SLE395 - Palaeobiology

Unit details

Note: You are seeing the 2015 view of this unit information. These details may no longer be current. [Go to the current version]
Year

2015 unit information

Offering information:

Not offered in 2015 (available from 2016 onwards)

Enrolment modes:

Trimester 1: Burwood (Melbourne), Cloud (online)

 

Credit point(s):1
Previously coded as:

SBB395

EFTSL value:

0.125

Unit chair:

Mark Warne

Prerequisite:

One of SLE102, SLE136, SLE103 or plus two level 2 units

Corequisite:

Nil

Incompatible with:

Nil

Contact hours:

Campus: 1 x 2 hour class per week, 6 x 3 hour practicals per trimester, 1 x half day field trip per trimester (weather dependant). 

Cloud (online): Learning experiences are via CloudDeakin. Students are also expected to attend 15 hours of intensive classes and practicals at the Burwood (Melbourne) campus.

Content

This unit provides students with an opportunity to study deep-time aspects of the biological and environmental sciences.  Class include:

  1. Fossils of the terrestrial realm and their environments of preservation;
  2. Fossils of the marine realm and their environments of preservation;
  3. relative and absolute dating of fossils;
  4. biological evolution and the fossil record, including discussions on radiation, convergence, rates of extinction and evolutionary trends;
  5. Precambrian, Palaeozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic life;
  6. Quaternary physical evolution of the earth and associated anthropological change;
  7. Microfossils as proxies of past oceanographic and climate change.  Practical work will involve 2 projects. The first project will involve the description and biostratigraphical or palaeoecological evaluation of invertebrate fossils from a limestone, sandstone or mudstone exposure in SE Australia.  The second project will involve the use of invertebrate microfossils or macrofossils as proxies of past environmental change within a human occupation historical timescale. This project will involve the examination of fossils from sediment cores gathered within a modern aquatic setting. 

This unit will also include a half day field trip (or online virtual field tour), or tour of museum fossil preparatory laboratories.

Assessment

Practical report 1 40%, practical report 2 40%, class test 20%

Unit Fee Information