Deep-time discipline of ancient life: fossil record, taphonomy, mass extinctions, macroevolutionary patterns. Substrate of evolution at geological timescales.
paleobiology
Fossil record
Temporal and spatial archive of past organisms preserved in sedimentary rocks: body fossils (bones, shells, compressions), trace fossils…
Taphonomy
Study of processes (necrolysis, biostratinomy, diagenesis) between death of an organism and its recovery as a fossil. Controls preservation…
Mass extinction
Short-duration events with ≥50% species loss globally. 'Big Five': end-Ordovician (444 Ma), late-Devonian, end-Permian (252 Ma, ~90% loss),…
Cambrian explosion
Rapid appearance (~541–520 Ma) of nearly all extant animal phyla and body plans in ~20 My. Drivers hypothesised: oxygen rise,…
Punctuated equilibrium
Eldredge–Gould (1972) model: morphological stasis in species over most of their lifetime, punctuated by rapid (<100 ky, geological instant)…
Molecular clock
Divergence time estimated from sequence differences given a calibrated substitution rate (Zuckerkandl–Pauling 1965). Relaxed (uncorrelated)…
Macroevolution
Evolution above the species level — origination/extinction rates, disparity, adaptive radiations, clade-level selection. Analysed via…
Biostratigraphy / stratigraphic correlation
Use of index fossils (ammonites, conodonts, foraminifera) to correlate rock units across continents and calibrate the geological time scale…