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The simplest definition of "paleontology" is "the study of ancient life". [5] The field seeks information about several aspects of past organisms: "their identity and origin, their environment and evolution, and what they can tell us about the Earth's organic and inorganic past".
The study of molecular paleontology is said to have begun with the discovery by Abelson of 360 million year old amino acids preserved in fossil shells. [12] However, Svante Pääbo is often the one considered to be the founder of the field of molecular paleontology.
The history of paleontology traces the history of the effort to understand the history of life on Earth by studying the fossil record left behind by living organisms. Since it is concerned with understanding living organisms of the past, paleontology can be considered to be a field of biology, but its historical development has been closely tied to geology and the effort to understand the ...
Even when fossils that are found in paleosols are understood, much more can be learned regarding their preservation, ecology, and evolution by studying the paleosols they inhabited. Fossil stumps in a paleosol. A fossilized footprint, burrow, or coprolite (fossil feces), are examples of trace fossils (ichnofossils). These trace fossils do not ...
Fossil collecting (sometimes, in a non-scientific sense, fossil hunting) is the collection of fossils for scientific study, hobby, or profit. Fossil collecting, as practiced by amateurs, is the predecessor of modern paleontology and many still collect fossils and study fossils as amateurs.
A geologist is a scientist who studies the structure, composition, and history of Earth.Geologists incorporate techniques from physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and geography to perform research in the field and the laboratory.
The study of rocks involves multiple subdisciplines of geology, including petrology and mineralogy. It may be limited to rocks found on Earth, or it may include planetary geology that studies the rocks of other celestial objects. Rocks are usually grouped into three main groups: igneous rocks, sedimentary rocks and metamorphic rocks.
Palaeozoology, also spelled as Paleozoology (Greek: παλαιόν, palaeon "old" and ζῷον, zoon "animal"), is the branch of paleontology, paleobiology, or zoology dealing with the recovery and identification of multicellular animal remains from geological (or even archeological) contexts, and the use of these fossils in the reconstruction of prehistoric environments and ancient ecosystems.