ANTH 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Laurasia, Paleosol, South America
Document Summary
Taphonomy: study of what happens to remains from death to discovery. Uniformitarianism suggests that processes operating today are also those that operate in the past and thus they can explain the fossil and geological record. Principle of superposition: younger layers of rock precede or sit on top of older rocks, gravity is acting regularly, they are flat, tilted layers. Principle of original horizontality: the rocks are horizontally aligned. Principle of cross-cutting relationships: magma coming up and break through cracks on the upper layers, magma then cools and creates different rocks. Principle of faunal succession: geology of older stratas, there might be biological life forms, the changes or succession of fauna(animals) through layers. Biostratigraphy, index fossils: certain kinds of these animals that typify a layer. Once a type of fossil leaves a section, it does not reappear higher in the section. Provenience: the precise location from which the fossils come.
