ENVIRSC 2E03 Lecture 8: Lecture 8 fossils Enviro 2E03
16 Oct 2018
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Document Summary
Taphonomy: studty of the post-mortem, pre-burial, and post-burial histories of faunal. Paleontology is founded upon the collection, identification, and environmental interpretation of the remains or traces of ancient organisms. remains relative sequence of fossil faunas which have been dated radiometrically to give absolute ages and in the past. Very important to know to understand how things work now. Biostratigraphy is oldest application, geological timescale is based entirely on the. Paleozoology: figuring out and understanding how something moved across the bottom: document the species in the fossil assemblage, compare the species in the assemblage with known paleoecological data to determine environment, document taphonomic character to understand sedimentary processes. Intra vs inter specific variation; variation within a species vs between species. This is problematic if the two species have similar skeleton morphologies but are not. Fossils help to identify what kind of environment the outcrop settled in, ex, ocean over lake. Species concept is the fundamental unit of taxonomy.
