Most Recent Lecture

Back to the Present, and the Future

Friday, April 26th, 13:25 - 02:15 PM, GY 447

The pattern of glacial-interglacial cycles; Oxygen isotope proxies for climate; Regional differences in paleoenvironmental change; Late Quaternary extinction and the role of humans; Current changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature; Comparison with past; Certainties and uncertainties from a geological and paleontological perspective.

See all lectures, labs, and handouts...

Indiana Fossils

Homotrypa richmondensis

The bryozoan Homotrypa richmondensis from the Ordovician of Indiana.

See photo...

Technical terms

chronostratigraphy and geochronology

the study of the age of rock units. The interval of time to which a rock unit belongs is a geochronologic unit, which is what is shown on a geological time scale. A group of rocks that belong to the interval is the chronostratigraphic unit, which is what is usually shown on a stratigraphic column. For example, in Indiana the Cincinnatian Series is the rocks in the southeast part of the state, a chronostratigraphic unit, that belong to the Cincinnatian Epoch, a geochronological unit. In other words, chronostratigraphy is the study of the rocks, geochronology is the study of the time.

See more...

Hoosier paleontologists

Samuel Almond Miller

Miller was a lawyer and amateur paleontologist who was born in Ohio in 1837. He described many fossils from the Paleozoic of North America and authored several major compendia of North American fossils, including "North American Geology and Paleontology" (1889).

See more...