THE TAPHONOMY AND DEPOSITIONAL ENVIRONMENT OF JURASSIC LACUSTRINE FISH DEPOSITS, WESTFIELD BED, EAST BERLIN FORMATION, HARTFORD BASIN

Fossil fish beds are significant in that they are records of past aquatic environments through the representation of cause of death and aquatic conditions under which fish bodies were deposited and buried. The rarity of fossil fish beds is due to the conditions under which fossilization can occur, which may require very rapid burial and a lack of bioturbation during and after deposition. This study will seek to investigate the paleoecological and paleoenvironmental context of fossilization in a Jurassic paleolacustrine shale bed of the Hartford Basin using taphonomic and mineralogical indices, stratigraphy and geochemical paleoenvironmental and paleoredox proxies.