Paleoecology in the fossil record

elective courses

Requirements:

1. basic knowledge (at least) of English or German (literature for the seminar is in foreign language)

2. knowledge of the stratigraphic chart

3. knowledge of the types of sedimentary rocks,

4. preliminary (at least) knowledge of marine sedimentation environments,

5. general knowledge in contemporary tasks of ecosystem threats.

The subject of this course is how to study fossil environments from the remains of extinct organisms.

The course is conducted in the form of a conversatorium combining the form of a lecture, student essay and discussion panel.

Paleoecology is an interdisciplinary science focused on the interrelationship between fossil organisms and their environment. Like other fields of geology, it relies on actualist research. Although the fields of ecology and palaeoecology have much in common, they differ in terms of the research task. Ecology deals with contemporary tasks of environmental threats and their impact on the decline of biodiversity. Paleoecology, more often than biota, asks about the physical environment itself, seen from the perspective of the organisms that inhabit it. It uses the information provided by the fossil remains of organisms

The course includes an alternating series of lectures which are an introduction to individual issues (led by the lecturer) and oral presentations devoted to the specific examples of issues (given by students, on the basis of articles). The talk is accompanied by a multimedia presentation. After the presentation, there is a discussion panel.

About 7 lectures and 8 presentation meetings are planned in a series of 15 meetings, but the detailed proportions may change depending on the number of students.

Students are free to choose the topic and articles to be discussed, but the topics they choose must fit the thematic scope of the course and should be consulted with the lecturer. The lecturer suggests the topic and references to students.

Depending on the number of participants and their interests, selected issues from the following thematic range will be implemented:

1. Paleoecology - goals, definitions, methods. Hierarchical structure of the biosphere. Food chain concept. Trophic levels. Ecological niche. Lebieg's Minimum Law. Shelford's Law of Tolerance. Biological interactions at the species level. Contemporary and fossil examples.

2. Species in a fossil record. The problem of completeness of the stratigraphic register. The principle of taxonomic uniformitarianism (“the present is the key to the past”). Methods of scientific inference based on the fossil record.

3. Taphonomic processes as factors determining the postmortem record of the remains of organisms. Biological assemblage and post-mortem assemblage.

4. Unique conservation states of fossil animals and plants - Fossil Lagerstätte. The importance of the concentration of skeletal parts for palaeoenvironmental interpretations.

5. Isotope methods based on chemical information in foraminifera and molluscs. Examples of applications in palaeobiological, palaeoclimatic and palaeo-environmental research.

6. Productivity, carbon cycle, climate. Biological carbon pump. The availability of nutrients in marine fossil environments and their influence on the evolution of the biosphere. Fossil upwelling indicators. The main biological ecosystems that generate calcium carbonate, coral reefs and Coccolithophorales, and their fossil record.

7. Selected palaeoecological models and their importance for the interpretation of the palaeoenvironment: soft and hard grounds, stromatolites, biofacies characteristic of the oxygen deficiency environment; trace fossils as indicators of the depth of the marine environment; abundance of pelagic, benthic calcitic and benthic agglutinating foraminifera as an indicator of relative changes in sea depth since the Mesozoic, and other palaeoecological models.

8. Marine cold seeps and their manifestations: geological control, biogeochemical criteria and environmental conditions.

9. 'Hydrothermal seep" – a new deep ocean ecosystem.

10. Great extinctions and radiation. Sepkoski's model (1984). The geochemistry of the great extinctions.

First Degree Studies

Knowledge: graduate knows and understands

K_W11 knows the main stages of Earth history including palaeogeographic, biotic and facial transformations; P6S_WG

K_W12 has a general knowledge of fossil organisms (invertebrates, vertebrates, plants and microorganisms), knows basic fossils characteristic for all Phanerozoic systems; P6S_WG

Abilities: graduate is able to

K_U02 be able to use a computer proficiently in the use and handling of Office application software; have basic skills in the use and handling of graphical and computational programs ; P6S_UK; P6S_UO; P6S_UU.

K_U09 analyze the evolution of facial environments on the background of geotectonic transformations and the history of biotic transformations of selected intervals in the Earth's history; is able to interpret orogenic phenomena on the basis of analytical information; is able to connect data from different fields of geology in a coherent whole allowing to reconstruct the history of selected areas of Europe in individual stratigraphic intervals; P6S_UW.

K_U10: knows how to identify fossils up to cluster level, identify types learned in class, and determine on their basis the age of rocks; P6S_UW.

Social competences: graduate is ready to

K_K02 knows how to plan the preparatory stages for making presentations and credit works; P6S_KO.

K_K05 understands the need to present the latest geological knowledge in presentations and credit works; P6S_KK.

K_K09 takes care of reliability and credibility of his/her work; P6S_KR.

Second Degree Studies

Knowledge: graduate knows and understands

K_W03 knows detailed anatomical structure, skeletal mineralogy, systematics, preservation states, understands the usefulness for biostratigraphy and interpretation of paleoenvironments of selected groups of microfossils; P7S_WG.

K_W14 Has thorough knowledge of interrelationships of fields of science and scientific disciplines, characteristic for studied major with other fields of science and scientific disciplines of the area or areas, from which studied major has been extracted, allowing for integration of perspectives characteristic for several scientific disciplines; P7S_WG, P7S_WK.

Abilities: graduate is able to

K_U11 has the ability to study professional Polish and world literature and unpublished materials, has language skills at the B2+ level, acquired through the use of English literature while preparing for seminars and writing a master's thesis; has the ability to draw conclusions independently and to use them in research work; P7S_UW, P7S_UK, P7S_UU.

Social competences: graduate is ready to

K_K01 The graduate is ready to continuously improve their professional competences and to find new technologies in order to solve research problems by familiarizing with professional literature and legal acts , P7S_KK.

K_K02 cooperates in thematic groups during field classes and group chamber classes; P7S_KK, P7S_KO, P7S_KR.

The student is assessed on the basis of (1) register of presence, (2) assessment of the activity of listening to lectures, (3) independent preparation of a multimedia presentation, (3) public presentation of a lecture based on the assigned or independently selected English literature, (4) submission of a written presentation outline (extended version) and (5) on the basis of the current assessment of his participation in discussions on the papers. Two absences from classes are allowed, confirmed by a medical doctor or for other important random reasons.

none