Soft-Bottom Succession and the Fossil Record

It is perhaps ironic that the editors of this book would emphasize in their own contribution that certain patterns of biotic interactions found in modern soft-bottom communities are not likely to be preserved in the fossil record and that the interpretation of some preserved patterns is problematical. But this is our conclusion with respect to successions on soft bottoms. After examining both live and dead shelled faunas of nearshore clastic facies, we also conclude that the areal distribution of fossil species cannot be used to establish with certainty the dominant controls of the distribution of living fauna. But these conclusions are provisional, and more subtle and clever analysis may eventually vitiate our pessimism and better explain the causes for some distributional patterns.