Paleontology

Paleontology is the scientific study of ancient life through fossils, including extinct organisms, their evolution, and the environments in which they lived.

Fossilization: The processes by which remains or traces of organisms become preserved in geological materials. Explains how biological remains become the evidence paleontologists study.
Fossil: Preserved remains, impressions, or other evidence of past organisms. Fossils are the primary material evidence used in paleontology.
Paleoecology: The study of relationships between ancient organisms and their environments. Uses fossils to reconstruct communities and ecological interactions in the past.
Burgess Shale: A fossil deposit in British Columbia renowned for exceptionally preserved Cambrian marine organisms. Its soft-bodied fossils preserve forms rarely represented in the fossil record.
Cambrian explosion: A geologically rapid diversification of animal forms beginning around 539 million years ago. Researchers investigate how environmental and evolutionary changes produced its fossil record.
Taphonomy: The study of what happens to organisms from death through burial, preservation, and discovery. Helps distinguish an organism's original biology from changes after death.
Trace fossil: A fossil record of an organism's activity, such as a footprint, burrow, or coprolite. Behavior can be studied even when an organism's body is absent.
Paleoclimatology: The study of climates throughout Earth's history using geological and biological evidence. Fossils can reveal past temperatures, rainfall, and environmental shifts.
Archaeopteryx: An extinct Jurassic animal known from fossils combining features associated with non-avian dinosaurs and birds. Its anatomy has informed study of the origin of birds and flight.
Ediacaran biota: A diverse assemblage of mostly soft-bodied organisms preserved in rocks from the Ediacaran Period. Their relationships to later animals and other life remain difficult to establish.

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