Report of the Committee on Paleoecology, 1936-1937; Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Division of Geology and Geography, National Research Council, May 1, 1937 (1937) / Chapter Skim
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Introduction - W. H. Twenhofel
Introduction - W. H. Twenhofel
Pages 1-6
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Neither branch of geology greatly concerned itself with the conditions under which the fossil organisms had lived and the relations and adaptations of the organisms to these conditions. Thus, there are thick tomes with profuse illustrations giving descriptions of fossils and equallythick tomes describing sequences and presenting correlations.
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- 2 It should be remembered that even the dandelion does not live everywhere and that it is not probable that plants and animals with such general adaptations to environments often lived in the past, and that most plants and animals of the past were restricted in distribution just as most plants and animals of the present are. While paleontologists and stratigraphers were thus occupied, ecological biologists concerned themselves with qualitative and quantitative adaptations of organisms to their environmental conditions, and produced a wealth of data showing the mutual adjustments of organisms to each "other and how both in kind and quantity each environment contains organisms in adjustment to the places in which they live.
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These factors form the physical and chemical background of the environmental conditions existing in the Slough to the sum total of all factors of which the animals are adapted. The food chain of the animals dwelling in the Slough was studied and an excellent diagram showing this chain from plants to final decomposition, elimination, or burial is given<• There are also considered the associations, zoning, and density of the bottom and burrowing population.
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The study loses in importance for palepecology and sedimentation as there is only the most remote chance that a :coast like the one studied will leave a record in the geologic column, but the study indicates that shores upon which sediments are in process of deposition and sediment-covered bottoms in the neritic life zone may also be expected to show zonation, but from other causes among which it. is probable that light, ^-*
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Hatai during the past several years nave given attention to the ecological problems connected with the distribution of organisms in the outlying waters, and they conclude that studies need to be made of the distribution and kinds of organisms in the various aquatic environments and that information is needed as to how far a shell may be moved after death and the places to which it may be carried „ Bearing on the transportation of shells and showing the extent that transported shells may give to an interpretation of such shells from the point of view of ecology, if it is not realized that the shells are transported, is the following: A half pound stone was picked up on the coast of New Zealand on which several individuals of Boltenia Eachjrdermata were 1_• K Larsen.
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From page 6... ...
The view expressed by one eminent paleontologist that the epicontinental seas of the Paleozoic at any particular time were of such uniformity in the physical and chemical factors as to make possible uniform distribution of organisms in kind and perhaps in quantity from shore to shore, should be totally abandoned. The statement, is one that is impossible of occurrence in any shallow body of water..
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