ANTH-UA 2 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Subfossil, Silt, Organic Matter
21 Oct 2014
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Document Summary
Paleontology = study of extinct organisms based on their fossils. Paleoanthropology = study of human (primate) fossil record. Fossil = a remain or trace of a once-living organism. Body fossils - mineralized copy of bones, teeth, plants, etc. Trace fossils - footprints, trails, burrows, body impressions, coprolites. Subfossils - fossilization is not complete (subfossil lemurs) Unaltered fossils - those preserved in amber or frozen. Taphonomy = study of the post-mortem history of an organism. Burial (sand, silt, mud, water; dust, volcanic ash) Danish geologist who explained fossilization in 1669 ( tongue stones and shark teeth) Importance of geological context - steno"s principles of stratigraphy. Principles of stenography: cross cutting relationships - layer must exist before a feature can cut through it, faunal succession - fossils are restricted to certain intervals of strata; non-repetitive in higher or lower strata. Lithostratigraphy = correlation and relative age estimation of strata based on physical characteristics of rock layers.
