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:'''Palaeontology' redirects here. For the scientific journal, see Palaeontology (journal).''
'Paleontology', 'palaeontology' or 'palæontology' (from Greek: ''paleo'', "ancient"; ''ontos'', "being"; and λόγος, ''logos'', "knowledge") is the study of prehistoric life forms on Earth through the examination of plant and animal fossils.^[1] This includes the study of body fossils, tracks (ichnites), burrows, cast-off parts, fossilised faeces (coprolites), palynomorphs and chemical residues.
Studies of prehistoric hominins, their culture and their behaviour are the purview of two other disciplines, archaeology and paleoanthropology.
There are many developing specialties such as paleobiology, paleoecology, ichnology (the study of tracks and burrows) and taphonomy (the study of what happens to organisms after they expire). Major areas of study include the correlation of rock strata with their geologic ages and the study of evolution of lifeforms.
Paleontology utilises the same classic binomial nomenclature scheme, devised for the biology of living things by the mid-18th century Swedish biologist Carolus Linnaeus and increasingly sets these species in a genealogical framework, showing their degrees of interrelatedness using the still somewhat controversial technique of 'cladistics'.
The primary economic importance of paleontology lies in the use of fossils to determine the age and nature of the rocks that contain them or the layers above or below. This information is vital to the mining industry and especially the petroleum industry. Simply looking at the fossils contained in a rock remains one of the fastest and most accurate means of telling how old that rock is.
Fossils were known by primitive humans and were sometimes identified correctly as the remains of ancient lifeforms. The organised study of paleontology dates from the late 18th century. For a more complete historical overview see the article History of paleontology.

Contents

Notable paleontologists

See also

References

External links

Notable paleontologists

History includes a number of prominent paleontologists. Charles Darwin collected fossils of South American mammals during his trip on the Beagle and examined petrified forests in Patagonia. Mary Anning was a notable early paleontologist. She found several landmark fossils, in her home town of Lyme Regis. Although self-taught, she collected and described them in a very systematic way. William Buckland, Richard Owen, Gideon Mantell, Georges Cuvier and Thomas Huxley were important early pioneers, in the field of paleontology. Thomas Jefferson took a keen interest in mammoth bones. Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh waged a famously fierce competition known as the Bone Wars in the late 19th century that involved some questionable practices, but which significantly advanced the understanding of the natural history of North America and vertebrate paleontology. Professor Earl Douglass of the Carnegie University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, opened the fossil quarry protected today by Dinosaur National Monument in Utah. Douglass' fossils are in several Natural History Museums. Meanwhile, Baron Franz Nopcsa, a pioneer paleobiologist, argued that dinosaurs might have been both warm-blooded and ancestral to birds.
Besides looking at mammal teeth and unearthing penguin skeletons, George Gaylord Simpson played a crucial role in bringing together ideas from biology, paleontology and genetics, to help create the 'Modern Synthesis' of evolutionary biology. His book "''Tempo and Mode''" is a classic in the field. Prominent names in invertebrate paleontology include Steven M. Stanley, Stephen Jay Gould, David Raup, Rousseau H. Flower and Jack Sepkoski, who have done much to expand our understanding of long-term patterns in the evolution of life on earth. Large names in the field of paleoanthropology include Louis, Mary and Richard Leakey, Raymond Dart, Robert Broom, C.K. 'Bob' Brain, Kenneth Oakley, Robert Ardrey and Donald Johanson. In recent times, Mongolian paleontologist Rinchen Barsbold has done much to expand our understanding of dinosaur and bird evolution. Paul Sereno of the Field Museum in Chicago has made several important dinosaur finds in areas such as the Sahara, where fossil hunting has been uncommon.

See also

★ Timeline of paleontology

★ Important publications in paleontology

★ Synchrotron X-ray tomographic microscopy

★ Fossils

★ Prehistoric life

★ Fossil Parks

★ List of Fossil Parks

★ Geology

★ Dinosaurs

★ Rockhounding

★ Mary Anning

★ Fossil Hunters

★ Fossils and the geological timescale

★ Fossil collecting

★ List of transitional fossils

★ List of notable fossils

★ List of fossil sites ''(with link directory)''

★ Fossil fuels

★ Lazarus taxon

★ Elvis taxon

★ Paleobiology

★ History of paleontology

★ Bioerosion

★ Taphonomy

★ Ichnology

References

1. Echoes from the past: world history to the 16th century, , Garfield, et al, Newman, McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd, 2001,

External links

★ Smithsonian's Paleobiology website: a good introduction

★ University of California Museum of Paleontology FAQ About Paleontology

★ The Paleontological Society

★ The Palaeontological Association

★ The Paleontology Portal

★ International Palaeoentomological Society