PALEOECOLOGY
- Overview
- Assessment methods
- Learning objectives
- Contents
- Bibliography
- Teaching methods
- Contacts/Info
Preferable , but not mandatory , having attended a Paleontology taching duirng bachelor course. Not necessary because in the first lessons the main concepts about fossilization are repeated. Basic knowledge of Zoology, Botany and Geology
Final test consisting in a presentation by the student (oral or with power point slides) of an argument treated in the course (one third final grade) and two questions on topics from other sections of the course (two thirds of the final grade) aimed to check the knowledge of contents and the understanding of the processes involved in the events studied. Evaluation by attribution of a final grade.
Knowledge of: the aspects of fossils that make them ecological markers; how the reconstruction of life habits of ancient organisms, along with sedimentological and paleobiogeographic data can document the evolution of biodiversity, selective pressures that led to biotic successions. The latter represnts the basis for the elaboration of interpretative models to explain the great biological crisis like mass extinctions.
Ability to interpret an orictocoenosis (fossil equivalent of biocoenosis) delieating with the help of sedimentological data , a general frame of the environment in which lived the fossilized organisms and of the causes that allowed their preservation with particular reference to deposits with execptional conservation (Lagerstatten).
Introduction Fossil formation. Exceptional preservation deposits (fossil Lagertstaetten) definition and classification (concentration, conservation depostis, etc.); excavation methods (in rocks, in inconsolidated sediment) e preparation.
Introduction to Paleoecology Fossils as environmental indicators: Examples; Evidences of diet, Plants as paleoenvironmental, Fossil traces, significance and classification, Brackish and oxygen depleted environments. Reefs, structure and importance as environmental/Paleoenvironmental indicators
Functional morphology as a clue for paleoenvironment recostruction
Environmental successions in the past; Evolution of plant communities, Evolution of Triassic faunas, Evolution of mammal faunas during Late Tertiary del Terziario superiore; faunal interchanges, exctinction of the megafauna.
Interpretative models Great biological crisis, cause ed effetti; coadaptation and relationships/coevolution organisms-habitat (models compared).
Main Lagerstaetten paleoenvironment and depositional environment Burgess, Chenjiang, Sirius Passet ed Orsten; Monte San Giorgio; Calcare di Zorzino; Solnhofen; Holzmaden;Santana Formation, Karoo, Liaoning, Messel, Morrison, Guizhou, Mongolia, Libano, Ischigualasto, Osteno
Pdf with the slides shown during the course made available on elearning; excerpts from the book Palaeobiology a synthesis, made avialble on elearning.
It is also advisable to consult the text book Serpagli Raffi Introduzione alla Paleontologia UTET.
44 hours front lessons in teleteaching, 4 hours seminars in museums to examine lithologies of the fossil lagerstaetten. Discussion of specialized papers about topics of particular interest like biotic crises
Sudents are received by appointment via e mail, at the teacher's office at the DiSTA, ground (BLUE) floor, via Dunant 3 Varese.