Books Refer

Paleontology
•Paleontology is the branch of geology that deals
with study of the life in pre-historic time.
•Fossils study
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Neontology – existing life study
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Paleontology – old life
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 Aim and Objective Paleontology
•Identification of old flora and fauna
•Study of evolution trend of plants and
animals
•Determines the times in earth history
•Help to categorize the periods of
geological time
•Help to determine stratigraphic position
in the geological column
 Scope Paleontology
•Fossils are important in helping reconstruct the
history of life on earth.
•Gives the true evidence of previous living
organisms.
 Branches of Paleontology
•Micropaleontology
•Macropaleontology
•Invertebrate Paleontology
•Vertebrate Paleontology
•Palynology
•Taphonomy
•Ichnology
 Fossils
•Fossil” (Latin prefix “Foss” refers to
digging/excavation)
•Fossils are the evidence of ancient life, living
organisms preserved in the sedimentary rock and
obtained through digging/extraction from the host
rock.
•Remains or traces of once living organism.
 Fossilization
Fossilization is the process that preserves evidence
of life in earth's rock record.
Fossilization can be define as the process of
formation of fossils.
Process of
Fossilization
•Death
•Rapid burial of
soft part
•Low oxygen
environment
 Types of Fossils
1.Body fossils
2.Trace Fossils
3.Artifacts and oddballs
4.Pseudo fossils
Body fossils
•Remaining of the hard part of the body like bones, shells,
teeth, branches of plants etc.
•Generally soft parts like tissue and cells decay while
forming fossils.
•Also called True fossils

Trace Fossils
•Not actually the remaining of body part but the evidence
that exists at that time.
•Trace fossils are actually the remains of an organism's
activity or behavior.
•Such as tracks, trails, burrows, and borings.
Artifacts and oddballs
•These are samples that could be considered fossils, yet
they do not fit formally with a true fossil's definition.
•Examples include tools used by ancient humans,
coprolites, and gastroliths ("stomach stones").
Pseudo fossils
•Pseudofossils are inorganic objects, markings, or
impressions that might be mistaken for fossils.
•Pseudofossils are objects that do not have a biologic
origin
Coprolites are especially valuable, since they
can tell us what a creature ate.
Fossilized diatoms are widely using products in making of
toothpastes due to their scratchy effect for cleaning of teeth.
 Common Fossil Behaviors

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Mode of Preservation (Fossilization)

Unaltered preservation
Recrystallization
Replacement
Permineralization
Carbonization
Impressions
Casts and internal molds
Unaltered preservation
Occasionally an organism's skeleton is preserved
intact without any chemical alteration of the original
mineralogy
•Mummification - quickly dried material
•Refrigeration – material is trapped inside ice and
tissue is preserved
•Encapsulation in amber (tree resin)
Recrystallization
•There is a occurrence of chemical changes of
atoms in the hard part of an organism.
•Some degree of recrystallization take place after
burial (crystals tend to increase in size due to the
higher temperatures encountered below Earth’s
surface).
Replacement
•This process occurs gradually over a long period of time
as the original mineralogy dissolves away and a new
mineral precipitates in its place. Examples include:
(1) silicification - where calcium carbonate is replaced
by silica, and
(2) pyritization - where pyrite replaces calcium
carbonate.

Fossil calcareous sponge

(originally calcitic, now siliceous)
Permineralization
•Porous part of the body of an organism fill with
foreign minerals that precipitate out of solution.
•Petrified wood is an example of wood that has
been permineralized by silica.
•Also called Petrification.
Carbonization
•Tissue material is decomposed or reduced to a film of
carbon
•Carbonization is occurs where only the residual
carbon of the organism remains.
Impressions
Impressions are the trace fossils such as footprints,
traces, remains of tunnels left by burrowing organisms.
Casts and internal molds
Casts are formed when the void within an exterior
mould is filled in by siliciclastic sediment or minerals
precipitated from ground water.
 Uses of Fossils
•Fossils provide evidence of evolution and migration
•Study of ancient geography
•The search for new deposits of coal and petroleum
•Fossils also provide evidence about the past climate
•Each geological time period is characterized by a
distinctive group of animals and plant fossils
•Describe stratigraphic position of bed by index,
called index fossils
Index Fossils
•Index fossil, any animal or plant preserved in the
rock record of the Earth that is characteristic of a
particular span of geologic time or environment. 
•Index fossil must be distinctive or easily
recognizable, abundant, and have a wide
geographic distribution and a short range through
time.
LIFE THROUGH GEOLOGICAL AGES
(GEOLOGICAL TIME SCALE)
Earth’s Age: 4.6 billion years
Oldest fossil known is of a blue-green algae
that lived on some rocks in South Africa 3.2 billion
years ago.
It gives the history of the earth.
Geological Time Scale is the system in which
time (history) is categorized on the basis of time
and major events. (Life form + Major event)
Chronology
Division of Geological Time Scale

 Eon: The largest time unit.

 Era
 Period
 Epoch
 Age
Time and major events
Dating
Eon
Major division on Geological Time scale.
Sub-divided in two groups:
•Phanerozoic

Proterozoic

Archean Pre-Cambrian

Haden
Eras – 4 major subdivisions
Cenozoic (2)
Mesozoic (3)

Periods
Palaeozoic (7)
Precambrain

12 periods

Epoch
 Eras: Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic
Precambrian : (90% of Earth’s history ) 4600 m.y.a. – 544
m.y.a. very few fossils, primitive bacteria-like life forms
including a cyanobacteria which produced
stromatolites(mound shaped layers of calcium carbonate)
Paleozoic: (ancient life) 545 m.y.a. – 226 m.y.a. Marine
life, reptiles, insects, and amphibians appear
Mesozoic: (middle life) 225 m.y.a. – 144 m.y.a. Age of the
dinosaurs, first mammals appear, first birds appear, first
angiosperms (flowering plants) appear
Cenozoic: (recent life) 143 m.y.a. – Today mammals and
angiosperms become dominant life forms
 Precambrian Era

First simple plants and

>570 M invertebrate animals: algae,
bacteria, jellyfish
Proterozoic

0.54-2.5 1st Multcelled organisms

Precambrian B

Archean 2.5-3.8 1st One-celled organisms

B

Hadean 3.8-4.6 Origin of the Earth

B

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 Paleozoic Era
Permian 280 M First mammal-like reptiles
325 M COAL AGE, first conifers
Carboniferous
345 M First reptiles, spiders
395 M AGE OF FISH, first insects,
Devonian ammonites, jawless fish,
placoderms, amphibians
 Paleozoic 440 M First land plants, ferns,
Silurian
  lycopods, sharks, boney fish
500 M First corals, starfish, sea urchins,
Ordovician blastoids, eurypterids, bryozoa,
scaphopods, vertebrates
570 M First trilobites, conodonts,
forams, sponges, worms,
brachiopods, nautiloids, chitons,
 Cambrian
clams, snails,
monoplacophorans, crustacea,
crinoids, cystoids, carpoids
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 Mesozoic Era

 Age
 Era  Period  Epoch  Life Forms
(yrs)
AGE OF DINOSAURS,
Cretaceous 137 M mollusks, dinosaurs, first
primates, flowering plants,
Mesozoic
First belemnites, squids,
  Jurassic 195 M
frogs, birds, salamanders,
First turtles, cycads, lizards,
Triassic 225 M
dinosaurs, mammals

33
 Cenozoic Era
 Age
 Period  Epoch  Life Forms
 Era (yrs)
Holocene 10,000 Modern life forms
LAST ICE AGE, large
Quaternary
terrestrial mammals,
Pleistocene 2 Million
mammoths, mastodons, first
modern man, cave paintings
First Australopithecines, tool
Pliocene 7M
  making, Neanderthals
Cenozoic Miocene 25 M
Large sharks, whales, first
  Tertiary hominids
 
 Oligocene 40 M First grasses, anthropoids
 
  First marine & large terrestrial
Eocene 55 M
mammals

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  Paleocene 64 M Many kinds of mammals
 Most recent
“Ice Age”
“Humans”
arrive

Major Mass
Extinction

Age of
Dinosaurs
Major Mass
Extinction
Age of Coal
Formation

Age of Fishes

First multi-
celled
The Geologic Time Scale
organisms
Origin of the Earth
4.55 Billion years