Lecture 4

Question 1

What is a paleontologist?

Answer 1

A person who studies ancient life

Question 2

Is paleontology related to just dinos?

Answer 2

no

Question 3

Paleontologists study everything that ever lives besides what?

Answer 3

humans

Question 4

what do you call someone that studies humans?

Answer 4

archeologist/ anthropologist

Question 5

What is a fossil?

Answer 5

Any evidence of life preserved in the rock record

Question 6

What are the two types of fossils?

Answer 6

Body fossils and trace fossils

Question 7

What are body fossils?

Answer 7

these preserve the animals being such as bones, teeth, skin etc

Question 8

What are trace fossils?

Answer 8

Is the evidence of movement fossilized, isn’t limited to dinos, can be footprints, trails, or burrows

Question 9

What is an energy budget?

Answer 9

these are decisions you make to conserve and maximize energy

Question 10

What is taphonomy?

Answer 10

Study of the processes
between death & discovery, involves studying the cause of death, scavenging, disarticulation, transport by rivers, reworking (moved into a rock unit of a different age), burial, and chemical changes during fossilization

Question 11

What is the process of fossilization?

Answer 11

animal dies then the dead remains can be buried rapidly or delayed.
If buried rapidly the decomposition and scavenging becomes limited
If buried delayed the remains become exposed (bacteria, scavengers, oxygen) can then be transported and buried or it can be reworked where it’s buried and then transported again and degrades again.
After burial it can then go through chemical changes if the environment favours that to lead to preservation- ie has lots of minerals in groundwater, and then maybe fossil discovery will happen

Question 12

Each time a sample is transported what happens to the anatomical fidelity of the sample?

Answer 12

it decreases

Question 13

How does the sedimentary cycle help organisms become fossils?

Answer 13

the sediments cover the organism, bury them and go through compaction and cementation to preserve the fossil

Question 14

What minerals help the cementation process in the sedimentary cycle?

Answer 14

need silica and calcite to ppt from groundwater and glue sediment

Question 15

Where does rapid burial occur?

Answer 15

sea floor- have lowest sedimentation deposition as far away from source water
river-lakes- have second lowest
flood plains- get a lot of sedimentation- more rapid burial

Question 16

In order to become fossilized a dinosaur needs to what? why?

Answer 16

die and be buried quickly, so it’s protected from scavengers (break up and eat dino), transportation (break up dino), and decomposition at the surface (have oxygen deteriorate it)

Question 17

Different preservational styles indicate what?

Answer 17

diff taphonomic histories, the more disarticulated the more transportation they went through

Question 18

For a single animal what kind of preservational styles are there?

Answer 18

1) Articulated skeletons
2) Partially articulated and associated skeletons
3) Disarticulated skeletons
4) Isolated bones

Question 19

For multiple animals what preservational styles do we see?

Answer 19

1) Bonebeds
2) Microvertebrates

Question 20

What are articulated skeletons?

Answer 20

Bones are in the position they were in when they died and the animal was buried shortly after death
Has highest preservational quality

Question 21

What is the death pose? What is hypothesized as the reason for it?

Answer 21

tail and neck curled up, can be because ligaments are tightened, get muscle contraction, in river channels the fossil gets oriented this way when the fossil sinks to the base of the channel

Question 22

What are Partially Articulated and
Associated Skeletons?

Answer 22

some bones are in “life position”. Animal was buried shortly after death following minor transportation

Question 23

What are disarticulated skeletons?

Answer 23

Can be put back together if all the bones are there
No bones are in “life position”.
Animal was buried following minor transportation

Question 24

What are isolated bones?

Answer 24

Only a single bone is found
Specimen was buried long after death following extensive transportation

Question 25

What are bonebeds?

Answer 25

Concentrations of macrofossils (large fossils) consisting of more than one individual, usually the bones are disarticulated or associated

Question 26

What are bone beds often caused by?

Answer 26

mass death

Question 27

What are micro vertebrate sites?

Answer 27

are concentrations of small, isolated bones, bone fragments, and other fossils

Question 28

What are microvertebrate sites caused by?

Answer 28

Caused by the movement of water (heavy bones settle out when flow velocity decreases from a topographic high to a topographic low)

Question 29

What do microvertebrate sites tell us?

Answer 29

Gives us insight of biological diversity

Question 30

What is a way to fossilize something using temperature? Give an example

Answer 30

freeze them, this dries out the skeleton a bit and preserves it, for example a 39 000 year old woolly mammoth from siberia
25 000 to 55 000 year old cave lion cubs from siberia

Question 31

What is the jerkify method for fossilization?

Answer 31

is mummification and dessication, happens when sample is dehydrated and has low oxygen ex: tollund man and edmontosaurus

Question 32

What is the method of fossilization that involves covering it in something sticky?

Answer 32

it’s called encasement, when the fossil is encased in a sticky liquid or soft tissues break down in tar and bones get pickles and turn black

Question 33

What are the three types of fossilization that leave unaltered remains?

Answer 33

1. Frozen/Freeze-dried
2. Mummified/ Desiccated
   -freeze-dried
   -dry places
   -in amber
3. Encased
   -in tar
   -in amber

Question 34

What are altered remains fossils?

Answer 34

fossilize by changing the chemical make-up of the
remains. These are called altered remains.

Question 35

What happens to altered remains?

Answer 35

they are “rockified”, turned to stone

Question 36

What is the replacement method for fossilization?

Answer 36

When original material is dissolved and another material takes it’s place, for ex: pyrite or silica- can happen at sea floor no oringal material

Question 37

What is permineralization?

Answer 37

Water flows through pores and deposits minerals- this happens commonly in bones some oringal material

Question 38

What is petrifaction?

Answer 38

petrifaction =
permineralization +
replacement
Common in wood- material gets replaced and pores get filled, no original material

Question 39

What is recrystallization?

Answer 39

Change the crystal structure or
make the crystals bigger due to pressure and heat, loses iridescence, original material changed

Question 40

What is carbonization?

Answer 40

this is when the specimen is buried, water is squeezed out, and there is only a film of carbon left on the rock, it often preserves 2D structure of vegetation, original materila chnaged

Question 41

What are molds and casts?

Answer 41

molds are when the fossil leaves indent in the sediment, cast fills the mold w other sediment and gives replica of fossil, has no original material

Question 42

What are the four trace fossils type?

Answer 42

tracks
burrows
borings
coprolite (fossilized poo)