Stratigraphic and geographic distribution of fossils

Rare ancient bird fossil with preserved feathers, Protopteryx fengningensis, from Hebei Province, China. Courtesy The Virtual Fossil Museum.

In essence, paleontologic analysis is based on knowing the distribution of fossil species in time and space. All fossil species persisted for a limited geologic duration and were restricted in habitat to specific paleoenvironments characterized by a range of ecological parameters such as temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, and food availability. Because several important parameters vary somewhat systematically with water depth in marine environments, benthic fossils (remains of bottom-dwelling organisms) commonly are used to estimate paleobathymetry for basin modeling and sequence stratigraphy.

See also

• Temporal and environmental distribution of microfossils
• Biogeography
• Paleoclimatology
• Taphonomy and provenance
• Paleoenvironmental analysis
• Paleobathymetry
• Quantitative paleoenvironmental analysis
• Paleogeography

External links

find literature about Stratigraphic and geographic distribution of fossils

• Original content in Datapages
• Find the book in the AAPG Store