1. Biostratigraphy The art and science of telling time from rocks.
Traditional core of paleontology, and of geology.
The geologic time scale
is all based on fossils,
relative time scale.
Most paleontologists
working in industry
do biostratigraphy.
GG 309
Craig Glenn
Spring 2012

2. Fossils Biostratigraphy:
Index Fossils and Fossil Assemblages Good for 3 Things:
Understanding Evolution
Biostratigraphy (Stratigraphic Correlation)
Environmental Interpretation
Biostratigraphy:
Characterization and correlation of rock units based on fossil content
Based on the recognition that organisms have evolved
Closely linked to paleontology
UNDERSTANDING THE ENVIROMENTAL CONTROLS IS CRITICAL TO:
SUCCESSFUL BIOSTRATIGRAPHIC ANALYSIS
SUCCESSFUL INTERPRETATION OF DEPOSTIONAL SYSTEMS

3. THE MOST CRITICAL FACTORS AFFECTING CHRONOSTRATIGRAPHIC SIGNIFICANCE
IN BIOSTRATIGRAPHY ARE:
1. EVOLUTION
2. MIGRATION
3. EXTINCTION
4. ENVIRONMENT
5. PRESERVATION

4. Charles Darwin EVOLUTION RATES? Gradual Rapid
A. Phyletic gradualism
Gradual
Morphology
Schematic ‘family tree’
(body characteristics)
B. Punctuated equilibrium
Boggs
Charles Darwin
Rapid
Morphology
(body characteristics)
Schematic ‘family tree’
In punctuated model, speciation occurs only1000s (100s?) yrs, after population becomes reproductively isolated from the parent population.

5. THE TAXONOMIC CLASSIFICATION OF LIFE
- based on # shared characteristics (or differences) -
Animal, Plant, Fungi, Protist, Archaebacteria
single-celled plant-like
Protophyta algae:
Coccoliths & Diatoms
single-celled animal-like
Protozoa:
Forams & Radiolaria
Cover of Linnaeus’ 10th edition of Systema Naturae (1758)
"System of nature through the three kingdoms of nature, according to classes, orders, genera and species. This was a subdivision of his Three Kingdoms: Animal, Plant and Mineral.
Linnaeus was a Swedish MD, In view of the popularity of the work Linnaeus kept publishing new and ever expanding editions, growing from eleven pages in the first edition (1735) to three thousand pages in the final and thirteenth edition (1770)!
Carolus
Linnaeus
after BOGGS, 14.5

6. Tertiary Sediments of the Gulf Plain Biostratigraphic Units are Not Lithostratigraphic Units - Not the Same Thing
The Biostratigraphic Unit will correspond to the Lithostratigraphic unit if the fossils are FACIES CONTROLLED.
Boggs 14.1

7. Methodology INDEX INDEX FOSSILS ARE: FOSSILS: independent
of environment
short range
widespread
INDEX
FOSSILS:
Important
Marine
Forms
of the
Phanerozoic
Boggs From Tenius, 1973, Fossils and the Life of the Past, Fig. 50 (Wpinger-Verlag). Nichols has the same as Figure 20.2 without giving credit
white bars show total range; black bars show times when imp. Index fossil.

8. The Finer Points of Stratigraphy

9. Index Fossils: Which One’s Better?
You decide…
Index Fossils: Which One’s Better?
This Classic
1958 Edsel Beauty? OR
The Classic Utilitarian
Volkswagen Beetle?
(the “people’s car”)

10. INDEX FOSSILS: independent of environment short range widespread
“Lookie there, its
gots its darn engine
in the back!”
INDEX
FOSSILS:
independent
of environment
short range
widespread
Herbie goes abroad
Volkswagen Beetle
“Type 1”
Protype 1937
Deliberately designed to be as simple as possible mechanically, there was simply less that could go wrong; the air-cooled 985 cm³ 25 hp (19 kW) motors proved especially effective in action in North Africa's desert heat.
The Beetle evolves
By 1938, the "Beetle" shape had fully evolved. A rigorous testing programme was launched, with men of the feared SS driving a batch of the cars for many thousands of miles through the worst winter weather.
By 1951, the car was available in 29 countries.
1950 VW Convertible
1935 KdF-Wagen sp. (Porsche)
A handful of civilian-specific Beetles were produced, primarily for
the Nazi elite, in the
years 1940–1945, but production figures
were small.
Pseudo-Extinction Species (read Boggs, p. 488). Still, this beetle’s lineage lives on.
Index Fossil?
By 1972, 15,007,034 Produced

11. The Neputinist approach of Werner
Abraham Werner ( ) Did not agreed with the theory of the catastrophes of the Cuvier. For him, all
the rocks (including the igneous) would have precipitated in a huge global ocean ("neptunisme").

12. Charles Lyell (England; 1797-1875)
In furthering Hutton’s magic formula "the present is the key to the past,” Lyell’s book "Principles of Geology" (1830) was a big success.
According to him, the geological processes such as the uplift and erosion operated at a slow and uniform speed. Further, every geological period lasted a long time (eventually hundreds of million years) and the age of the Earth must correspond to a multiple of these long lengths.
Boggs, Table 14.1 Lyell’s Subdivisons of the Tertiary
See next slide 

13. (1833)
Unlike Will Smith, who used fossils as an aid to identify strata, Lyell (and others at the time) recognized the utility of subdividing the Tertiary on the basis of its fossil content alone.
Lyell’s approach was to use the proportions of living and extinct species in the rocks. It is here that fossils became the essential part of subdividing Geologic Time.

14. CONCEPT OF THE BIOZONE (1856)
Working in the Jurassic of Europe, Albert Oppel invented the concept of overlapping (aka concurrent) « zones » of fossils and thereby altered for all time the practice of biostratigraphy.
An Oppel Zone:
Overlapping ranges of two or more taxa
Carl Albert Oppel (1831–1865),
Germany paleontologist
No one since Oppel’s time has been able to devise a more precise and reliable kind of time-stratigraphic fossil zone.
Oppel’s Concept of Overlapping biozones forever changed geology.
Each of Oppel’s zones were named after a key species, termed an Index Fossil
Boggs,14.2
Oppel Named his Zones after a particularly distinctive fossil,
which he called the Zone’s “Index Fossil.”

15. PRINCIPAL TYPES OF BIOZONES Biozones may be grouped or subdivided
- Range of One
-An Overlap of Ranges
Add This
One!
Highest
occurrrences
(FADs)
GAP
ZONE
-Lowest
occurrrences
(LADs)
Biozones
may be
grouped or
subdivided
Gap Biozone
- An Assemblage Zone is Different - It’s usually a biogeographic group of three or more taxa
Named for
one or more
distinctive
taxa in it
Boggs Types of Biozones

16. Correlations based on “Taxon-Range Zones” and “Interval Zones”
Examples of
Correlations based on “Taxon-Range Zones” and “Interval Zones”
Boggs, 14.11 ?

17. LAD D
Zone 8 Another
Concurrent Range
Zone
FAD E
C/D Gap Zone
LAD C
LAD B
LAD B
Concurrent Range
Zone
FAD C
FAD C
FAD B
A/B Gap Zone
LAD A
LAD A

18. Abundance
Biozones
AKA:
Acme Zones
Boggs Fig. 14.4

19. Time Transgressive Abundance Zones
Boggs 14.10

20. Species F is different ages in different places?
Local vs.Total (Global) Range
Species F is different ages in different places? ?
Boggs 14.7

21. If Total Time is Global, becomes a
Biogeographic Dispersal and Stratigraphic Range
Ocean A
Barrier
Ocean B
Time in A
Time in B
REMEMBER:
Evolution
Migration
Extinction
Environment
Preservation
TOTAL Time in A and B
If Total Time is Global, becomes a
BIOCHRONOZONE

22. Correlation by Assemblages
Boggs, 14.8
Assemblage Zone = Characteristic group of 3 or More Taxa.
Commonly, these are environmentally restricted by facies

23. Shaw’s Graphic Correlation Method
What can we do here?
Boggs Fig Shaw’s Method of Graphical Correlation Between Section. Comin up is the Determination of Sedimentation Rates

24. Shaw’s Method is to plot the heights of the fossil datums in each section versus each other.
Here, the correlation line is straight, meaning there was a constant offset in sediment accumulation rates between the sites
Using the fossil datum correlation line, any part of Section A can be correlated to an equivalent part of Section B.
Boggs Fig Shaw’s Method of Graphical Correlation Between Section. Comin up is the Determination of Sedimentation Rates

25. The point at 50 m in A corresponds in time to the point at 25 m in B.
Shaw’s Method is to plot the heights of the fossil datums in each section versus each other.
The point at 50 m in A corresponds in time to the point at 25 m in B.
The point at 50 m in B corresponds to 100 m in A!
Boggs Fig Shaw’s Method of Graphical Correlation Between Section. Comin up is the Determination of Sedimentation Rates

26. The point at 50 m in A corresponds in time to the point at 25 m in B.
Shaw’s Method is to plot the heights of the fossil datums in each section versus each other.
The point at 50 m in A corresponds in time to the point at 25 m in B.
The point at 50 m in B corresponds to 100 m in A!
So, what exactly is the relative rate of sedimentation between these two sections?
Boggs Fig Shaw’s Method of Graphical Correlation Between Section. Comin up is the Determination of Sedimentation Rates
Answer: y = mx +b
or, rate in A = 2 times rate in B

27. But, what is there if the sedimentation rate changes in one section relative to the other section? What if there are unconformities?
Or….

28. Shaw Diagrams to the Rescue!
“A” speeds up OR “B” slows down
Shaw Diagrams to the Rescue!
Boggs Fig. 14.4
Deposition stops in “A” while continuing in “B”
See Nichols, Fig. 20.5

29. A prelude to Oxygen Isotope Stratigraphy: Planktonic Foraminiferal Coiling Ratios
Globorotalia truncatulinoides
Cold
Warm
1.5 Ma

30. TEMPORAL RESOLUTION ISSUES
Boggs Table 14.1
Go Steve Go!

31. Average biochronologic resolution: 1 Ma
RELATIVE STRATIGRAPHIC RESOLUTION
BIOCHRONOLOGIC VS RADIOMETRIC DATING
1 Ma
Cretaceous
Precambrian
Miocene
Average biochronologic resolution: 1 Ma
Typical uncertainty range of radiometric dating: 1% - 10%
Biochronological precision exceeds isotopic dating methods for most of Phanerozoic. Isotopic dating, however, is used to calibrate ages of biostratigraphic zones and convert zonal schemes to an equal-interval time scale, an objective that can not be achieved by fossils alone.
(From Taylor, A. , 1987, Stratigraphic Resolution)

32. . BioStrat
Pau Hana