Nd and Sr isotope compositions in modern and fossil bones – Proxies for vertebrate provenance and taphonomy

Bioavailable 87Sr/86Sr in different environmental samples — Effects of anthropogenic contamination and implications for isoscapes in past migration studies

“…Over the past decade, strontium (Sr) isotope analysis has become an increasingly powerful tool in present-day and past animal ecology, for determining habitat use and mobility/migration (Blum et al, 2001;Britton et al, 2011;Feranec et al, 2007;Hoppe et al, 1999;Hoppe and Koch, 2007;Radloff et al, 2010;Tütken et al, 2011), in tracing food provenance (Almeida and Vasconcelos, 2001;Barbaste et al, 2002;Fortunato et al, 2004;Montgomery et al, 2006;Swoboda et al, 2008;Techer et al, 2011;Voerkelius et al, 2010), in hydrological and forest ecosystem investigations (Böhlke and Horan, 2000;Dijkstra et al, 2003;Drouet et al, 2005bDrouet et al, , 2007Poszwa et al, 2004;Shand et al, 2009), as well as in forensic sciences (Beard and Johnson, 2000;Juarez, 2008).…”

“…To do so and, for example, to identify potential non-local individuals, it is necessary to define the so-called "local" bioavailable 87 Sr/ 86 Sr signature, which is a challenging task (Bentley et al, 2004;Tütken et al, 2011). A variety of comparative sample materials have been used in this regard, each of which has advantages and disadvantages (Evans and Tatham, 2004).…”

Strontium concentration, radiogenic (87Sr/86Sr) and stable (δ88Sr) strontium isotope systematics in a controlled feeding study

“…Whilst the validity of 87 Sr/ 86 Sr in assigning geographical provenance to individuals has been proven in archaeological and modern studies (e.g. Britton et al, 2009;Tütken et al, 2011) we are aware of no published study to date that has attempted to demonstrate this under controlled conditions. Strontium isotopes undergo mass-dependent fractionation in nature.…”

Preservation of successive diagenetic stages in Middle Triassic bonebeds: Evidence from in situ trace element and strontium isotope analysis of vertebrate fossils

“…The study of rare earth elements (REE) has become especially important in taphonomy and palaeontology since REE occur at very low abundance within living organisms and fresh fossils and are enriched by several orders of magnitude during diagenesis in fossil vertebrate remains (e.g., Trueman and Palmer, 1997;Kohn et al, 1999;Herwartz et al, 2011Herwartz et al, , 2013aHerwartz et al, , 2013bTütken et al, 2011). Hence, in vivo REE compositions are overprinted in fossil biogenic apatite (Herwartz et al, 2013b) and therefore REE compositions should reflect the geochemical signal of the environment in which they were fossilised (Trueman, 1999).…”