https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/explorations/tours/fossil/9to12/intro.

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https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibit/histgeoscale.html
Frequently Asked Questions About Paleontology

(Adapted from the University of California Museum of Paleontology, Berkeley)

Q: What is paleontology?

A: Paleontology is the study of fossils. A fossil is defined as any trace of a past life
form. Thus, although wood, bones, and shells are the most common fossils, under
certain conditions soft tissues, tracks and trails, and even coprolites (fossil feces) may
be preserved as fossils. Although most of the fossils that paleontologists study are
several thousands to several billions of years old, there is no absolute minimum age
for a biological structure to be a fossil.
Paleontologists study these fossils and attempt to use them to reconstruct the history
of the Earth and the life on it. Some study the ecology of the past; others work on the
evolution of fossil taxa.

Q: How does paleontology differ from archaeology and anthropology?

A: Archaeologists primarily work with human artifacts -- objects that have been made
by humans -- and with human remains. Anthropologists work with humans -- their
cultures, societies, languages, and ways of life, in addition to their bones and artifacts.
Some paleontologists do study the fossil record of humans and their relatives.
However, paleontology as a whole encompasses all life, from bacteria to whales.
Paleontology does not usually deal with artifacts made by humans. However,
archaeologists and paleontologists might work together. For instance, a paleontologist
might identify fossil animal bones or plant pollen associated with an archaeological
site, to find out what the people who lived there ate; or a paleontologist might be
called on to analyze the climate at the time a particular archaeological site was
inhabited.

Q: What are the practical uses of paleontology?

A: First of all, a number of natural resources are in fact fossils, or derived from
fossils. Coal, oil, and peat are derived from fossil plant material; marble is
metamorphosed limestone, which is often biogenically deposited; diatomaceous earth
(used as an abrasive and in gardening) is made up of fossil microscopic siliceous
skeletons of certain algae. To study these resources -- and to identify areas and rock
layers that are likely to contain them -- requires in-depth knowledge of sedimentary
rocks and of the fossils contained in them. Some paleontologists work for the
petroleum industry, and use fossils to interpret sequences of sedimentary rocks.

Paleontologists who work on relatively recent fossils have developed approaches to

reconstructing past climates and environments. Today, environmental change, global
warming, and so on are household words. Paleontologists can provide historical data
on past climates and apply it towards understanding future trends and their likely
effects. If we understand the effects of climate change, for instance, on our world in
the past, we can understand its probable effects in the future.
Finally, paleontology is an increasingly important component of historical biology.
The life around us today has been shaped through its long history, and understanding
its past is important to understanding its present situation. There are a number of
techniques and fields that deal with reconstructing the past, but paleontology provides
hard data on past events. Paleontology can potentially provide much data on the
evolutionary relationships of organisms, which in turn gives a deeper understanding of
biodiversity.

Q: How do paleontologists know how old their fossils are?

A: A complete answer to this question would require a book-length exhibit (we are
planning an exhibit to answer this question in more detail). Briefly, paleontologists
deal with two types of dating, absolute and relative. Absolute dating, which estimates
the age of a rock or fossil in years, is most usually done by measuring the amounts of
a radioactive isotope and its decay product; since isotope decay rates are known to be
constant, the age can be calculated from the relative amounts of parent isotope to
daughter product. Fossils up to about 40,000 years old can be dated using carbon-14 if
there is enough organic matter present. Older rocks can be dated using potassium-40,
which decays to argon-40, or uranium-235, which decays to lead-207. However, many
sedimentary rocks cannot be dated directly by these methods; dates usually are
obtained from igneous rocks within a sedimentary sequence, such as lava flows or ash
beds. Such dates are maximum age estimates for fossils above the dated beds, or
minimum estimates for fossils below the beds.

Relative dating has been practiced for nearly 200 years, arising from the observation
that different layers of sedimentary rock contain different fossils, and that this
sequence can be recognized in other rocks at other localities, even those far away.
This allows fossil-bearing rocks to be dated relatively; on the basis of its fossils a rock
might be placed in, say, the Ordovician, which came after the Cambrian and was
followed by the Silurian. This technique does not depend on knowing the actual
numerical ages of the rocks. Not all fossils are equally useful for relative dating, or
correlation; some are rare, restricted to small geographic areas or to particular
environments, difficult to recognize, or have such long ranges as to make precise
correlation impossible. Fossils that are the most useful for correlation tend to be
widespread, found in many rock types, easily recognizable, and short-lived enough to
permit precise placement in the geologic column.

Coprolites - What are they and how are they formed ?

By formal definition, coprolites are the fossilization or preservation of the contents of
the intestine and the excrement of organisms, or quite simply they are fossilized feces.
Coprolites are quite rare because they tend to decay rapidly, but when they are found,
they are most commonly found among sea organisms. Coprolites of fish and reptiles
are especially common. Typically nodular or contorted in appearance, coprolites are
composed of pulverized indigestible remnants of the organism's food, such as portions
of scales, bones, teeth or shells, hence, they are very phosphatic in composition as
well. These pulverized remains of food, otherwise known as "dung-stone," are
preserved by process of petrification or cast and mold.
What do coprolites tell us?
First, because they are fossilized feces, coprolites on the most basic level indicate the
former presence of organisms in the area where they found, but they cannot tell
exactly what organisms were present (e.g., the specific animal species.) However, as
in most things, there are exceptions, such as in the case of the shark. Sharks have a
distinctive character of spiral valves in their intestines, so that coprolites of sharks
show grooves made by those spiral valves. When the organism shows such distinctive
characters, it would be possible to identify the organism with coprolites, but on the
whole it is quite difficult to link feces with a certain organism.
Coprolites are however quite important for the interpretation of the diet of the
organism, as well as being a good indicator of the ecosystem around that organism.
By examining the coprolites and their contents, one can tell where the organism lived,
such as in the case of the Ichthyosaurs, extinct, aquatic fish-like reptiles. In one
instance, coprolites containing the internal skeletons of two hundred belemnites ("a
conical fossil shell of an extinct cephalopod") as well as fish scales and bones were
found in the Ichthyosaur---this is an indication that they mostly lived among fish and
cephalopods.
Incidentally, coprolites are worth more than their paleontologic value. Apparently,
there are people out there who treasure them as gifts.