Johnathan Sorrentino's first authored paper on fossilization in varying water salinity

In general, organisms must sink and become buried to become fossilized. Therefore, organisms which rapidly sink are more likely to become fossilized and be overrepresented in fossil collections. Johnathan Sorrentino et al. recorded how long it took crickets and bumblebees to sink in still water of different salinity: freshwater, seawater, and hypersaline water. They also monitored individual cricket legs and forewings in the same water salinities. Cricket legs sank rapidly in water of all salinity (hours), while bumblebees and crickets sinking took much longer (days) and only occurred in freshwater and saltwater. Despite the expectation that individual limbs would therefore be extremely numerous, they only comprise 20% of the Green River cricket fossil collection.

Sorrentino, J. A., Gibson, B. M., Jouault, C., Archibald, S. B., Piunno, P. A. E., & Laflamme, M. (2026). Controls on the sinking of hymenopterans and orthopterans in water of varying salinity: A taphonomic study. Lethaia, 59(3), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.18261/let.59.3.1