October Geology and GSA Today media ...( Boulder CO USA -- Topics include: d...)

Boulder, CO, USA -- Topics include: discovery of exceptionally preserved soft-bodied biotas in Ontario and Manitoba, Canada; discovery of an arctic lake containing sediments 200,000 years old; effects of ancient Mayan deforestation and agriculture on soil erosion in northern Guatemala; a new catalog of episodic tremor and slip for the Cascadia subduction zone; and a new model of Sierra Nevada volcanism and uplift. The GSA TODAY science article takes a broad look at agriculture and soil erosion.

Highlights are provided below. Representatives of the media may obtain complimentary copies of articles by contacting Ann Cairns at acairns@geosociety.org. Please discuss articles of interest with the authors before publishing stories on their work, and please make reference to GEOLOGY in articles published. Contact Ann Cairns for additional information or other assistance.

Non-media requests for articles may be directed to GSA Sales and Service, gsaservice@geosociety.org.

Because soft-bodied organisms quickly decay after death, preservation of soft body parts is the exception rather than the rule, and paleontologists rarely truly know what has been lost from ancient ecosystems. von Bitter et al. describe such exceptions preserved in the 425-million-year-old Silurian Eramosa Lagersttte of Ontario, Canada, including abundant articulated conodont skeletons with eye traces and heterostracan jawless fish with the first recorded traces of preserved soft tissue (vertebrates), annelids and arthropods with soft body parts (invertebrates), and diver
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