Taphonomy and paleoenvironmental setting of cetacean remains from the Middle Miocene of Tarragona (NE Spain)

A new finding of a marine mammal is documented from the middle Miocene of El Camp basin in Tarragona (NE Spain). The incomplete and disarticulated bone remains belong to the skeleton of a juvenile cetacean. These remains appear deposited above a transgression surface and included within a glauconitic calcisiltite layer. This unit constitutes the beginning of a shallowing-upwards sequence and was deposited under low-energy conditions and low sedimentation rates in a middle-outer platform setting. This context was responsible for the long exposure of the remains and, consequently, an extension of the biostratinomic stage. These conditions favored the natural decomposition and disarticulation of the carcass, allowing the action of different types of scavenging organisms. The interpretation of the paleoenvironmental setting is based in the combination of different datasets: taphonomic data of the bone remains, paleoecologic and taphonomic information provided by the fauna associated to the bones, and ichnologic and sedimentologic interpretation of the sediments where the fossils are included. Combination of such different proxies enables a very good characterization of the paleoenvironmental context of the studied fossils. (C) 2010 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.