In view of the wide range of disciplines involved in Quaternary research, this book offers a one-stop resource for the Quaternary research community, since it reviews the latest techniques and provides an approach to how mollusk shell remains are used in the reconstruction of marine environments in southern South America. Written by specialists in the field, this monograph sets the scene for multidisciplinary research involving taphonomy, paleoecology, paleobiography, morphometry, shell mineralogy analysis and sclerochronology performed on mollusk assemblages and/or selected taxa, and offers a consistent picture of spatial and temporal environmental and climatic changes.

Autorentext

Sandra Gordillo is an Argentinean researcher at CONICET (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas). She graduated and defended her PhD thesis at the National University of Córdoba and received postdoctoral training at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada (1997-1998). Her research focuses on Quaternary mollusk shells, mainly in comparison to their extant relatives. She has participated in paleontological fieldwork mainly in Argentinean Patagonia and in southern Chile. She has also been involved in fieldwork in New Zealand and on Antarctic expedition. In 2011 she obtained a DAAD-CONICET grant for a scientific visit to the AWI Bremerhaven in Germany. Her interests are related to faunistic changes on different time scales and to the understanding of the paleoenvironmental history of Quaternary molluscs in southern South America and Antarctica. She has authored and co-authored around 50 articles on taphonomy, systematics, paleoecology, paleobiogeography and paleoenvironmental reconstruction based on Quaternary molluscs.

Inhalt
Introduction.- Taphonomy of molluscan assemblages.- Shell microstructure.- Paleoecology of molluscan assemblages.- Biogeographic distribution of taxa.- Morphometry.- Stable isotopes.- Sclerochronology.- Concluding Remarks.