Paleontology Paleontology Aachenosaurus is a fossil that was originally thought to be jaw fragments from a duckbilled dinosaur (a hadrosaur), but the fossil turned out to be petrified wood. Aachenosaurus was found by the scientist abbot Gerard Smets in 1888 (the type species was called A. multidens) and named by Louis Dollo. The fossil's name means " Aachen lizard," named for the Aachenian deposits of Moresnet (which was a neutral territory between Belgium and Germany) where the fossils were found. ...more on Wikipedia about "Aachenosaurus"
Acritarchs are small organic structures found as fossils. In general, any small, non- acid soluble (i.e. non carbonate, non-silicate) organic structure that can not otherwise be accounted for is an acritarch. Most acritarchs are surely remains of single celled lifeforms. They are found in sedimentary rocks from the present back into the Precambrian. They are easily isolated from limestones with hydrochloric acid, and can also be isolated from silica rich rocks using hydrofluoric acid. They are excellent candidates for index fossils to be used for formation dating in the Palaeozoic and when other fossils are not available. They are also useful for palaeoenvironmental interpretation. Acritarchs include the remains of several quite different kinds of organisms including bacteria and dinoflagellates. The nature of the creatures associated with older acritarchs is generally not clear, though many are probably related to unicellular marine algae. ...more on Wikipedia about "Acritarch"
The Ashfall Fossil Beds of Antelope County in northeastern Nebraska are among the rare preservation sites called Lagerstätte, which preserve ecological "snapshots" from a brief moment in time, due to extraordinary local conditions that have preserved a range of fossilized organisms undisturbed. ...more on Wikipedia about "Ashfall Fossil Beds"
Biostratigraphy is the science of dating rocks by using the fossils contained within them. Usually the aim is correlation, that is, demonstrating that a particular horizon in one geological section represents the same period of time as another horizon at some other section. The fossils are useful because sediments of the same age can look completely different because of local variations in the sedimentary environment. For example, one section might have be made up of clays and marls while another has more chalky limestones, but if the fossil species recorded are similar, the two sediments are likely to have been laid down at the same time. ...more on Wikipedia about "Biostratigraphy"
A bone bed is any stratum or deposit which contains bones of whatever kind; not a formal term, it tends to be used more of especially dense collections. It is also applied to brecciated and stalagmitic deposits on the floor of caves, which frequently contain osseous remains. ...more on Wikipedia about "Bone bed"
The Bone Wars were an infamous period in the history of paleontology when the two pre-eminent paleontologists of the time, Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh, were competing to see who could find the most, and most sensational, new species of dinosaur. This competition was marred by bribery, politics, violations of American Indian territories, and virulent personal attacks. ...more on Wikipedia about "Bone Wars"
The Burgess Shale (named after Mount Burgess, close to where the Shale was found) is a black shale exposure found high up in the Canadian Rockies in Yoho National Park near the town of Field, British Columbia. Fossils were found in the Burgess Shale by Charles Doolittle Walcott in 1909. Walcott returned in the following years to collect additional specimens. The majority of the fossils collected were unique to the site, although some common Middle Cambrian trilobites were also found. The fossils were of substantial interest because they included appendages and soft parts that are rarely preserved. ...more on Wikipedia about "Burgess Shale"
The Cambrian explosion refers to the geologically sudden appearance of complex multi-cellular macroscopic organisms between roughly 542 and 530 million years ago ( mya). This period marks a sharp transition in the fossil record with the appearance of the earliest members of many phyla of metazoans (multicelluar animals). The "explosive" appearance of this adaptive radiation results both from rapid evolutionary change and the limits of previous technology to appreciate microfossils which formed the foundation of the fossil record before this time. ...more on Wikipedia about "Cambrian explosion"
Chitinozoa (English singular: chitinozoan, plural: chitinozoans) are a group of flask-shaped marine microfossils (50-2000 micrometres) which appear dark or almost opaque when viewed using a light microscope. They are used as stratigraphic markers in biostratigraphy from Ordovician, Silurian to Devonian. They have no neck (Family Desmochitinidae) , a badly defined neck/flexure (Family Conochitinidae) or a well defined neck/flexure (Family Lagenochitinidae). The chamber is closed by a operculum (Order Operculatifera) or a prosome (Order Prosomatifera). ...more on Wikipedia about "Chitinozoa"
Collecting fossils can be a very relaxing and rewarding hobby. There are no special rules about where one may find fossils, and you can find fossils in many places where sedimentary rocks are exposed, such as clays, shales, limestones, and sandstones. Only certain sedimentary rocks will yield fossils, and they are often concentrated along particular bedding planes within the rocks. ...more on Wikipedia about "Collecting fossils"
A compression fossil is a fossil preserved in sedimentary rock that has undergone physical compression. While it is uncommon to find animals preserved as good compression fossils, it is very common to find plants preserved this way. The reason for this is that physical compression of the rock often leads to distortion of the fossil. ...more on Wikipedia about "Compression fossil"
| superordo = Dinosauria ...more on Wikipedia about "Dinosaur"
Dinosaur Cove, in Victoria, Australia is a major fossil-bearing site in south-east Australia, where the Otway ranges meet the sea to the west of Cape Otway. The inaccessible ocean-front cliffs include fossil-bearing strata that date about 106 million years ago (MYA). ...more on Wikipedia about "Dinosaur Cove"
An Elvis taxon (plural taxa) is a term used in paleontology. It is similar to a Lazarus taxon and often confused with it. Where Lazarus taxa are those that have seemingly returned from the dead after extinction, Elvis taxa are the descendants of different groups that are known to have survived the extinction and have evolved to closely resemble the extinct group through convergent evolution. ...more on Wikipedia about "Elvis taxon"
The Emu Bay shale formation is one of two major Konservat- Lagerstätten (fossil beds with soft tissue preservation) in the world containing fossilised Redlichiida, an order of trilobite. ...more on Wikipedia about "Emu Bay shale"
FADs are frequently used to designate segments in the Geologic time scale. For example, the beginning of the Tremadocian Stage of the Ordovician Period is marked by the first appearance (FAD) of the conodont Iapetognathus fluctivagus in the geologic record. This occurs in bed 23 of the rock formation known as the Green Point section, located in western Newfoundland, as well as in geologically correlated strata in many parts of the world. ...more on Wikipedia about "First Appearance Datum (FAD)"
Fish ostolites are small calcareous bones from a fish's earing system, dispersed after the death and decomposition of the fish, and were later buried and fossilized. They are one of the many microfossils which can be found though a micropalaeontological analysis of a fine sediment. Their stratigraphic significance is minimal, but can still be used to characterize a level or interval. ...more on Wikipedia about "Fish otolites"
Fossils (from Latin fossus, literally "having been dug up") are the mineralized or otherwise preserved remains or traces (such as footprints) of animals, plants, and other organisms. The totality of fossils and their placement in fossiliferous (fossil-containing) rock formations and sedimentary layers ( strata) is known as the fossil record. The study of fossils is called paleontology. Because fossils are by their nature old, the word has also entered the modern vernacular as a derogatory term for an elderly person. ...more on Wikipedia about "Fossil"
Ever since recorded history began, and probably before, people have found pieces of rock and other hard material with indentations from the remains of dead organisms. These are called fossils, and the totality of these objects and their placement in rock formations is referred to as the fossil record. ...more on Wikipedia about "Fossil record"
Fossil wood is wood that is preserved in the fossil record. Over time the wood will usually be the part of a plant that is best preserved (and most easily found). Fossil wood may or may not be petrified. ...more on Wikipedia about "Fossil wood"
(Fossils and the geological timescale) * Precambrian (3.8 billion to 570 million years ago) ...more on Wikipedia about "Fossils and the geological timescale" Good to know http://www.shortopedia.com. Paleontology
The Gray Fossil Site is a Miocene-epoch assemblage of fossils located near the unincorporated town of Gray in Washington County, Tennessee. It was discovered in May 2000 in the course of a project to widen Tennessee State Route 75 near its intersection with Interstate 26. The site was originally a semi-circular sinkhole that harbored a pond environment and has yielded remains of the ancient plants and animals that lived or watered there. Among the vertebrate fossils found at the site are the those of frogs, turtles and tapirs. The site has also yielded the most complete skeleton of Teleoceras, an ancient rhinoceros, yet found in eastern North America and the tooth of a red panda that marks only the second record of this animal in North America. Tennessee State Route 75 was realigned to protect the site, and East Tennessee State University is building a museum at the site that is expected to open in 2007. ...more on Wikipedia about "Gray Fossil Site"
The Green River Formation is an Eocene Lagerstätte , a rare place where conditions were right for a rich accumulation of fossils. The sedimentary layers were formed in a large area of interconnecting lakes, named for the Green River, a tributary of the Colorado. The area covers the northwest part of the state and neighboring Utah, in places like Bonanza and Vernal, and the southeast corner of Wyoming. The stone matrix is so fine-grained that fossils include rare soft parts of complete insects and fallen leaves in spectacular detail. More than 22 orders of insects are represented in the collection at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. alone. ...more on Wikipedia about "Green River Formation"
Guimarota is a disused coal mine that contains a diverse array of fossil animals and plants from the Upper Jurassic, Kimmeridgian period. It is located in central Portugal, near the town of Leiria. ...more on Wikipedia about "Guimarota"
Hamilton Quarry is a fossil Lagerstätte in Greenwood County, Kansas that yields a diverse assemblage of unusually well-preserved marine, euryhaline, freshwater, flying, and terrestrial fossils (invertebrates, vertebrates, and plants). This extraordinary mix of fossils has lead to the interpretation of an estuarine environment. This type of Lagerstätte is considered a Konservat-Lagerstätten (or conservation lagerstätten), due to the quality the preservation of soft tissue (skin preservation). ...more on Wikipedia about "Hamilton Quarry"
The Ultimate shortopedia Machine.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia . Direct links to the original articles are in the text.
If you use exact copy or modified of this article you should preserve above paragraph and put also : It uses material from
the Shortopedia article about "Paleontology".
| MAIN PAGE | MAIN INDEX | CONTACT US |