Paleontology Rediscovered!

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I've been wanting to make a thread like this for a while now and I finally got the time to do it! So first off a bit about myself, I'm a huge paleo nerd ever since I was young. I love learning about prehistoric animals and the different geological periods. Unfortunately, none of my friends and family in real life share the same interests as me so I thought of hopping online, and hopefully, I'll be to meet new friends who share the same interests!

To put it simply, paleontology is the study of prehistory life. It is the scientific study of the history of life - including both plants and animals - on Earth based on fossils. Fossils are the remains or impressions of plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, and single-celled living things that have been replaced by rock material or preserved in the Earth's crust. They can take the form of bones, shells, impressions, amber, petrified wood, oil, coal, and more!

I'll be posting any club updates here if necessary! Feel free to mark the thread or join the club using the form below! I have also decided I'll be talking about a prehistoric animal and a period in the geological timescale in different posts every week.

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[b]Username:[/b]
[b]What do you like best about Paleontology?[/b]
[b]Favourite time period:[/b]
[b]Favourite prehistoric animal:[/b]

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The geologic time scale is a system of chronological dating that classifies geological strata in time. It can be considered the “calendar” for events in Earth's history. It subdivides all time into named units of abstract time called—in descending order of duration—eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages. It is used by geologists, paleontologists, and other Earth scientists to describe the timing and relationships of events in geologic history.

Four eons are recognized: the Phanerozoic Eon (dating from the present back to the beginning of the Cambrian Period), the Proterozoic Eon, the Archean Eon, and the Hadean Eon. There is a total of four eras - the Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic Eras. I'll be talking more about the different eons and eras, as well as the periods of the geological timescale in different posts within the weeks to come (:

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It is a common mistake for many people to confuse paleontology with archeology. In this post, we'll find out the difference between the two, and why they are different. We've already explained what paleontology is in the above post, but what about archeology?

Archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture by excavating, dating and interpreting objects and sites of historical interest. Archaeology is often considered a branch of socio-cultural anthropology, but archaeologists also draw from biological, geological, and environmental systems through their study of the past

Paleontology and archaeology are two closely related scientific fields of study. Despite having several similarities, they have different and distinct goals. A Paleontologist studies fossils while an archaeologist studies human artifacts and its remains.

The fossils studied by paleontologists and archeologists include bones, shells, body imprints, wood, and many others. The paleontologist studies these items to try to understand the forms of life that existed on Earth thousands or millions of years ago. An archaeologist studies the same items to try to understand human life and history.

Paleontology as a field of study can be placed somewhere between geology and biology, and can be differentiated from archeology because it excludes the study of the anatomy of modern humans. The techniques employed in paleontology borrow heavily from engineering, mathematics, and biochemistry. Paleontologists have been able to discover the evolutionary path of life going back to approximately 3.8 billion years.

Archeology is different from paleontology because it focuses on past human life as opposed to the past general life forms. Archeologist studies human history and prehistory starting way back in the era of stone tools in about 3.3 million years until the recent past decades. Prehistory covers more than 99% of human past starting from the Paleolithic period until the era of the advent of literacy.

Some branches of Paleontology include Vertebrate paleontology Invertebrate paleontology, Paleobotany, Palynology, Micropaleontology, Paleoecology, Paleoclimatology, Biostratigraphy, and Biogeography.

Some branches of Archeology include Historical archeology, Ethnoarchaeology, Experimental archeology, Archaeometry, Medieval archaeology, Near-Eastern archaeology, Maritime archaeology, Landscape archaeology, Battlefield archaeology, Sinology, Indology, and Egyptology.

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For this week's Creature of the Week, we'll be talking about Hallucigenia! This is an extinct genus found during the Middle Cambrian period in the Burgess Shale of British Columbia, Canada. Hallucigenia is now recognized as a "lobopodian worm" and is considered to represent an early ancestor of the living velvet worms. There are three known species of Hallucigenia: H. sparsa, H. fortis, and H. hongmeia.

Hallucigenia is a 0.5 – 5.5 cm long tubular organism with seven or eight pairs of slender legs, each terminating with a pair of claws. Above each leg is a rigid conical spine. Hallucigenia's spines are made up of one to four nested elements. The spine surface of Hallucigenia sparsa is covered in an ornament of minute triangular 'scales', while the spine surface of Hallucigenia hongmeia is a net-like texture of microscopic circular openings, which can be interpreted as the remains of Papillae. They may have also had hair-like setae lining their fine anterior appendages for use in filter feeding.

[Painful Affinity]

Username: Painful Affinity
What do you like best about Paleontology? the many strange creatures :D
Favourite time period: i honestly don't know, i'm just enjoying every time i discover a cool/weird prehistoric animal i didn't know about yet like the leggy worm in your last post :D
Favourite prehistoric animal: Parasaurolophus (pretty much all dinosaurs tbh), Macrauchenia, Tullimonstrum, probably more but those are all i could remember off the top of my head

Idk what i'm doing tbh i just like paleo stuff without actually knowing much about it and your thread is great and informative, thanks for creating it! :)

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Username: Painful Affinity
What do you like best about Paleontology? the many strange creatures
Favourite time period: i honestly don't know, i'm just enjoying every time i discover a cool/weird prehistoric animal i didn't know about yet like the leggy worm in your last post
Favourite prehistoric animal: Parasaurolophus (pretty much all dinosaurs tbh), Macrauchenia, Tullimonstrum, probably more but those are all i could remember off the top of my head

Idk what i'm doing tbh i just like paleo stuff without actually knowing much about it and your thread is great and informative, thanks for creating it!

hi! omg thanks for joining! (: I love paleontology and thought I'd share some of the knowledge I've discovered here! Stay tuned for more posts coming soon (:

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Alright for this week we'll be talking about the Crambrian, the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 55.6 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 541 million years ago (mya) to the beginning of the Ordovician Period 485.4 mya.

The Cambrian marked a profound change in life on Earth; prior to the Cambrian, the majority of living organisms, on the whole, were small, unicellular, and simple. Complex, multicellular organisms gradually became more common in the millions of years immediately preceding the Cambrian, but it was not until this period that mineralized—hence readily fossilized—organisms became common.

The period marked a steep change in the diversity and composition of Earth's biosphere. The Ediacaran biota suffered a mass extinction at the start of the Cambrian Period, which corresponded with an increase in the abundance and complexity of burrowing behaviour. This behaviour had a profound and irreversible effect on the substrate which transformed the seabed ecosystems. Before the Cambrian, the seafloor was covered by microbial mats. By the end of the Cambrian, burrowing animals had destroyed the mats in many areas through bioturbation and gradually turned the seabeds into what they are today. As a consequence, many of those organisms that were dependent on the mats became extinct, while the other species adapted to the changed environment that now offered new ecological niches.

Plate reconstructions suggest a global supercontinent, Pannotia, was in the process of breaking up early in the period, with Laurentia (North America), Baltica, and Siberia having separated from the main supercontinent of Gondwana to form isolated land masses. Most continental land was clustered in the Southern Hemisphere at this time, but was drifting north. Large, high-velocity rotational movement of Gondwana appears to have occurred in the Early Cambrian.

With a lack of sea ice – the great glaciers of the Marinoan Snowball Earth were long melted – the sea level was high, which led to large areas of the continents being flooded in warm, shallow seas ideal for sea life. The sea levels fluctuated somewhat, suggesting there were 'ice ages', associated with pulses of expansion and contraction of a south polar ice cap.

The Earth was generally cold during the early Cambrian, probably due to the ancient continent of Gondwana covering the South Pole and cutting off polar ocean currents. However, average temperatures were 7 degrees Celsius higher than today. There were likely polar ice caps and a series of glaciations, as the planet was still recovering from an earlier Snowball Earth. It became warmer towards the end of the period; the glaciers receded and eventually disappeared, and sea levels rose dramatically.

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For this week's Creature of the Week, we'll be talking about Anomalocaris! This is an extinct genus of radiodont (anomalocaridid), an order of animals thought to be closely related to ancestral arthropods. The first fossils of Anomalocaris were discovered in the Ogygopsis Shale, with more examples found in the Burgess Shale. Anomalocaris is thought to be one of the earliest examples of an apex predator.

For the time in which it lived, Anomalocaris was gigantic, up to 1 metres long. It propelled itself through the water by undulating the flexible flaps on the sides of its body. Each flap sloped below the one more posterior to it, and this overlapping allowed the lobes on each side of the body to act as a single "fin", maximizing the swimming efficiency. The body was widest between the third and fifth lobe and narrowed towards the tail; it was thought to have at least 13 pairs on the trunk region and additional 3 pairs of small flaps on the neck region.

Anomalocaris had an unusual disk-like mouth known as oral cone. The oral cone was composed of several plates organized triradially. 3 of the plates were quite large. 3-4 medium sized plates could be found between each of the large plates, and several small, wrinkled plates between them. The mouth resembled a pineapple ring with the center replaced by a series of serrated prongs. The mouth could constrict to crush prey, but never completely close; there was always an opening about 5 millimeters in diameter when the mouth was shut; a centimeter in exceptionally large individuals. Two large frontal appendages (up to 18 centimetres in length when extended) were positioned in front of the mouth, at the front of the head.

[Purgatory K9]

Username: King Tatum
What do you like best about Paleontology? Can’t pinpoint; it’s all of it lol.
Favourite time period: Cretaceous
Favourite prehistoric animal: Parasaurolophus