GEOL 333 Lecture 2: Basins (1_14_2021)
22 Feb 2021
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Lecture 2: Basins (1/14/2021)
● Enemies of fossilization
○ Scavengers
○ Decay
○ Weathering
■ Erosion is typically an enemy - but can work for discoveries
○ Sunlight
○ Slow deposition
■ Organism just isn't buried
○ Oxygen
■ Microbes thrive unless in anoxic conditions
○ Time
■ Biased towards more recent
■ Lack of data as time goes back
● Heroes of fossilization
○ Anoxic environments (deoxygenation)
○ Rapid burial
○ Stagnant water
○ Fine sediments
■ Make a solid seal to protect
■ Picks up finer details
○ Best places?
■ BASINS
● Tar pits, ponds, etc
■ Where to look
● Previously a basin
● Time period = type of fossil
● Sedimental map
○ Shows bedrock by age
○ When it was deposited
● South carolina
○ Mesozoan
○ Underwater except for young appalachian mountains
○ Used to be size of himalayas
○ Dinosaur paleontologists - they had little dinosaurs
■ No dinosaurs preserved in SC because the gradient is steep - there’s
no water
■ Dinosaur park formation
● First of series of paleontological locales we have to know info about
● Location: Alberta, Canada
● Formation: late cretaceous, 77-75 MYA
● Sediments: predominantly sandstone
● Paleoenvironment: coastal floodplains and wetlands
● Fossil significance: among the best terrestrial Mesozoic vertebrate record in the world
○ More dinosaur species than any other formation
○ Records dinosaur faunal succession
■ Fauna - animals in an ecosystem
■ Succession - group of animals die and a group of animals come in and
take their place
■ Roughly every 2-3 million years
■ Chronological replacement of one group of organisms by another
■ Causes?
● Environment - adapting to a changed environment
● Extinction events
● Environmental change
Document Summary
Erosion is typically an enemy - but can work for discoveries. No dinosaurs preserved in sc because the gradient is steep - there"s no water. First of series of paleontological locales we have to know info about. Fossil significance: among the best terrestrial mesozoic vertebrate record in the world. More dinosaur species than any other formation. Succession - group of animals die and a group of animals come in and take their place. Chronological replacement of one group of organisms by another. Gradual evolution of a lineage that continues to exist as an interbreeding population. Species branch splits off, evolves into new species, and competes with old species. Splitting of a lineage into two distinct species. A new species branch off the old lineage (typical) In the sedimentary rock record, types of fossils organisms succeed each other vertically in a specific, reliable order that can be identified over wide horizontal distances.
