Plant Taphonomy in Areas of Explosive Volcanism

Extract

Coarse-grained volcaniclastic sediments are a common part of the non-marine geologic record along most continental margins. Many of these volcanic sediment units contain well-preserved assemblages of fossil plants. Because much of the work on depositional environments, dating, correlations and paleoenvironments has been derived from studies of plants, it is important to understand the processes that incorporate the plants into the volcaniclastic sediments. In this paper I plan to concentrate on processes that bury and preserve trees, logs and stumps.