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This triangular prism is covered in small fossils of coral, bivalves, and trace fossils. The main question I have is about these 6 curvy lines going through the entire rock. Bioturbation? Stromatolite? Erosion? It was found just outside of Las Vegas.

It was a glorious day to fossil hunt. Warm with a soft breeze and still slightly chilly water. See, I had gotten incredibly lucky. I had gotten a connection to Dr Stephen Godfrey and he invited me to hunt today at a classified location (sorry I am not allowed to spill the beans). Our friend Mr Eric came along as well as MomAnonymous. As soon as we had gotten there, interesting things began to appear. Dr Godfrey began to point out things i'd never had understood without being told. At the bottom of the cliff face, Dr Godfrey pointed to a strange indentation and then told us a story about he and other paleontologists finding completely intact fish skulls at the cliffs, which are nigh on impossible to find. Then he told us that the skulls were a type of tilefish, which as some may know burrow through mud. These tilefish buried themselves in these burrows and they became a kind of tomb, which is why they stayed intact and weren't destroyed. At this time, the Hobbit (movie) had just came out and when Dr Godfrey was given the ok to name the species, he went from something from the Hobbit. Dwarves tunneled, and their mountain was named the Lonely Mountain, and Erebor in the elvish language, and the species became Eraborensis.

Scientists Just Found The Cause of Earth's First Global Warming That Triggered Mass Extinctions Michelle Starr, Science Alerts, July 3, 2018 https://www.sciencealert.com/world-s-first-animals-cambrian-explosion-global-warming-mass-extinction World's first animals caused global warming University of Exeter, PhysOrg, July 2, 2018, https://phys.org/news/2018-07-world-animals-global.html https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/07/180702094038.htm http://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/featurednews/title_667955_en.html The abstract is at: Sebastiaan van de Velde et al, Early Palaeozoic ocean anoxia and global warming driven by the evolution of shallow burrowing, Nature Communications (2018) vol. 9, Article number: 2554 , DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-04973-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-04973-4 Electronic supplementary material for above paper at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-04973-4#Sec14 https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41467-018-04973-4/MediaObjects/41467_2018_4973_MOESM1_ESM.pdf Peer Review file for this paper at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-04973-4#Sec14 https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41467-018-04973-4/MediaObjects/41467_2018_4973_MOESM2_ESM.pdf Yours, Paul H.

New depth limit for deep-sea marine burrows University of Leeds, January 10, 2018 https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180110080549.htm “Scientists have found fossil evidence of deep-sea marine life burrowing up to eight meters below the seabed -- four times the previously observed depth for modern deep-sea life.” Ancient outcrops give new depth limit for deep-sea burrows http://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/4165/ancient_outcrops_give_new_depth_limit_for_deep-sea_burrows The paper is: S. L. Cobain, D. M. Hodgson, J. Peakall, P. B. Wignall, M. R. D. Cobain. A new macrofaunal limit in the deep biosphere revealed by extreme burrow depths in ancient sediments. Scientific Reports, 2018; 8 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-18481-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-18481-w Yours, Paul H.

I posted a couple things here in another thread. I thought it would be good to have 'one-stop shopping' for this fascinating subject. So what is taphonomy? It is the study of the processes (as burial, decay, and preservation) that affect animal and plant remains as they become fossilized. It can be used to discern the paleoecology of the organisms as well as the sedimentary processes that led to their preservation.