Geology at Every Scale: Field Excursions for the 2018 GSA Southeastern Section Meeting in Knoxville, Tennessee

Nutrient hotspots through time: A field guide to modern and fossil taphonomy in east Tennessee
-
Published:March 29, 2018
-
CiteCitation
Sarah W. Keenan, Christopher Widga, Jennifer M. DeBruyn, Sean M. Schaeffer, 2018. "Nutrient hotspots through time: A field guide to modern and fossil taphonomy in east Tennessee", Geology at Every Scale: Field Excursions for the 2018 GSA Southeastern Section Meeting in Knoxville, Tennessee, Annette Summers Engel, Robert D. Hatcher, Jr.
Download citation file:
- Share
-
Tools
ABSTRACT
Hotspots represent the ephemeral introduction of nutrients into an environment, and occur in both the modern and geologic past. The annual deposition of deciduous leaves in temperate forests, tree falls, animal excrement, and vertebrate carcass deposition all result in the pulsed introduction of nutrients to an ecosystem. Hotspots are critical for providing limiting nutrients, including nitrogen and carbon, to be incorporated into soil microbial biomass and plant biomass. For vertebrate carcasses, following the release of labile compounds from soft tissues, bones are often left behind, and provide a more recalcitrant reservoir of organic carbon and nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium, and,...
- alkaline earth metals
- animal waste
- bedrock
- biomass
- calcium
- carbon
- Cenozoic
- ecosystems
- excavations
- field trips
- fossils
- Knox County Tennessee
- leaves
- metals
- Miocene
- modern analogs
- Neogene
- nitrogen
- nutrients
- organic carbon
- organic nitrogen
- paleolakes
- phosphorus
- preservation
- processes
- road log
- sample preparation
- sinkholes
- solution features
- taphonomy
- temperate environment
- Tennessee
- terrestrial environment
- Tertiary
- topography
- trees
- United States
- vegetation
- Washington County Tennessee
- eastern Tennessee
- Knoxville Tennessee
- Gray Tennessee
- Gray fossil site