Marine taphonomy: Adipocere formation in a series of bodies recovered from a single shipwreck

T. Kahana*, J. Almog, J. Levy, E. Shmeltzer, Y. Spier, J. Hiss

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

63 Scopus citations

Abstract

Taphonomy of marine environments has been studied mostly from individual cases. The formation of adipocere, or 'grave-wax,' is an important indicator of the postmortem interval. In the present paper, the conditions and the timing of adipoceric formation are observed in a series of 15 cadavers recovered at different times, over a period of 433 days, from the same contained environment. Initial foci of adipocere on the subcutaneous tissue of the cadavers were detected as early as 38 days from the time of immersion in cold (10-12°C) sea water. The discrepancies between our findings and previous reports on the correlation between time since death and decomposition stages in marine environments are discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)897-901
Number of pages5
JournalJournal of Forensic Sciences
Volume44
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 1999
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Adipocere
  • Forensic pathology
  • Forensic science
  • Marine environment
  • Postmortem interval
  • Taphonomy

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Marine taphonomy: Adipocere formation in a series of bodies recovered from a single shipwreck'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this