CGS NS 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Georges Cuvier, Organism, Uniformitarianism
6 Apr 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Lecture 5: populations, environments, geology, and evolutionary theory. Via slower birth rate or massive mortality. Paleontology the scientific study of life prior to recorded human history: beyond written history of tribes, stories, etc. Fossils the preserved remains or traces of organisms from prehistoric (before recorded human history) time. Nonetheless, it represents a vast museum of life on earth. Fossils were originally thought to be geometric forms in the rock. Nicholas steno (1638-1686) was first to recognize that fossils were remains of organisms. Steno"s law of superposition layers of rock arranged in time sequence, with oldest on the bottom and youngest on the top, unless later processes disturb this arrangement. Ideas: earth subject to continuous cycles of erosion and uplift, subterranean chemical reactions that cause earth"s crust to heat and expand. Thereby causing rock strata to uplift, tilt, fold, deform: geological changes could be accounted for by slow, natural processes.
