terrestrial fossil record and paleogeography

1. TERRESTRIAL FOSSIL
RECORDS AND
PALEOBIOGEOGRAPHY
MB 130

2. What are fossils?

3.  Are the preserved remnants or impressions left by
organisms that lived in the past
 best places to find them are in lake, swamp and river
deposits.
 In essence, they are the historical documents of
biology

4. The fossil record is the ordered array
in which fossils appear within
sedimentary rocks
These rocks record the passing of
geological time

5. Sedimentary rocks are the richest
source of fossils
Sedimentary rocks are form from layers of sand
and silt that settle to the bottom of seas and
swamps
As deposits pile up, they compress older sediment
below them into rock
The bodies of dead organisms settle along with
the sediments, but only a tiny fraction are preserved
as fossils
Rates of sedimentation vary depending on a
variety of processes, leading to the formation of

6. The oldest fossils are usually in the deepest
layers of sedimentary rocks

7. Types of Terrestrial Fossils

8. • Amber-preserved fossils are organisms that
become trapped in tree resin that hardens
after the tree is buried.

9. • Trace fossils record the activity of an organism

10. Index fossils are another tool to determine
the age of rock layers.
• Index fossils can provide
the relative age of a
rock layer.
– existed only during
specific spans of time
– occurred in large
geographic areas
• Index fossils include
fusulinids and trilobites.

11. Fossils can form in several ways:
 Permineralization
occurs when
minerals carried
by water are
deposited around
a hard structure.

12.  A natural cast forms
when flowing water
removes all of the
original tissue, leaving
an impression

13. • Preserved remains form when an entire
organism becomes encased in material such
as ice.

14. • Specific conditions are needed for
fossilization.
• Only a tiny percentage of living things became fossils.

15. Determining the age of
Fossils

16. • Radiometric dating uses decay of unstable
Radiometric dating provides an accurate way to
isotopes.
estimate the age of fossils.
– Isotopes are atoms of an element that differ in their
number of neutrons.
neutrons protrons

17. Radiometric dating uses decay of
unstable isotopes.
– Isotopes are atoms of an element that differ in their number of
neutrons.
– A half-life is the amount of time it takes for half of
the isotope to decay.

18. parent isotope
newly
formed rock daughter isotope
after one half-life
after two half-lives
Stepped Art
Fig. 17-11, p. 268

19. • Relative dating
estimates the time
during which an
organism lived.
– It compares the
placement
of fossils in layers of
rock.
– Scientists infer the order
in
which species existed.

20. Fossils, evolution and
Biogeography
Biogeography
Geologic time scale

21. Actual
Data
Tree of life Cambrian
Time
Appearance of complex Precambrian
creatures
Darwinian Model
Created after their kind

22. -attempts to explain why species
and higher taxa are distributed as they
are, and why the diversity and taxonomic
composition of the biota vary from one
region to another

24. Geographic spread of
organisms also tells of
their past evolution.

25. MARSUPIAL EXAMPLE
?
AREA CLADOGRAMS

26. Fossil evidence shows that marsupials evolved in the Jurassic
but after the continents started to break-up, the marsupials must have
got separated into two populations, one in the Americas and the other
in Australasia. In fact fossil marsupials have even been found in
Antarctica and South Africa as well, providing evidence that that these
continents acted as a land bridge connecting the two populations for a
time.

27. CONGRUENT BIOGEOGRAPHIES
(Comparative Phylogeography)

28. KEY CONCEPT
The geologic time scale divides Earth’s history based on
major past events.

29. • The history of Earth is
represented in the geologic 100
time scale. 250
• Cumulative findings from 550
biogeography, comparative
1000
morphology, and geology
led to new ways of thinking
about the natural world
2000
PRECAMBRIAN TIME
This time span makes up the
vast majority of Earth’s history.
It includes the oldest known
rocks and fossils, the origin of
eukaryotes, and the oldest
animal fossils.
Cyanobacteria

30. • Eras last tens to hundreds of millions of years.
– consist of two or more periods
– three eras: Cenozoic, Mesozoic, Paleozoic

31. • Periods last tens of millions of years.
– most commonly used units of time on time scale
– associated with rock systems.
• Epochs last several million years.

32. Cambrian 540 – 500
Precambrian 650 - 540