.

Primary reference: S. Reich. 2014. Gastropod Associations as a Proxy for Seagrass Vegetation in a Tropical, Carbonate Setting (San Salvador, Bahamas). Palaios 29(9):467-482 [M. Uhen/M. Bean]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taphonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 173828: authorized by Mark Uhen, entered by Meredith Bean on 16.10.2015

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)