depositional

The surface of the Earth is mostly an erosional surface not a depositional one.

The number was consistent with other measurements made of the age of the depositional layer.

I think it depends on the depositional environment, its still possible for trees to be buried before decomposition.

There are lots of depositional (and erosive) processes happening.

Therefore, deepwater depositional rates are very, very slow.

I'd guess it just needs to be lucky enough to be in a depositional rather than erosive environment for a while so the weather doesn't immediately sweep it away.

> This discovery shows that microorganisms from saline depositional environments can remain well preserved in halite for hundreds of millions of years and can be detected in situ with optical methods alone.

The adult mayfly body fossils at Tanis therefore indicate that the depositional event occurred during a short time span in late Spring or Summer, after the appearance-window for adult mayflies, and prior to a complete disintegration of their very delicate bodies.

Their alternative hypothesis from the abstract: > Rather than a consequence of a temporal decoupling of evolutionary innovations between fungi and plants, Paleozoic coal abundance was likely the result of a unique combination of everwet tropical conditions and extensive depositional systems during the assembly of Pangea.

> Rather than a consequence of a temporal decoupling of evolutionary innovations between fungi and plants, Paleozoic coal abundance was likely the result of a unique combination of everwet tropical conditions and extensive depositional systems during the assembly of Pangea.

The abstract mentions "plastic debris forms are rock synthetic equivalents in which humans act as depositional and post-depositional agents," so I suspect the authors are thinking the same thing.

In the study linked in the article, this is written: "depositional age is known through litho- and chemostratigraphic correlation with the 892 ± 13-Ma (Re–Os black shale) Boot Inlet Formation (Shaler Supergroup (Sg)), together with other geochronological constraints"

Dyni, "Geology and Resources Of Some World Oil-Shale Deposits" (2003) Oil shales were deposited in a variety of depositional environments including fresh-water to highly saline lakes, epicontinental marine basins and subtidal shelves, and in limnic and coastal swamps, commonly in association with deposits of coal.

I was also surprised to learn that the inabality of fungus and bacteria to degrade lignin is unlikely to have been a key driver of coal formation during the Carboniferous period, instead it was "a unique combination of everwet tropical conditions and extensive depositional systems during the assembly of Pangea".