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photo credits: Wikimedia Commons
Paleontology , also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossils to classify organisms and study their interactions with each other and their environments (their paleoecology). Paleontological observations have been documented as far back as the 5th century BC. The science became established in the 18th century as a result of Georges Cuvier's work on comparative anatomy, and developed rapidly in the 19th century. The term has been used since 1822 formed from Greek παλαιός ('palaios', "old, ancient"), ὄν ('on', (gen. 'ontos'), "being, creature"), and λόγος ('logos', "speech, thought, study").Paleontology lies on the border between biology and geology, but it differs from archaeology in that it excludes the study of anatomically modern humans. It now uses techniques drawn from a wide range of sciences, including biochemistry, mathematics, and engineering. Use of all these techniques has enabled paleontologists to discover much of the evolutionary history of life, almost all the way back to when Earth became capable of supporting life, nearly 4 billion years ago. As knowledge has increased, paleontology has developed specialised sub-divisions, some of which focus on different types of fossil organisms while others study ecology and environmental history, such as ancient climates. Body fossils and trace fossils are the principal types of evidence about ancient life, and geochemical evidence has helped to decipher the evolution of life before there were organisms large enough to leave body fossils. Estimating the dates of these remains is essential but difficult: sometimes adjacent rock layers allow radiometric dating, which provides absolute dates that are accurate to within 0.5%, but more often paleontologists have to rely on relative dating by solving the "jigsaw puzzles" of biostratigraphy (arrangement of rock layers from youngest to oldest). Classifying ancient organisms is also difficult, as many do not fit well into the Linnaean taxonomy classifying living organisms, and paleontologists more often use cladistics to draw up evolutionary "family trees". The final quarter of the 20th century saw the development of molecular phylogenetics, which investigates how closely organisms are related by measuring the similarity of the DNA in their genomes. Molecular phylogenetics has also been used to estimate the dates when species diverged, but there is controversy about the reliability of the molecular clock on which such estimates depend. Source: Wikipedia (en)
Works about paleontology 30
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The Bones of Grace
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Evolution: The Story of Life
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Prehistoric Life
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Mars Field Geology, Biology, and Paleontology Workshop, Summary and Recommendations: November 18-19, 1998, Space Center Houston
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Les fossiles - empreinte des mondes disparus
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Précis de paléontologie des vertébrés
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Principles of paleontology / David M. Raup, Steven M. Stanley
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Encyclopedia of paleoherpetology / ed. Oskar Kuhn. - 1969-
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Théobald
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The Day of the Dinosaur
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Le Père Theilhard de Chardin savant
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Traité de paléontologie
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La paléontologie humaine et ses problèmes
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Olduvai Gorge; a report on the evolution of the hand-axe culture in beds I-IV
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Nova Guinea
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Alphabetical hand-list of New Zealand Tertiary Mollusca
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Estudo summario do reino animal no Brazil, antes da ultima revolução do globo
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"Fauna der Gaskohle und der Kalksteine der Permformation Böhmens - Zweiter Band - Stegocephali (Schluss) - Dipnoi, Selachii (Anfang)"
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O naturalista Dr. Lund (Peter Wilhelm) - sua vida e seus trabalhos
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Air-breathers of the coal period...
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Paléontologie de Maine et Loire : comprenant avec des observations et l'indication des diverses formations géologiques du département de Maine et Loire...
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Uber noch zahlreich jetzt lebende thierarten der kreidebildung
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Pétrifications recueillies en Amérique par Mr Alexandre de Humboldt et par Mr Charles Degenhardt, décrites par Léopold de Buch
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Recherches sur les ossements fossiles
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Handbook of paleontology for beginners and amateurs
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Growth, chamber formation, and microscale heterogeneity in planktic foraminifera: implications for paleoclimate proxies
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Matériaux pour la paléontologie suisse
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Lost Ocean
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Expeditionen in die Urwelt
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Traité de paléontologie
Subject - wd:Q7205