Posted on 03/18/2011 5:47:00 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
In a quest that has taken him from Oklahoma to Morocco and Poland, Brett has analyzed multiple examples of mass trilobite burial. A smothering death by tons of hurricane-generated storm sediment was so rapid that the trilobites are preserved in life position. These geologic "snapshots" record behavior in much the way that ancient Roman life was recorded at Pompeii by volcanic ash.
Burial was rapid, Brett said, but also somewhat delicate. Trilobites, like other arthropods, shed their hard exoskeletons from time to time.
"We find molted pieces lying immediately adjacent to each other," he said. "This is proof that the sediments were not significantly disturbed after burial."
Like modern crabs and lobsters, trilobites appear to have gathered in large groups for protection when they shed their protective exoskeletons. During molting, there was safety in numbers. And, like their modern cousins, trilobites seem to have used these molting gatherings as opportunities for mating.
The mass burials preserve large groups of similar-sized -- and therefore similarly aged -- specimens, segregated by species and, after molting, "naked."
"It's an orgy," Brett said.
Brett and colleagues found evidence of another behavioral connection to modern arthropods -- long chains of trilobites apparently fossilized in mid-migration.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
[ Except one problem....... no people in the Devonian age ]
Oh sure there were people abound 5,900 years ago silly!!!!
Oh and Trilobites didn’t die in Noah’s flood, They were very very very tasty and before Noah even built his ark they were all gobbled up with large amounts of butter and ketchup mixed with horseradish sauce. This is why the Jews have a prohibition against Shellfish, because they don’t want to cause another extinction of another species of waterbugs like they did with Trilobites.
LOL!
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