Sedimentation Sets the Time Window in Fossil Layers, 7,500 Fossils Reveal

An international team dated over 7,500 marine fossils using radiocarbon and amino-acid dating to quantify time averaging in fossil beds. They found sedimentation rate is the primary control on how much time is captured in a layer: rapid burial minimizes mixing across generations, while slow deposition blends remains from different eras. This large, worldwide dataset enables more confident reconstructions of past ecosystems and could extend to older fossils if the same relationship holds.