What does the science of paleontology study in biology? Paleontologist

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Modern paleontology- the science of fossil organisms, or - the science of ancient organisms.

Paleontologists study not only the remains of animals and plants themselves, but also their fossilized traces, discarded shells, taphocenoses and other evidence of their existence. Paleontology also uses the methods of paleoecology and paleoclimatology to reproduce the living environment of organisms, compare the modern habitat of organisms, suggest the habitats of extinct ones, etc.

Term

Synonyms

Petromatognosia - Petromatognosiae
Petrefactology - (from German Petrefaktekunde) the science of fossils
Paleobiology - evolutionary paleontology. The term was proposed by A.P. Pavlov in 1897.

Sections

Among the main branches of paleontology are paleozoology and paleobotany. Paleozoology is divided into invertebrate paleozoology (including paleoentomology) and vertebrate paleozoology. And paleobotany - paleoalgology (fossil algae), paleopalynology (pollen and spores of ancient plants), paleocarpology (seeds of ancient plants) and other sections. There is also paleomycology - the study of fossil remains of fungi. Micropaleontology is the study of ancient microorganisms. The creation of paleoecology made it possible to trace the connections of organisms of the past with each other and with the environment within populations, cenoses and the entire population of ancient basins. Other branches include paleobiogeography, taphonomy, biostratonomy and paleoichnology.

Story

Georges Cuvier is considered the founder of paleontology as a scientific discipline. The emergence of paleobotany is associated with the name of Adolphe Brongniard. Jean Baptiste Lamarck is credited with creating the first theory of evolution. A special place is occupied by the research in the field of paleontology by Carl Roulier.

A new stage in the development of paleontology begins with the appearance in 1859 of the most complete theory of evolution at that time, Charles Darwin, which had a decisive influence on all further development of natural science. Modern evolutionary paleontology was founded by Vladimir Kovalevsky. It was thanks to Kovalevsky’s research and his findings that Darwinism acquired a paleontological basis.

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Notes

Literature

Yanin B. T.
Sennikov A., Makarov O.// “Popular Mechanics”, No. 4, 2009.

Links

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An excerpt characterizing Paleontology

The eighth, largest group of people, which in its sheer numbers related to others as 99 to 1, consisted of people who did not want peace, nor war, nor offensive movements, nor a defensive camp either at Drissa or anywhere else. there was no Barclay, no sovereign, no Pfuel, no Bennigsen, but they wanted only one thing, and the most essential: the greatest benefits and pleasures for themselves. In that muddy water of intersecting and entangled intrigues that swarmed at the main residence of the sovereign, it was possible to accomplish quite a lot of things that would have been unthinkable at another time. One, not wanting to lose his advantageous position, today agreed with Pfuel, tomorrow with his opponent, the day after tomorrow he claimed that he had no opinion on a certain subject, only in order to avoid responsibility and please the sovereign. Another, wanting to gain benefits, attracted the attention of the sovereign, loudly shouting the very thing that the sovereign had hinted at the day before, argued and shouted in the council, striking himself in the chest and challenging those who disagreed to a duel, thereby showing that he was ready to be a victim of the common good. The third simply begged for himself, between two councils and in the absence of enemies, a one-time allowance for his faithful service, knowing that now there would be no time to refuse him. The fourth kept accidentally catching the eye of the sovereign, burdened with work. The fifth, in order to achieve a long-desired goal - dinner with the sovereign, fiercely proved the rightness or wrongness of the newly expressed opinion and for this he brought more or less strong and fair evidence.
All the people of this party were catching rubles, crosses, ranks, and in this fishing they only followed the direction of the weather vane of the royal favor, and just noticed that the weather vane turned in one direction, when all this drone population of the army began to blow in the same direction, so that the sovereign the more difficult it was to turn it into another. Amid the uncertainty of the situation, with the threatening, serious danger that gave everything a particularly alarming character, amid this whirlwind of intrigue, pride, clashes of different views and feelings, with the diversity of all these people, this eighth, the largest party of people hired by personal interests, gave great confusion and confusion about the general cause. No matter what question was raised, the swarm of these drones, without even sounding off the previous topic, flew to a new one and with their buzzing drowned out and obscured sincere, disputing voices.
Of all these parties, at the same time that Prince Andrei arrived at the army, another, ninth party gathered and began to raise its voice. This was a party of old, sensible, state-experienced people who were able, without sharing any of the conflicting opinions, to look abstractly at everything that was happening at the headquarters of the main headquarters, and to think about ways out of this uncertainty, indecision, confusion and weakness.
The people of this party said and thought that everything bad comes mainly from the presence of a sovereign with a military court near the army; that the vague, conditional and fluctuating instability of relations that is convenient at court, but harmful in the army, has been transferred to the army; that the sovereign needs to reign, and not control the army; that the only way out of this situation is the departure of the sovereign and his court from the army; that the mere presence of the sovereign would paralyze the fifty thousand troops needed to ensure his personal safety; that the worst, but independent commander-in-chief will be better than the best, but bound by the presence and power of the sovereign.
At the same time, Prince Andrei was living idle under Drissa, Shishkov, the Secretary of State, who was one of the main representatives of this party, wrote a letter to the sovereign, which Balashev and Arakcheev agreed to sign. In this letter, taking advantage of the permission given to him by the sovereign to talk about the general course of affairs, he respectfully and under the pretext of the need for the sovereign to inspire the people in the capital to war, suggested that the sovereign leave the army.
The sovereign's inspiration of the people and the appeal to them for the defense of the fatherland - the same (as far as it was produced by the personal presence of the sovereign in Moscow) inspiration of the people, which was the main reason for the triumph of Russia, was presented to the sovereign and accepted by him as a pretext for leaving the army.

X
This letter had not yet been submitted to the sovereign when Barclay told Bolkonsky at dinner that the sovereign would like to see Prince Andrei personally in order to ask him about Turkey, and that Prince Andrei would appear at Bennigsen’s apartment at six o’clock in the evening.
On the same day, news was received in the sovereign's apartment about Napoleon's new movement, which could be dangerous for the army - news that later turned out to be unfair. And that same morning, Colonel Michaud, touring the Dries fortifications with the sovereign, proved to the sovereign that this fortified camp, built by Pfuel and hitherto considered the master of tactics, destined to destroy Napoleon, - that this camp was nonsense and destruction Russian army.
Prince Andrei arrived at the apartment of General Bennigsen, who occupied a small landowner's house on the very bank of the river. Neither Bennigsen nor the sovereign were there, but Chernyshev, the sovereign’s aide-de-camp, received Bolkonsky and announced to him that the sovereign had gone with General Bennigsen and the Marquis Paulucci another time that day to tour the fortifications of the Drissa camp, the convenience of which was beginning to be seriously doubted.
Chernyshev was sitting with a book of a French novel at the window of the first room. This room was probably formerly a hall; there was still an organ in it, on which some carpets were piled, and in one corner stood the folding bed of Adjutant Bennigsen. This adjutant was here. He, apparently exhausted by a feast or business, sat on a rolled up bed and dozed. Two doors led from the hall: one straight into the former living room, the other to the right into the office. From the first door one could hear voices speaking in German and occasionally in French. There, in the former living room, at the sovereign’s request, not a military council was gathered (the sovereign loved uncertainty), but some people whose opinions on the upcoming difficulties he wanted to know. This was not a military council, but, as it were, a council of those elected to clarify certain issues personally for the sovereign. Invited to this half-council were: the Swedish General Armfeld, Adjutant General Wolzogen, Wintzingerode, whom Napoleon called a fugitive French subject, Michaud, Tol, not a military man at all - Count Stein and, finally, Pfuel himself, who, as Prince Andrei heard, was la cheville ouvriere [the basis] of the whole matter. Prince Andrei had the opportunity to take a good look at him, since Pfuhl arrived soon after him and walked into the living room, stopping for a minute to talk with Chernyshev.

Paleontology(from paleo..., Greek ó n, genitive case ó ntos - being and ...logy ), the science of organisms from past geological periods preserved as fossil remains of organisms , traces of their vital activity and oryctocenoses . Modern science can also be defined as the science of all the studyable manifestations of life in the geological past at the organismal, population, and ecosystem (biogeocoenotic) levels. In biology, P. precedes neotology - science about the modern organic world. According to the object of study, P. is a biological science, but it arose in close connection with geology, which widely uses P. data and at the same time serves as the main source of various information about the living environment. It is this connection that makes geology an integral science about the development of living nature in the geological past, without which understanding geological history is impossible biosphere , more precisely, the change of paleobiospheres and the formation of the modern biosphere.

Basic divisions of paleontology. Paleozoology (the study of fossil animals ) And paleobotany (dedicated fossil plants ). The first is divided into P. invertebrates and P. vertebrates; the second includes paleoalgology (fossil algae), paleopalynology (pollen and spores of ancient plants), paleocarpology (seeds of ancient plants) and other sections; paleomycology (fossil remains of fungi) occupies a special place in the system of paleontological disciplines, since fungi, according to many scientists, form an independent kingdom among eukaryotes. Under the conventional name micropaleontology, there is a branch of paleontology that deals with the study of ancient microorganisms (benthic protozoa, ostracods, various zoo- and phytoplankton, bacteria), dispersed remains of large organisms of animal and plant nature, and microproblems ( conodonts, scolecodonts, otoliths, chitinozoa, etc.). The study of the connections of organisms of the past with each other and with the environment within populations, cenoses and the entire population of ancient basins led to the creation of paleoecology. Paleobiogeography deals with the identification of patterns of geographical distribution of organisms of the past depending on the evolution of climates, tectonics and other processes. The patterns of burial and distribution of fossil remains of organisms (oryctocenoses) in sedimentary strata are studied taphonomy and biostratonomy, traces of life activity - paleoichnology. Words with the prefix “paleo” often denote sections of systematic research that study the remains of ancient insects (paleoentomology), ancient mollusks (paleomalacology), ancient fish (paleoichthyology), ancient birds (paleoornithology), etc. Possibility of penetration into the biological specifics of tissues, morpho-physiological systems, chemistry, etc. ancient organisms led to the emergence of paleohistology, paleophysiology, paleoneurology, paleopathology, and other sections of P. The discovery of the chemical specificity of species and the emergence of paleobiochemistry made it possible to approach the problems of molecular P.

Historical sketch. Information about fossils was already known to ancient natural philosophers (Xenophanes, Xanthus, Herodotus, Theophrastus, Aristotle). During the Renaissance, which replaced a thousand-year (5-15 centuries) period of stagnation, the nature of fossils received the first correct interpretation - first from Chinese naturalists, and then from European ones (Leonardo da Vinci, Girolamo Fracastoro, Bernard Palissy, Agricola, etc.), although in most cases they lacked the crucial idea for science that these were the remains of extinct organisms. Probably, the Danish naturalist N. Steno (1669) and the English R. Hooke (published 1705) were among the first to talk about extinct species, and from the mid-18th century, with the development of the ideas of M.V. Lomonosov (1763) in Russia, J. Buffon and Giraud-Sulavi in France, J. Getton in Great Britain, etc., the views on constant changes in the living nature of the past (development theory) and the importance of the actualistic approach to its knowledge, although spontaneously, began to win more and more supporters. The unity of the system of fossil and modern organisms was also recognized by K. Linnaeus , but he also completely rejected the idea of mutability of species. The decisive period for the development of geology was the beginning of the 19th century, when W. Smith in Great Britain first substantiated the determination of the relative age of geological strata from invertebrate fossils and gave the first geological map on this basis (1794).

Geography as a scientific discipline arose simultaneously and in close mutual connection with historical geology. The founder of both is considered to be J. Cuvier , who did a lot in these areas in the period from 1798 to 1830; At the College de France in 1808, he first began to teach a systematic course on the “History of Fossils” and, on the basis of a deep comparative anatomical study of fossil bones of mammals, actually created P. of vertebrates. Somewhat later, with the publication of the “History of Fossil Plants” by the French botanist Adolphe Brongniard, paleobotany arose. Cuvier and the French geologist Alexandre Brongniart (1811) developed the concept of guiding fossils in geology; both of them connected fossils and modern organisms in a single system, and both were defenders of the catastrophe hypothesis (see. Disaster theory ). The term "P." was first mentioned (1822) by the French zoologist A. Ducrotet de Blainville, but it became widespread only after Moscow University professor G.I. Fischer von Waldheim first used it (1834) instead of the term “petromatognosy”, and in France A. D'Orbigny began publishing works on P. (from the 40s of the 19th century).

The creator of the first theory of evolution was J.B. Lamarck, who was essentially the founder of P. invertebrates. Close to his views was another evolutionist of the pre-Darwinian period, E. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire . However, both of J. Cuvier’s contemporaries, also not free from certain errors, could not resist his authority; in Poland, 1st half of the 19th century. The prevailing idea was the immutability of species and successive sharp changes in their existence. Simultaneously with the accumulation of enormous purely descriptive material in Great Britain, Germany, France, Sweden, Italy, Russia, these general ideas continued to be vigorously developed by the Swiss geologist and paleontologist L. Agassiz, the English geologist A. Sedgwick and especially the French paleontologist A. D'Orbigny (1840) , with whose name it is most correct to associate the catastrophe hypothesis in its completed form (27 revolutions in the history of the Earth; a conclusion based on data on 18,000 species). However, the positive result of these ideas was the formation of stratigraphic pavement and the completion of development by the beginning of the 40s. general stratigraphic scale of the Earth. In Russia, the successes of geology in the pre-Darwinian period are associated with the names of Fischer von Waldheim, E. I. Eichwald, H. I. Pander, S. S. Kutorgi, P. M. Yazykov, and others. A special place is occupied by outstanding research on stratigraphy , paleontology and zoology predecessor Ch. Darwin - C. F. Roulier, completely alien to ideas creationism.

P. 60s 19th century and then 20th century. marks a completely new stage in the development of this science. Its beginning was marked by the emergence of the most complete theory of evolution (“The Origin of Species” by Darwin, 1859), which had a huge influence on all further development of natural science. Although many paleontologists of the 19th century, such as I. Barrand in the Czech Republic, A. Milne-Edwards and A. Gaudry in France, R. Owen in Great Britain, and others, were not Darwinists, the ideas of evolutionism began to quickly spread in Poland and found in it excellent soil for their further development, for example, in the works of the English naturalist T. Huxley, the Austrian geologist and paleontologist M. Neumayr, and the American paleontologist E. Cope. But the most outstanding place, undoubtedly, belongs to V. O. Kovalevsky, who is rightfully called the founder of modern evolutionary P. Only after the work of Kovalevsky on P. of vertebrates and Neumayr on P. of invertebrates, Darwinism acquired the paleontologically substantiated basis that it still needed evolutionary theory. The role of P. vertebrates turned out to be especially significant in the development of theoretical problems of evolution due to the complexity of the structure of not only living vertebrates, but also their fossil ancestors. Based on the theory of evolution, important paleontological generalizations were made by Kovalevsky's followers: the Belgian paleontologist L. Dollo, the American one G. Osborne, the German one O. Abel and others. Subsequently, evolutionary paleozoology in Russia and then in the USSR was developed by A. P. Karpinsky, S. N. Nikitin, A. P. Pavlov, N. I. Andrusov, M. V. Pavlova, P. P. Sushkin, A. A. Borisyak, N. N. Yakovlev, Yu. A. Orlov, L. S. Berg, A. P. Bystrov, I. A. Efremov, D. V. Obruchev, L. Sh. Davitashvili, D. M. Rauzer-Chernousova and many others; paleobotany - I. V. Palibin, A. N. Krishtofovich, M. D. Zalessky, and others. A significant role in the development of P. was played by the work of Russian biologists A. N. Severtsov, I. I. Shmalgauzen, V. N. Beklemishev, D. M. Fedotova and others.

A fundamental summary of the results of paleontological research of the 19th century. There were works by K. Zittel “Manual” (1876-1893) and “Fundamentals of Paleontology” (1895). The last edition, which was reprinted many times, was completely revised by Soviet paleontologists (editor A. N. Ryabinin) and was published in 1934 in Russian (invertebrates). The most significant, fully completed modern reference publication on Palaeontology is “Fundamentals of Paleontology” (15 volumes, 1958-64), edited by Yu. A. Orlov (Lenin Prize, 1967). A similar 8-volume work on paleozoology, edited by J. Pivto, was published (1952-1966) in France; A 24-volume publication on invertebrates began to be published in the USA (since 1953) under the editorship of R. Moore and has not yet been completed; republished since 1970 under the editorship of K. Teichert.

The main directions of development of paleontology and its connections with other sciences. As a biological science, biology is closely connected with a complex of biological disciplines (population genetics, developmental biology, cytology, biochemistry, biometry, etc.), the methods of which it partially uses. The latest techniques based on the use of various radiations, chemical analysis, electron and scanning microscopy, etc. are increasingly being used in paleontological research. Close connections and cross-fertilization with comparative anatomy, morphology and taxonomy of animals and plants are traditional. Morpho-functional analysis and the study of the morphogenesis of skeletal structures of fossils lead to ever closer connections between P. and physiology, embryology, and biomechanics. The comparative-historical study of ancient organisms, which requires the use of the method of actualism, leads to increasingly broad connections between psychology and ecology, biogeocenology, biogeography, hydrobiology, and oceanology. The study of the life of ancient seas and the modern World Ocean made it possible to discover a number of archaic organisms—“living fossils”—coelacanths, neopilina, pogonophora, etc. The most significant remains the connection between P., which studies the patterns of the historical development of organisms both in individual phyla (genetic series of organisms) and and in the sequence of ecological systems, with evolutionary teaching. Phylogenesis and ecogenesis to the same extent cannot be sufficiently understood without combining the achievements of psychology and neontology. The history of phylogenetic constructions, starting from the first purely neontological scheme of E. Haeckel (1866) and to modern particular and general constructions of phylogeny, shows how shaky these schemes turn out to be without sufficient paleontological knowledge. Together with Therefore, for P. itself, it is important to correctly understand such phenomena as parallelism in variability (see. Homological series law ), paraphyly, intraspecific polymorphism, etc., which have one or another significance in the formation of ideas about the origin and pedigree of biological taxa. P. and neontology are closely united by the common and most important problems in biology of speciation, factors and rates of evolution, and its directions. However, we can say with confidence that P. received from neotology much more than neotology has so far taken from it and could have taken. P. has a completely inexhaustible fund of factual documents of the action of the evolutionary process (at least 100 thousand species of fossil invertebrates alone are known), and neontology (even comparative anatomy and systematics) is still far from mastering this fund. Neontology clearly has not sufficiently assessed the actual duration of the evolutionary process, but it can now be documented almost from the border of chemical and biological evolution for 3.5 billion years; history of prokaryotes, eukaryotes and the formation of multicellular organisms. (Metaphyta and Metazoa) is recorded in P. already by the dates of isotope geochronology. Finally, the system itself and the genealogical relationships of the organic world cannot remain without significant restructuring in the light of the paleontological history of pre-Phanerozoic and Phanerozoic organisms. Many problems of neontology would not have arisen without P. (the pace and direction of evolution, the origin of higher taxa of the organic world).

The importance of P. in the system of geosciences is no less great. Geology became a truly historical science of the Earth only with the emergence stratigraphy at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, when a way was found to determine the relative chronology of geological formations from the fossil remains of organisms ( guiding fossils ) and an objective possibility arose of geological mapping not of rock types according to their petrographic characteristics, but of age divisions of the layered shell of the earth's crust. Stratigraphic correlation, according to P. data and auxiliary data from isotope chronometry and other physical methods for comparing ancient deposits, underlies the successes of geology. Of fundamental importance for the introduction of evolution into stratigraphic geology was the theory of evolution, which was based on the theory of natural selection and the concept of the irreversibility of the evolutionary process; Geology itself did not have such a theory. The French paleontologist and geologist A. Oppel, who studied the Jurassic deposits of Central Europe, was the first to propose a zonal paleontological method comparison of sediments, and, although zonal stratigraphy did not quickly spread to the entire stratigraphic scale, this idea of P. became leading in all further improvement of the general stratigraphic scale and in regional stratigraphic correlation. This is where the scientific biostratigraphy , although the term itself was proposed by the Belgian paleontologist Dollo only in 1909. P. introduced its own method of counting time (biochronology) into geology, and the modern so-called chronostratigraphic scale, strictly speaking, is a biostratigraphic scale. The paleontological method turned out to be the most universal both for substantiating the stratigraphic units themselves and identifying the correlative features of their biological characteristics (periodicity or stages of development of the organic world), and for the specific typification (standardization) of biostratigraphic boundaries, which has become the most important international task of stratigraphy. Environmental controls have an increasing influence on the paleontological method in regional stratigraphy, and biogeographic controls on the interregional and planetary correlation of sediments. This reveals the closest connection of P. with the doctrine of sedimentary facies (the very definition of the latter is impossible without P. data), with lithology and sedimentology in general, and with the geochemistry and biogeochemistry of sedimentary rocks. P. data play a vital role in all paleogeographic reconstructions, including paleoclimatological ones (identification of seasonality and climatic zonality based on data from the skeletal structures of animals, paleodendrology, geography of ancient organisms, etc.). Lithological-facies maps, along with their enormous importance in historical geology, are becoming increasingly important for predicting exploration work for coal, oil, gas, bauxite, salt, phosphorites and other minerals. At the same time, the rock-forming role of the ancient organisms themselves remains important (many types of carbonate and siliceous rocks, deposits of various caustobioliths, manifestation of phosphate content and various mineralization, associated either directly with the primary physiological chemistry of ancient organisms, or with subsequent adsorption processes in organogenic accumulations). The organic world of ancient eras and its direct participation in the leading processes of the biosphere created the main energy potential of the Earth. P.’s connection with geology is indissoluble not only because the latter is the main supplier of paleontological material and factual information about environmental conditions in various periods (and without this the development of P., as well as neotology, is impossible), but also because geology is still remains the main consumer of the results of paleontological research, setting before them ever newer and more complex tasks that require the mastery of modern biology and geological theory.

Scientific institutions and societies. There are a large number of paleontological societies: the Paleontographic Society in Great Britain (established in 1847; the Paleontological Association since 1957), the Swiss Paleontological Society (1874), the Palaeontological Society section of the Vienna Zoological and Botanical Society (1907), the Palaeontological Society section of the USA (1908). ; since 1931 the Society of Applied P. and Mineralogy and separately the Paleontological Society), the Paleontological Society of Germany (1912), the Russian (now All-Union) Paleontological Society (1916), the Paleontological Society of China (1929), etc. The Moscow Society of Natural Scientists plays an important role (there has been a paleontological section since 1940). Such societies exist in almost all developed and a number of developing countries. Since 1933, they have been associated with a single International Paleontological Association (IPA), whose activity was especially intensified after the General Assemblies (they are always held together with sessions of the International Geological Congresses) in New Delhi (1964), Prague (1968), Montreal (1972). IPA is associated with the International Unions of Geological and Biological Sciences. It has a large number of corporate members and specialized international research groups (based on the relevant commissions and committees), which become the main form of international activity of the IPA (symposia, conferences, etc.), supported by national paleontological (as in Czechoslovakia, Poland and other countries) or geological (as in the USSR) committees and universities. The IPA unites the scientific interests of over 6,000 paleontologists, of which about 40% are Soviet. The Soviet branch of the IPA is part of it as a continental branch, and its president is the vice-president of the association.

Scientific research in the field of paleontology is carried out mainly in institutions of national geological services and companies, geological and biological institutes of academies of sciences, as well as in mining and geological universities and museums (for example, the paleontological departments of the British Museum, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Smithsonian Institute of the Natural History Museum in Washington, the Folk Museum in Prague, the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt am Main, the Natural History Museum in Budapest, the Paleontological Museum in Oslo, the Ontario Museum in Toronto - the F. N. Chernyshev Central Research Museum; Geological Prospecting Institute in Leningrad, Paleontological Museum of the Zoological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR in Kyiv, etc.). An important role is played by paleontological departments and laboratories of many universities around the world: the University of California, Kansas, Michigan, etc. in the USA; Adelaide, Canberra, Sydney in Australia; Lundsky, Stockholm in Sweden, as well as Tokyo, Madrid, Witwatersrand in South Africa, La Plata in Argentina and many others; in the USSR - Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, Tomsk, etc. There are independent specialized paleontological institutes: Paleontological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Institute of Paleobiology of the Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR, Paleontological Institute in Bonn (Germany), Institute of Human Paleontology in Paris and Institute of Paleontology of the Natural History Museum of France, Paleobotanical Institute of India, Institute of Paleozoology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Paleobiological Institute in Uppsala (Sweden), the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology and the Geological and Paleontological Institute in the People's Republic of China, paleontological institutes at the universities of Vienna, Milan, Modena, and the University. Humboldt in Berlin, institutes of geology and paleontology in a number of universities in Germany (Göttingen, Tübingen, Kiel, Stuttgart, Marburg, Münster) and other countries.

Systematic paleontological research in Russia began with the creation of the Geological Committee in St. Petersburg (1882) and the establishment of full-time positions of paleontologists with it in 1912 (N. N. Yakovlev, M. D. Zalessky, A. A. Borisyak, etc.), although already in The remains of “antediluvian animals” began to accumulate in the Kunstkamera of Peter I. In 1917, for the first time in the country, a large paleontological section was created in the Geological Committee. Together with the Russian Paleontological Society (1916), the Mining Institute, the first in Russia university department of geology at the University of Petrograd, organized in 1919 by M. E. Yanishevsky, and the osteological department of the Geological and Mineralogical Museum of the Academy of Sciences, the section became the main center for the dissemination of work on geology and self-determination P. in subsidiary institutions of the Geological Committee (All-Union Scientific Research Geological Prospecting Institute, etc.), as well as in the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1930, A. A. Borisyak created the first special Paleozoological (modern name - Paleontological) Institute in Leningrad, which most fully developed its research and expeditionary work after the Academy of Sciences moved to Moscow and attracted Moscow paleontologists to work. However, the main growth in paleontological laboratories, sections, departments and personnel took place in geological institutions of the Ministry of Geology of the USSR, the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and the Union Republics, various departments and geological departments of universities. Of greatest importance was the creation of a network of various micropaleontological laboratories (the first - at the Oil Geological Prospecting Institute, now the All-Union Scientific Research Geological Prospecting Institute in Leningrad, in 1930), departments of paleontology and biostratigraphy at the Geological Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences (Moscow), the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences USSR (Novosibirsk), the Institute of Geology of the Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SSR (Tallinn), the Institute of Geology of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR (Alma-Ata) and numerous similar divisions in other central and regional institutions of the Academy of Sciences and the Geological Survey of the USSR, as well as in biological institutions (Botanical Institute of the Academy of Sciences , Leningrad. Institutes of biological profile of the Far Eastern Scientific Center of the Academy of Sciences, Vladivostok, etc.) and geographical (Institute of Geography of the Academy of Sciences, Institute of Oceanology of the Academy of Sciences, Moscow, etc.). USSR paleontologists work in more than 200 institutions, about 90% of them are related to geosciences. In scientific and coordination activities in Paleontology, the annual thematic sessions of the All-Union Paleontological Society in Leningrad, which gathers up to 600 participants, and the Scientific Council of the Department of General Biology of the Academy of Sciences on the problem “Paths and patterns of historical development of animal and plant organisms,” which unites all specialized paleontological commission and holds its plenary sessions every five years in Moscow, as well as VSEGEI, which has been coordinating the work of territorial geological departments for many years.

Periodicals. The most important special publications on paleontology in the USSR are: “Palaeontological Journal” (since 1959), “Yearbook of the All-Union Paleontological Society” (since 1917) and “Proceedings” of its annual sessions (since 1957), “Palaeontology of the USSR” (since 1935), monographic series on P. from many institutes; abroad: “Acta palaeontologica polonica” (Warsz., since 1956), “Palaeontologia Polonica” (Warsz., since 1929); “Acta palaeontologica sinica” (Peking, since 1962), “Vertebrata Palasiatica” (Peking, since 1957), “Palaeontologia Sinica” (Peking, since 1922), “Rozpravy. Ú st ř edniho ú stavu geologickeho" (Praha, since 1927), "Annales de paléontologie" (P., since 1906), "Revue de micropalé ontologie" (P., since 1958), "Bulletins of American Paleontology" (lthaca - N. Y., since 1895), “Journal of Paleontology” (Tulsa, since 1927), “Micropaleontology” (N. Y., since 1955), “Palaeontographica Americana” (lthaca, since 1916), “Palaeontographical Society Monographs” (L., since 1847), “Palaeontology” (Oxf., from 1957), “Palaeobiologica” (W., 1928-45), “Palaeogeography, palaeoclimatology, palaeoecology” (Amst., from 1965), “Palaeontographia italica” (Pisa, from 1895 ), “Rivista italiana di paleontologia e stratigrafia” (Mil., since 1895), “Palaeontologische Abhandlungen” (V., since 1965), “Palaeontographica” (Stuttg., since 1846), “Palaeontologische Zeitschrift” (Stuttg., since 1914), “Senckenbergiana Lethaea” (Fr./M., since 1919), “Biomineralisation” (Stuttg.-N.Y., since 1970), “Palaeontologia indica” (Delhi, since 1957), “Journal of Palaeontological Society of India” (Lucknow, since 1956), “Lethaia” (N.Y.-L., since 1968), “Palaeontologia mexicana” (Mex., since 1954), “Palaeontologia africana” (Johannesburg, since 1963), “Palaeontological Bulletins” (Wellington, from 1913), “Ameghiniana” (Buenos Aires, from 1957), etc. No less number of works on P. are published in general publications on geology, zoology and botany. The current level of research on P. is well reflected in the “Proceedings of the International Paleontological Union” (Warsz., since 1972), “International Geological Congress Sect. Paleontology" (Montreal, 1972) and proceedings of other national or international congresses of paleontologists in the USSR, USA, France, Great Britain and other countries. There is a permanent section “Palaeontology” in the abstract journal of the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Technical Information (1954-73).

Lit.: Story. Borisyak A. A., V. O. Kovalevsky. His life and scientific works, L., 1928; Davitashvili L. Sh., History of evolutionary paleontology from Darwin to the present day, M.-L., 1948; Krishtofovich A. N., History of paleobotany in the USSR, M., 1956; Pavlov A.P., Half a century in the history of the science of fossil organisms, M., 1897; Zittel K., Geschichte der Geologic und Palä ontologie bis Ende des XIX Jahrhunderts, Münch.- Lpz., 1899.

Guides. Drushchits V.V., Obrucheva O.P., Paleontology, 2nd ed., M., 1971; Methods of paleontological research, trans. from English, M., 1973; Basics of paleontology. Handbook for paleontologists and geologists of the USSR, [vol.] 1-15, M., 1958-64; Paleontology of invertebrates, M., 1962; Glaessner M. F., Principles of micropalaeontology, N. Y.-L., 1963; Müller A.H., Lehrbuch der Palä ozoologie, Bd 1-3, Jena, 1957-70; OIson E. C., Vertebrate paleozoology, N. Y. - L. - Sydney, 1971; Raup D. M., Stanley S. M., Principles of paleontology, S. F., 1971; Traite de paleontologie, publ. sous la dir. de J. Riveteau, t. 1-7, P., 1952-69; Treatise on invertebrate paleontology, ed. R. C. Moore, Lawrence (Kansas), 1953-69, ed. C. Teichert, 2 ed., Lawrence (Kansas), 1970-72.

General work. Borisyak A. A., Basic problems of evolutionary paleontology, M.-L., 1947; Davitashvili L. Sh., Causes of extinction of organisms, M., 1969; Krasilov V.A., Paleoecology of terrestrial plants, Vladivostok, 1972; Paleontology, M., 1972; Paleopalynology, vol. 1-3, L., 1966; Modern problems of paleontology, M., 1971; Takhtadzhyan A.L., Fundamentals of the evolutionary morphology of angiosperms, M.-L., 1964; Shmalgauzen I.I., Origin of terrestrial vertebrates, M., 1964; Atlas of palaeobiogeography, ed. A. Hallam, Amst., 1973; Brooks J. and Shaw G., Origin and development of living systems, L.-N.Y., 1973; Evolution and environment, ed. E. T. Drake, New Haven - L., 1968; Floristics and paleofloristics of Asia and Eastern North America, ed. A. Graham, Amst., 1972; Kuź nicki L., Urbanek A., Zasady nauki o ewolucji, t. 1-2, Warsz., 1967-70; Lehman J.-P., Les preuves paleontologiques de l'évolution, P., 1973; Organisms and continents through times, L., 1973; Proceedings of the North American paleontological convention, ed. E. L. Yochelson, v. 1-2, Lawrence (Kansas), 1970-71; Termier H., Termier G., Biologie et é cologie des premieres fossiles. P., 1968.

Paleoecology and taphonomy. Vyalov O.S., Traces of vital activity of organisms and their paleontological significance, K, 1966; Gekker R.F., Introduction to paleoecology, M., 1957; Efremov I. A., Taphonomy and geological chronicle, book. 1, M.-L., 1950; Organism and environment in the geological past, resp. ed. R. F. Gekker, M., 1966; Environment and life in the geological past, Novosibirsk, 1973; Yakovlev N.N., Organism and Environment, 2nd ed., M.-L., 1964; Ager D. V., Principles of paleoecology, N. Y.-L., 1963; Reyment R. A., Introduction to quantitative paleoecology, Amst.-, 1971; Schä fer W., Aktuo-Palä ontologie nach Studien in der Nordsee, Fr./M., 1972; Trace fossils, ed. T. P. Crimes, J. C. Harrer, Liverpool, 1971.

Micropaleontology. Questions of micropaleontology, in. 1-16, M., 1956-73; Fichier micropaleontologique general, P., 1943-71; Pokorný V., Grundzü ge der zoologischen Micropalä ontologie, Bd 1-2, B., 1958; Proceedings of the First International conference on planktonic microfossils, v. 1-2, Leiden, 1969.

Directories, bibliography. Korobkov I. A., Paleontological descriptions, 2nd ed., Leningrad, 1971; Mair E., Principles of zoological systematics, trans. from English, M., 1971; Paleontologists of the Soviet Union. Directory, comp. I. E. Zanina, L., 1968; Paleontological Dictionary, M., 1965; Bzhelenko L.K., Mitroshina L.N., Shevyrev A.A., Paleozoology of the USSR. Bibliography of Russian literature for 1917-1967, book. 1-2, M., 1971-1973; Lehmann U., Palä ontologisches Wörterbuch, Stuttg., 1964: Directory of palaeontologists of the World-1972, Lerusalem, 1973.

B. S. Sokolov.

Great Soviet Encyclopedia M.: "Soviet Encyclopedia", 1969-1978

The discipline is divided into paleozoology (the study of ancient animals) and paleobotany (the study of ancient plants). Scientists paleontologists find fossil remains of ancient life in all corners of the world. These amazing people know how much the imprint of an ancient fern in a stone, in or ammonite can tell.

The term "paleontology" was first used in 1822 by the famous French zoologist Georges Cuvier. He was the first to show the pattern of change in fossil animal complexes of the Earth. His research played a significant role in the development of the theory of evolution. However, long before the term appeared, there was also paleontology and paleontologists.

Even in the times of Aristotle and Socrates, fossilized remains were found behind antiquities. Perhaps this is how fairy tales about dragons and monsters appeared. People were frightened by the enormous size of the ancient bones. They believed that if the bones lie on the surface of the earth, it means that the animals lived not so long ago. And only with the development of geology, with the emergence of a more or less clear idea of the geological layers and the sequence of development of life, the first assumptions about the time frame for the existence of certain ancient species began to appear.

Initially, the entire geological history was divided into 4 periods, but with an increase in the amount of information, it was necessary to make changes to the periodization. As a result, the concepts of “era” and “period” appeared. All geological history is divided into 5 eras: Archean, Proterozoic, Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic. Each era is divided into several periods. Each era is characterized by its own representatives of the animal and plant world. Some appeared, others died out.

More recently, the tools of a paleontologist were a shovel, a hammer and chisel, a pen and paper. Now its arsenal includes modern optics, X-ray equipment, chemical methods of material processing, and computer technology. In addition to the usual study of plant and animal remains, paleontologists study fossilized footprints, excrement, and other fossilized waste products. And also, remains that have undergone little decay. Thanks to these finds, scientists have the opportunity to learn about the lifestyle of the ancient inhabitants of the Earth.

Paleontological finds are the heritage of all humanity. In order for people to be able to contemplate these treasures, museums are being created around the world, the largest of which are: the Natural History Museum in London, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of Natural History in Washington and the Royal Ontario Museum (Canada).

And preserved in the form of fossil remains, as well as traces of their life activity. One of the tasks of paleontology is the reconstruction of the appearance, biological characteristics, methods of feeding, reproduction, etc. of these organisms, as well as the restoration of the history of biological evolution based on this information.

PALEONTOLOGY
Integrated Science
English Paleontology; Palaeontology

Subject	Biology, Geology
Subject of study	Fossil remains, traces of life activity
Origin period	19th century
Main directions	paleozoology, paleobotany, taphonomy, etc.
Paleontology at Wikimedia Commons

Modern paleontology- the science of fossil organisms, or - the science of ancient organisms.

Term

Synonyms

Petromatognosia - Petromatognosiae
Petrefactology - (from German Petrefaktekunde) the science of fossils
Paleobiology - evolutionary paleontology. The term was proposed by A.P. Pavlov in 1897.

Sections

Story

PALEOBOTANY

Paleobotany is a branch of paleontology that studies the development of plants throughout the geological history of the Earth. The existence of paleobotany as a formalized scientific direction began around 1828, when the work of A. Brongniard was published Introduction to the History of Fossil Plants (Prodrome d'une histoire des végétaux fossiles), which represented the first attempt to place fossil forms in the same classification scheme as modern ones.

Fossil plants, in the form of remains or imprints preserved in rocks, allow us to judge the ancient landscapes of our planet. These fossils are found in many types of sediments, but they are most abundant in sandstones and shales of freshwater origin. Whole plant organisms are almost never found in them; Our knowledge of ancient flora is therefore based mainly on fragments of them, more or less altered by decay and the destructive action of water and pressure. Woody tissues, pieces of bark, hard leaves, seeds, cones, cutinized shells of spores and pollen grains are usually best preserved. Remains of flowers and soft fruits are rare among fossils. However, sometimes not only these delicate structures are preserved, but even - under the most favorable conditions of preservation - imprints of the protoplasmic contents of the cells.

Rocks often contain separated and partially preserved organs of many plant species together, and one of the most difficult tasks facing the paleobotanist is to sort these fragments according to taxonomic affiliation. The largest number of remains belong to plants that lived near water, so the flora of ancient swamps is best known to us.

Study methods.

The methods used depend on the nature of the fossil remains. Fossilized spores, leaves and wood fragments can be recovered from bituminous coal by chemically breaking it down. The structure of fossil cells can be studied on thin sections after they have been polished and acid-etched to reveal microscopic structures. The cellulose film method is also used. In this case, the surface of the sample is polished and etched with acid, which partially dissolves the cementing substance, but leaves the plant tissue practically unchanged; the etched surface is then coated with a collodion solution, which, after drying, is removed as a film containing a thin layer of fossil material.

The meaning of paleobotany.

Extinct plants are used to a certain extent to correlate geological strata, but their main significance is that they shed light on the evolution of the Earth's flora. The fossil record shows that some groups of living plants are very ancient, while others arose relatively recently. You can also get an idea of the general features of the Earth's plant landscapes in past eras. Just as detailed knowledge of recent human history is important for understanding modern social processes, information about the development of plants provides indispensable assistance in the study of many problems of modern botany.

PLANT HISTORY

Angiospermae. Angiosperms,

or flowering plants - the plants that dominate the land today - are more recent than some smaller groups. Although their oldest remains were found in Jurassic rocks, until the very end of the Mesozoic era these species remained on the sidelines. True, already in the Upper Cretaceous, and even more so in the Cenozoic deposits, leaves and other parts of many modern genera of angiosperms are represented in large quantities. In the US, these fossils are especially abundant in the western and southern states. Nevertheless, the ancestors of flowering plants are unknown, and the reasons for their rapid emergence as dominant vegetation are not fully explained.

Gymnospermae. Gymnosperms

dominated the landscapes of the Mesozoic era. Conifers formed huge forests consisting of primitive pines, sequoias, araucarias and other groups that have since become extinct. At least 15 tree genera belonged to the Ginkgo family; Of these, only one species has reached us - ginkgo biloba. Cycads and Bennettites were very numerous, and the latter disappeared along with the dinosaurs at the end of the Mesozoic.

The oldest remains of conifers date back to the late Paleozoic: then they grew surrounded by now extinct related (possibly ancestral) Cordaitales. The latter had tall woody trunks and narrow leaves about a meter long. Their small round seeds were bordered by a membranous wing - a device for dispersal by the wind.

Pterophyta. Ferns

- This is an ancient group of plants that reproduce using spores. They appeared in the Devonian period, earlier than the seed species, and became very abundant in the Carboniferous. The decline of this group began in the Mesozoic, and it now represents a relatively small division of the plant kingdom with approximately seven thousand species. Because fern remains predominate in Carboniferous sediments, the Carboniferous is sometimes called the Age of Ferns. However, it is now known that some of these plants were seed plants and belonged to an extinct group known as seed ferns (Pteridospermae). Apparently, they evolved from “ordinary” ferns and, in turn, gave rise to cycads and bennettites.

Calamitales. Calamites

- this is the order of the carbonaceous relatives of horsetails, which makes it especially clear to trace the rise and decline of an entire group of plants. The only representative of the horsetails that has survived to this day is the genus Equisetum with approximately 25 species. Ancient species Calamites resembled them in their hollow, jointed stems with whorls of leaves and branches extending from the nodes, but the main stem was thick and woody, and the whole plant was a rather large tree. The most common form of fossil Calamites- This is a segmented and longitudinally ribbed casting of the wide core cavity of the barrel.

Lycophyta. Lycopods

had a similar geological history, but now they are still represented by four genera and almost a thousand species. All current representatives of this group are small plants, among which the most common genera are Lycopodium And Selaginella, sometimes used for decorative purposes. Two genera of carbonaceous lycophytes, Lepidodendron And Sigillaria, like Calamites, were trees. Their fossil remains are easily recognizable due to the special nature of the surface of the trunks. In both genera, the leaves were located on hexagonal pads, reminiscent of a faceted diamond in shape. After the leaves fell, they remained on the branches, and since the outer layer of bark did not peel off, like in modern trees, such a peculiar ornament remained on the surface of the plant all its life. Lepidodendron And Sigillaria differ in the shape and location of these pads. In the first case, they form oblique rows spiraling up the trunks, and in the second - vertical stripes. The imprints of these trunks in sandstones and shales are often mistakenly attributed to giant lizards, snakes or fish.

Psilophytales.

One of the mysteries of nature was solved with the discovery psilophytes, an ancient and primitive group of vascular plants that flourished during the Devonian and Silurian periods. There is reason to believe that it gave rise to most of the later vascular forms. The word "psilophytes" is derived from the name of a small fossil plant Psilophyton, found many years ago by W. Dawson in eastern Canada. This genus had a horizontal underground rhizome, from which shoots about 0.9 m high went upward, branching abundantly at the tops. The plant had no leaves or true roots. The thinnest branches of the stems curled at the ends, and from some of them hung a pair of small oval sporangia. Thus, the plant reproduced in principle the same way as modern ferns. The lower parts of its shoots were covered with small pimples, probably secreting an oily substance.

Another representative of psilophytes - Rhynia– is even simpler. This genus was discovered around 1915 in the vicinity of the village of Rhynie in the county of Aberdeen (Scotland). Its smooth vertical shoots were once or twice forked into smaller, approximately identical branches. Some of them ended with small swollen sporangia. Like Psilophyton, there were no leaves or roots, and both plants apparently absorbed water from the soil with hair-like outgrowths of the epidermal cells of their rhizomes.

The last representatives of the psilophytes disappeared by the end of the Devonian, but some of the plants that inhabited the Carboniferous bogs of the Carboniferous period are considered their direct descendants.

Algae. Seaweed,

certainly existed before psilophytes, but our knowledge about the most ancient plants is extremely scarce. Throughout the Ordovician, Silurian and Cambrian, i.e. at the beginning of the Paleozoic era, along with corals, crustaceans, trilobites and other animals, the ancient seas were inhabited by huge algae. Some of them secreted lime; as a result, large calcareous balls with concentric layering were formed, known as Cryptozoon. They are often grouped into entire reef structures. Very little is known about the organisms themselves responsible for the formation of these reefs, but the idea of their connection with oceanic plants is suggested by the modern processes of the formation of limestone deposits by algae.

Even less is known about the plant world of pre-Paleozoic times. There is evidence, mostly indirect, of the existence of primitive algae and bacteria in the Proterozoic. However, traces of any life in rocks of this and even more ancient - Archean age - are almost erased under the influence of metamorphic processes.

GEOCHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

GEOCHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
Periods and eras	Duration (million years)	Start (million years ago)	Animals and plants
Cenozoic STARTING 65 MILLION. YEARS AGO. DURATION 65 MILLION. YEARS
QUATERNARY
Modern era	0,01	0,01	Modern man. Modern animals and plants.
Pleistocene	1–2	1–2	Primitive; extinction of mastodons and other large mammals. Modern plants.
TERTIARY
Pliocene	5–6	7	Decline in mammal diversity. Modern plants.
Miocene	18	25	Maximum diversity of mammals; the emergence of modern predatory animals. Modern plants.
Oligocene	13	38	Increasing diversity of modern mammals. Modern plants.
Eocene	15	53	Extinction of early mammals. Modern plants.
Paleocene	12	65	Numerous early placentals; birds. Modern plants.
MESOZOIC STARTING 225 MILLION. YEARS AGO. DURATION 160 MILLION. YEARS
CHALK	70	135	Marsupial and insectivorous mammals, birds, snakes, modern fish and invertebrates. Extinction of dinosaurs and ammonites. Dominance of flowering plants.
YURA	55	190	Birds, giant reptiles, the first lizards and crocodiles, sharks and bony fish, bivalves and ammonites.
TRIASSIC	35	225	Cycads, the emergence of flowering plants. The first mammals, reptiles, including dinosaurs, bony fish. Cycads and conifers.
PALEOZOIC STARTING 570 MILLION. YEARS AGO. DURATION 345 MILLION. YEARS
PERMIAN	55	280	Primitive reptiles, modern insects, extinction of trilobites and early amphibians.
PENNSYLVANIA	25	305	The emergence of ginkgo. (Together they make up the Carboniferous period, or Carboniferous.) Dominance of amphibians, the first reptiles, insects.
MISSISSIPPIAN	40	345	Liverworts, mosses, mosses, ferns, seed ferns and conifers; "carboniferous" forests.
DEVONIAN	50	395	Numerous aquatic animals; the emergence of terrestrial animals - amphibians and insects: ammonites. Increase in the diversity of terrestrial plants - mushrooms, horsetails, ferns.
SILUR	35	430	Numerous scutes; emergence of armored fish. Algae, psilophytes.
ORDOVIK	70	500	The appearance of scutes; corals, bryozoans, worms, graptolites, bivalves, echinoderms, crustaceans. Seaweed.
CAMBRIAN	70	57	Invertebrates - sponge-like forms, chitons, graptolites, crinoids, gastropods, trilobites, coelenterates, brachiopods, arachnids. Seaweed.
PROTEROZOIC
	2000	2500	Invertebrates – few fossil remains. Seaweed.
ARCHAY
	2000	4500	Unicellular animals and plants. There are no fossil remains.