Fundamentals of Paleontology and General Stratigraphy

Practice 2 – Taxonomy: The Order of Life

Name of the Student: Duration: 2

hr
Day & Date: Thursday, 14th of September 2023 Max. marks: 2

General information:
You will consider one of the fundamental underpinning pillars of paleontology: the science of
classifying and naming organisms—the science of taxonomy. To some, this may sound trivial,
but without it, there would be no paleontology. In this lab work, you will learn who Carl
Linnaeus was and what Linnaean classification is, how taxonomy is different for paleontology,
and why classification is important in paleontology.
Linnaean Classification
In 1735, Carl Linnaeus published the first edition of Systema naturae, which had a
profound effect on biology and paleontology. In this book, all of creation is organized into 3
major kingdoms. Each of those kingdoms is divided into subgroupings of class, order, genus, and
species—significantly fewer than the subdivisions we have today. Naturalists before Linnaeus
often used a somewhat arbitrary grouping of creatures—for example, groupings that comprise all
creatures that live in water or all domestic animals. Linnaeus was one of the first to group genera
into higher taxa based on somewhat logical similarities.
Linnaeus’s 3 kingdoms are the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom, and the mineral
kingdom.
The animal kingdom is comprised of Mammalia (mammals), Aves (birds), Amphibia
(including retiles and non-bony fish), Insecta (all arthropods, not just insects), and the Vermes
(basically all other invertebrates, including worms, mollusks, and echinoderms).
For the plant kingdom, Linnaeus creates a system of 24 classes of plants based on the
number and organization of a plant’s sexual organs, the male stamens and female pistils and
related reproductive features. This wasn’t without controversy; the way Linnaeus would focus on
the sexuality of his classification offended some. In Linnaeus’s time, many believed that
minerals possessed a basic “life force,” and as such, minerals form part of Linnaeus’s system of
classification. The mineral kingdom was divided into Petrae (rocks), Minerae (minerals and
ores), and Fossilia (fossils and aggregates).
Taxonomy – science of naming, describing, and classifying organisms.
Fig. 1 – Taxonomy Classification

Fig. 2 – Classification example

 Fig. 3 – Kingdom systematics

FOSSILS. INDEX FOSSIL

Fossils are usually remnants (not to be confused with human remains) or imprints of
animals and plants preserved in soil, stones, and hardened resins. Quite often in this way only the
solid parts of the animal’s body are preserved - shells, teeth, bones, which are often replaced by
mineral matter. Soft tissues decompose; however, the soft tissues of a petrified organism can
sometimes be judged by the results of their interaction with the surrounding material (change in
shape or chemical composition). Fossils also include conserved traces of, for example, the feet of
an organism on soft sand, clay, or mud.
Fossilia can be understood as any non-modern residues or traces of living organisms, but
often this term is used in a narrower sense to refer only to those residues and traces that are
found in the Pre-Pleistocene deposits and went through the process of fossilization. Such remains
and traces are also called fossils.
Fossilization
Fossilization - a set of processes of transformation of dead organisms into fossils. It is
accompanied by the influence of various environmental factors and the passage of diagenesis
processes - physical and chemical transformations, during the transition of sediment to the rock
in which they are included.
After the death of the body, first, the destruction of soft tissues occurs, then - filling the
voids of the skeleton with mineral compounds. Sometimes the voids of the skeleton are
pyritized, ironized, drusen and inclusions of calcite, amethyst, fluorite, galena, etc. may appear in
them. During fossilization, the skeleton undergoes recrystallization, leading to stable mineral
modifications. For example, aragonite mollusk shells are converted to calcite. There are known
cases of mineralization when the primary chemical composition of the skeleton changes
(pseudomorphs). So, calcareous shells are partially or completely replaced by aqueous silica and
vice versa. Sometimes phosphitylation, pyritization and ironization of mineral and organic
skeletons are observed.
Plants with fossilization usually [ when?] are destroyed, leaving the so-called. fingerprints
and nuclei, however, their remains are found in fossil form starting from Precambrian (fossilized
organic matter).
Dead tissue can be replaced by mineral compounds (pseudomorphs), most often silica,
carbonate, and pyrite. Such complete or partial replacement of plant trunks while maintaining the
internal structure is called petrification.

TYPES
Subfossils
Subfossilia (lat. Sub - under, almost) - fossils that have preserved not only the skeleton, but
also weakly modified soft tissues. For plant residues, the term “phytolimes” is used (dr. Greek.
Φυτόν - plant; λεῖμμα - residue). They are represented to varying degrees by altered plant
residues that preserve the cellular structure. Subfossils include phytolimes from Quaternary
sediments - seeds, nuts, conifer cones , wood buried in peat bogs .
The subfossils also include unique finds of some animals, such as mammoths, rhinos, and
birds. Preservatives in such cases are permafrost, various bitumen, volcanic ash, aeolian sands.
Amber was previously thought to be a good preservative, but soft tissues are not preserved in it.
Fossil plants and animals in amber completely retain their shape, which allows you to carefully
study their external morphology. But an attempt to extract objects ends in the fact that all their
contents are scattered into dust.
Subfossils are often considered not as a variety of fossils, but as an independent category
of objects of paleontological research equivalent to them.

Eufossilia
Eufossilia, or euphosphilia (dr. Greek. Εὖ - well) are represented by whole skeletons or
their fragments, as well as prints and nuclei. Skeletal residues have a mineral or organic
composition. These include shells and skeletons of animals, shells of bacteria and fungi, as well
as organic remains of leaves, seeds, fruits, spores, and pollen. Skeletons are the main objects of
paleontological research. Sometimes the term "organic-walled microfossils" is used, which
includes the shells of bacteria and fungi, filamentous cyanobacteria, as well as spores and pollen.
The sizes of such fossils are less than 100 microns. Many euphosilia store information not only
about the soft parts of the body and its functional systems, such as the circulatory, reproductive,
conducting bundles of plants, etc., but also about lifestyle and biogeochemical processes.

Fossils
Ikhnofossiliya (dr. Greek. Ἴχνος - trace) - traces of the vital activity of fossil organisms.
Most often they are stored in the form of prints, less often in the form of low-volume formations.
These include traces of crawling and burying arthropods, worms, bivalves; traces of eating,
mink, passages and traces of drilling sponges, bivalves, arthropods; traces of movement of
vertebrates. Paleo-technology is engaged in the study of their fossils.

Coprofossils
Coprofossils (other Greek: κόπρος - litter, manure) are formed by the waste products of
fossil organisms. They are voluminous in nature, stored in the form of rollers, nodules, mounds,
columns, strata. The most typical coprofossils include the final digestion products of vertebrates,
undigested remains of other animals and plants. Usually, they are represented by rollers and
ribbons enriched with calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium and phosphorus. Coprofossils
usually have a lighter or, conversely, darker color, often with a reddish tint, which distinguishes
them from the surrounding breed. See also coprolites.

Hemophossils
Chemofossilia (dr. Greek χημία - chemistry) are represented by organic fossil
biomolecules of bacterial, cyanobacterial, plant and animal origin. Usually, the chemical
composition of biomolecules is preserved, which allows us to determine the systematic position
of the fossil organism, but not its morphology. They are an object of study of biochemistry and
molecular paleontology.
Along with subfossils, they are often considered not as a variety of fossils, but as an
independent category of objects of paleontological research.

Index Fossil - fossils of organisms that were common, lived in many areas, and existed only
during specific spans of time. Fossil found in specific rock layer MUST have lived during that
time.

Fig. 4– Index Fossils

Tools: folder for papers (10-20 pages), black gel pen, pencils, eraser.