Paleontology and Paleoecology - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Paleontology and Paleoecology

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Preferences/Lifestyles of Organisms Tell Us About Environmental Conditions ... Passive/semi-active. Filter feeding. Active Feeding. Swimming, crawling, ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Paleontology and Paleoecology


1
Paleontology and Paleoecology
  • Historical Perspectives on Fossils Principles
    of Paleoecology

2
Historical Perspectives on Fossils
  • Shaped Stones
  • Lightning scars, supernatural temptations, divine
    jokes and mysterious vapors
  • Washed in during biblical flood
  • Crawled into rock and died
  • Fossil something dug up (Latin)

3
Leonardo da Vinci(1452-1519)
Leonardo sketched fossils and recognized them as
the remains of ancient life.
4
Niels Stenson(a.k.a. Nicholas Steno)(1638-1686)
  • Observations on sediments
  • Superposition
  • Original horizontality
  • Original lateral continuity
  • tongue stones

5
Niels Stenson(a.k.a. Nicholas Steno)(1638-1686)
  • Tongue stones looked like teeth because they
    were teeth!
  • Fossils are remains of once living creatures
    (revival of DaVincis interpretation).

6
Robert Hooke (1703)
  • These remains have a fixed life span and
    therefore can be used like Roman coins in
    determining age relationships
  • First statement of fossil succession
  • Concept revisited by William Smith in early
    1800s
  • Smith used fossils to correlate and make the
    first geologic map

7
Fossils
  • Remains or traces of ancient life
  • Bones, Teeth, Shells, Tracks, Trails
  • Soft tissues rare

8
Utility of Fossils
  • History of Life on Earth
  • Evolution appearances of new species
  • Extinction disappearances of species
  • Framework for other events in Earths History
  • Guide in exploring for fossil fuels
  • Important clues to ancient environmental
    conditions

9
Principles of Paleoecology
  • Organisms adapt to their environments
  • Fossils provide clues to organism lifestyle
  • Analogy to living relatives
  • Functional Morphology
  • Association with other fossils similar
    preferences
  • Type of substrate

10
Environmental Factors that Influence Distribution
of Organisms
  • Salinity
  • Oxygenation
  • Temperature
  • Light
  • Nutrients
  • Type
  • Abundance
  • Distribution
  • Agitation/Currents
  • Clarity/Cloudiness of Water
  • Substrate preferences
  • Grain Size firm/soft
  • Composition
  • Mobility/stability

11
Preferences/Lifestyles of Organisms Tell Us About
Environmental Conditions
  • Sessile organisms rely on currents to bring food
  • Motile organisms can search for food in water or
    in/on sediment
  • Distribution of food related to
    agitation/currents
  • Therefore, related to oxygenation also

12
Ways to Feed
  • Producer Plants
  • Primary Consumer Herbivore
  • Secondary Consumer Carnivore
  • Passive/semi-active
  • Filter feeding
  • Active Feeding
  • Swimming, crawling, scavenging, preying
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