The preservation of the shells of Sepia in the middle Miocene of Malta
Abstract
Well preserved cuttlebones (Sepia sp., S. sepulta and S. c. harmati) are restricted to 15 out of a total of 500 m of marine Oligo-Miocene sediments exposed in the Maltese Islands. They occur at the top of the Blue Clay Formation, a series of slowly deposited offshore marls of Serravallian age. The chambers of the cuttlebones were infilled before compaction and their aragonitic shell structures are replaced by goethite pseudomorphs after pyrite. The general scarcity of fossil Sepia results from the small range of marine environments in which they may be fossilised and the destruction of post-mortem drifted shells on shore-lines.
- Publication:
-
Proceedings of the Geologists' Association
- Pub Date:
- 1978
- DOI:
- 10.1016/S0016-7878(78)80013-3
- Bibcode:
- 1978PrGA...89..227H