The total-evidence approach to divergence time dating uses molecular and morphological data from extant and fossil species to infer phylogenetic relationships, species divergence times, and macroevolutionary parameters in a single coherent framework. Current model-based implementations of this approach lack an appropriate model for the tree describing the diversification and fossilization proce...

The utility of fossils in evolutionary contexts is dependent on their accurate placement in phylogenetic frameworks, yet intrinsic and widespread missing data make this problematic. The complex taphonomic processes occurring during fossilization can make it difficult to distinguish absence from non-preservation, especially in the case of exceptionally preserved soft-tissue fossils: is a particu...

Microbial fossils preserved by early diagenetic chert provide a window into the Proterozoic biosphere, but seawater chemistry, microbial processes, and interactions between microbes environment that contributed to this preservation are not well constrained. Here, we use fossilization experiments explore processes preserve marine cyanobacterial biofilms precipitation of amorphous silica in mediu...