Diagenetic trends of dental tissues

Dentine and enamel from mammal teeth of modern fresh samples, regurgitated pellets, carnivore faeces and fossil samples have been studied from a variety of locations in terms of their microstructure and chemical composition. Enamel is more durable than dentine during fossilisation, and consequently is less altered in terms of its composition. Statistical analyses of the data show that contents of several elements differ between enamel and dentine; that fossil teeth are generally depleted in Mg and Na, and enriched in Fe and Sr relative to modern samples, and that the different fossil sites can be discriminated.