Enigmatic origin of massive Late Cretaceous-to-Neogene coprolite-like deposits in North America: a novel palaeobiological alternative to inorganic morphogenesis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Innumerable coprolite specimens, alternatively pseudo-coprolites, are distributed in several Late Cretaceous-to-Neogene continental deposits hosted by the Whitemud Formation (Maastrichtian) in southern Saskatchewan, Canada, Golden Valley Formation (Paleocene) in western North Dakota and the Wilkes Formation (Miocene) in Washington State, USA. These massive accumulations of excrement-shaped specimens also include multi-decimetre-long specimens previously interpreted as casts of intestinal organs by an unknown zoology, possibly reptilian. The possible vertebrate zoology origin of these has been widely disputed because of the lack of any skeletal remains or any other definitive evidence of palaeobiology. Alternative originations suggest non-zoological processes, such as sideritic muds extruded by biogenic gas-driven flows during diagenesis. Multi-decimetre-long intestine-like casts recovered from the three deposits differ from the more widely distributed faeces-like specimens because their elongated forms have bilateral symmetry in cross-section and surface textures consisting of sub-mm-wide longitudinal parallel striations extending without interruption along the looped and coiled surfaces. These possible impressions of musculature are not present on smaller specimens having coprolite-like shapes. A novel interpretation proposes that these multi-decimetre-long specimens may be gut casts of a previously unrecognized giant terrestrial earthworm (Oligochaeta) that existed from the Late Cretaceous to the Neogene. The possibility of this Annelida zoology provides palaeobiological resolution for the lack of any evidence of vertebrate skeletal remains or other evidence of origination and further suggests that the innumerable excrement-like specimens may also have palaeobiological affinity.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".