Biostratigraphy

Biostratigraphy is that branch of the study of layered rocks—stratigraphy—that focuses on

fossils. Its goals are the identification and organization of strata based on their fossil content.
Biostratigraphy thus investigates one of the principal bases of the geologic time scale of Earth
history.

Biostratigraphic Zones
Biostratigraphy is the method of identifying and differentiating layers of sedimentary rock (strata)
by their fossil content. Strata with distinctive fossil content are termed biostratigraphic units or
zones. Zones vary greatly in thickness and in lateral extent. A zone may be a single layer that is
a few centimeters thick and of a very local extent, or it may encompass thousands of meters of
rocks extending worldwide. The defining feature of a zone is its fossil content. The fossils of a
given zone must differ in some specific way from the fossils of other zones.

Zones are usually recognized after fossils have been collected extensively over the lateral and
vertical extent of a rock sequence or at many sequences over a broad region. The positions of
the fossils in the strata are carefully recorded in the field. Fossils that co-occur in a single layer
are noted, as are fossils found isolated in the strata. In the laboratory, the biostratigrapher,
usually a paleontologist, then tabulates the vertical and lateral ranges of the fossils collected. It
is from these ranges that the paleontologist recognizes zones. Different types of zones are
recognized depending on the way in which the fossils in the strata prove to be distinctive.
Assemblage zones are strata distinguished by an association (assemblage) of fossils. Thus, not
one type but many types of fossils are used to define an assemblage zone. All dinosaur fossils,
for example, can be thought of as defining an assemblage zone that encompasses Earth's
history from about 220 to 66 million years ago.

Range zones are strata that encompass the vertical distribution, or range, of a particular type of
fossil. Thus, one fossil type—not many—is used to define a range zone. In contrast to the
example just given, one type of dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus rex, lived only between 68 and 66
million years ago. Its fossils thus define a range zone that corresponds temporally to this
two-million-year interval.

Acme zones are rock layers recognized by the abundance, or acme, of a type (or types) of fossil
(or fossils) regardless of association or range. Horned dinosaurs (Triceratops and its allies)
reached an acme between seventy and sixty-six million years ago. That is, during this period,
they were most diverse and numerous. This acme zone thus overlaps the Tyrannosaurus rex
range zone and represents a small portion of the dinosaur assemblage zone.

Finally, interval zones are recognized as strata between layers where a significant change in
fossil content takes place. For example, the mass extinctions that took place 250 and 66 million
years ago bound a 184-million-year-long interval zone that is popularly referred to as the “age of
reptiles.”

Development of Biostratigraphy
Biostratigraphy developed independently in England and France just after 1800. British civil
engineer William Smith worked in land surveying throughout the country. From his vast field
experience, he recognized that a given stratum usually contains distinctive fossils and that the
fossils (and the stratum) could often be recognized across a large area. Smith's work culminated
in his geological map of England (1815), based on his tracing of rock-fossil layers across much
of the country.

Meanwhile, in France, Georges Cuvier and Alexandre Brongniart studied the succession of
rocks and fossils around Paris. They, too, discovered a definite relationship between strata and
fossils and used it to interpret the geological history of the rocks exposed near Paris. In this
history, Cuvier saw successive extinctions of many organisms coinciding with remarkable
changes in the strata. To him, these represented vast “revolutions” in geological history, which
Cuvier argued were of worldwide significance. It is now known that Cuvier was mistaken, but the
discovery that a particular fossil type (or types) was confined to a particular stratum became the
basis for biostratigraphy. This allowed geologists to identify strata from their fossil content and to
trace these strata across broad regions of the Earth's crust.

Almost simultaneous with the development of biostratigraphy was the development of

biochronology. Biochronology is the recognition of intervals of geologic time by fossils. It
stemmed from the realization that during Earth's history, different f organisms lived during
different intervals of time. Thus, the fossils of any organism represent a particular interval of
geologic time. (Such fossils are called index fossils because they act as an “index” to a geologic
time interval.) Biochronology thus identifies intervals of geologic time based on fossils. These
time-distinctive fossils are the fossils by which zones are defined, which is to say that each zone
represents, or is equivalent to, some interval of geologic time.

The time value of zones made them more useful in tracing strata and deciphering local
geological histories. Biostratigraphy became one of the central methods of stratigraphic
correlation. With the aid of fossils, it became possible to determine the ages of strata and thus
demonstrate the synchrony or diachrony of these strata in different [Link] the use of
stratigraphic correlation, biostratigraphy became one of the bases for constructing the relative
geological time scale of Earth’s history composed of eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages.
This time scale is the “calendar” by which all geologists temporally order their understanding of
the history of the Earth.

Application of Biostratigraphy

Biostratigraphy is generally used as a method of stratigraphic correlation—the process of

determining the equivalence of age or stratigraphic position of layered rocks in different areas.
Stratigraphic correlation by biostratigraphy is extremely important in deciphering geological
history. It reveals the sequence of geological events in one or more regions. Understanding
geological history interests scientists and laypersons alike for its own sake. It is crucial to
discovering mineral deposits and energy resources within the Earth's crust. In addition, it
provides insight into the biological events that have taken place on this planet for the last 3.9
billion years.

A good example of using biostratigraphy in this last regard comes from the study of dinosaur
extinction. When dinosaurs were first discovered in England in 1824, and when the term
“dinosaur” was coined by the British anatomist Sir Richard Owen in 1841, no one realized that
dinosaurs had lived on Earth for only 150 million years and that their extinction had taken place
rather rapidly about 66 million years ago. By 1862, enough dinosaur fossils had been collected
around the globe that a biostratigraphic pattern was beginning to emerge. In that year, the
American geologist James Dwight Dana, in his classic Manual of Geology, noted that all
dinosaurs disappeared before the end of the Mesozoic era, which is now considered as the
interval of Earth history between 250 and 66 million years ago. This biostratigraphic
generalization was possible because geologists noticed that many Mesozoic rocks (but no older
or younger rocks) were full of dinosaur fossils, and thus, the Mesozoic came to be termed “the
age of reptiles.” It might just as well be referred to as the “dinosaur zone,” except for the first
thirty or so million years of the Mesozoic, during which dinosaurs did not exist.

Significance

Biostratigraphy—the recognition of strata by their fossil content—is a cornerstone of

stratigraphic correlation. To identify bodies of rock, the presence of fossils can be traced over
broad areas, and their sequence in distant areas can often be determined. Stratigraphic
correlation by biostratigraphy is critical to deciphering geological history. Without it, the search
for mineral deposits and energy resources would be considerably more difficult. Furthermore,
understanding the history of geological disasters—earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, meteorite
impacts, and the like—and thereby being able to predict future disasters relies on knowledge of
the sequence and timing of geological events, knowledge often derived from biostratigraphy.
Deciphering the history of life on this planet, including the myriad appearances, changes, and
extinctions of Earth's biota during the last 3.9 billion years, largely depends on the sequence
and timing established by biostratigraphy.

Biostratigraphy has also given rise to biochronology, the recognition of intervals of geologic time
based on fossils. As a result, scientists have been able to construct a relative global geologic
time scale, and it is within the context of this time scale that all geological and biological events
in Earth's history have been placed.