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In biology, an identification key, taxonomic key, or frequently just key, is a printed or computer-aided device that aids in the identification of biological organisms. Historically, the most common type of identification key is the dichotomous key , a type of single-access key which offers a fixed sequence of identification steps, each with ...
Index fossils must have a short vertical range, wide geographic distribution and rapid evolutionary trends. Another term, "zone fossil", is used when the fossil has all the characters stated above except wide geographical distribution; thus, they correlate the surrounding rock to a biozone rather than a specific time period.
Most of the generic names in this list come from Jack Sepkoski's 2002 compendium of marine fossil genera, which can be corroborated by other sources such as Part L, Ammonoidea, in the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology. Additional generic names included come from the Treatise or various peer review scientific journals.
However, if the fossil species recorded are similar, the two sediments are likely to have been laid down around the same time. Ideally these fossils are used to help identify biozones, as they make up the basic biostratigraphy units, and define geological time periods based upon the fossil species found within each section.
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.
In trace fossil nomenclature a Latin binomial name is used, just as in animal and plant taxonomy, with a genus and specific epithet. However, the binomial names are not linked to an organism, but rather just a trace fossil. This is due to the rarity of association between a trace fossil and a specific organism or group of organisms.
The chimpanzee–human divergence likely took place around 10 to 7 million years ago. [1] The list of fossils begins with Graecopithecus, dated some 7.2 million years ago, which may or may not still be ancestral to both the human and the chimpanzee lineage.
The images of the living OTUs (29 species) were made available in the early 1960s; those of the fossil ones (48 species) later in the decade. These images were copied using xerography . Copies of all OTUs were in the possession of Dr. Paul A. Ehrlich ( Stanford University ), Dr. W. Wayne Moss (Philadelphia Academy of Sciences) and Robert R ...