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Actualistic Taphonomy of Freshwater Mollusks from the Argentine Pampas: An Overview of Recent Research Progress

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Actualistic Taphonomy in South America

Part of the book series: Topics in Geobiology ((TGBI,volume 48))

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Abstract

Historically, the development of taphonomic studies in freshwater environments has been scarce and mainly restricted to the Northern Hemisphere, with almost no information on how taphonomic processes work (and eventually differ) in the Southern Hemisphere. We present here an overview of the main results obtained in actualistic taphonomic studies on freshwater mollusks conducted in the Pampa Plain of Argentina , since 2008. The research included patterns of distribution of live and dead mollusks , live-dead fidelity at local and regional scales and dead and fossil shell preservation. Studies were conducted above and below the sediment-water interface, including both descriptive and experimental approaches.

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Acknowledgements

Financial support for this research was granted by the Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica (PICT 16-20706/04 and PICT 2727/13), the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (PIP 1328/08 and PIP 0063/10), and the Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata (EXA 369/07, EXA587/12). Special thanks to Pedro Urrutia (Estancia Nahuel Rucá), Santiago González Aguilar (Las Mostazas), Nicolás Bustamante (Camping Ruca Lauquen), Héctor Sanabria (Estancia La Confianza), Josefina Pueyrredón (Lonkoy), Víctor Albarenga (Estancia San Leoncio), Cacho Soraire (Laguna Salada Grande), Luis Romero (Club de Pescadores San Nicolás) and Enrique Bidondo (Estancia Vidania) for permission to access private land where the lakes are located. We also thank Gustavo Bernava for performing the chemical analyses. Alejandro Canepuccia, Sebastián Grondona, Christian Ituarte, Darío Lazo, Diego Navarro, Silvina Stutz and Marcela Tonello aided at some stage of the research. Special thanks to the editors Sergio Martínez, Alejandra Rojas and Fernanda Cabrera for inviting us to participate with this chapter and Adam Tomašových for the helpful review.

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Correspondence to Claudio G. De Francesco .

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De Francesco, C.G., Tietze, E., Cristini, P.A., Hassan, G.S. (2020). Actualistic Taphonomy of Freshwater Mollusks from the Argentine Pampas: An Overview of Recent Research Progress. In: Martínez, S., Rojas, A., Cabrera, F. (eds) Actualistic Taphonomy in South America. Topics in Geobiology, vol 48. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20625-3_5

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