GEOLOGY 217 INVERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY

Course information and syllabus

Intructor: Ben Greenstein

Office: Norton 108, Office hours TBA; X4307; bgreenstein@cornellcollege.edu

Meeting Times:
We will meet mornings 9-11, and afternoons 1:15-3, although class meetings may not last the entire time.

Field Trip:
There is one required field trip to a quarry near Troy Mills on Wednesday, 7 September. The van departs from the Commons at 8:35 AM.

Required reading materials:


Prothero, D. R., 2004, Bringing fossils to life: An introduction to paleobiology 2nd Edition. WCB/McGraw-Hill, Boston. 


Raup. D. M., 1991, Extinction: Bad genes or bad luck? W. W. Norton & Co., N. Y.

Please read Raup's book by the end of the first week of the block.

General reference books in lab room

Boardman, R.S., Cheetham, A. H., and Rowell, A. J. (eds.) Fossil Invertebrates, Blackwell Scientific

Beerbower, J. R., 1968, Search for the past. Prentice-Hall, N. Y.

Briggs, D. E. G., and Crowther, P. R. (eds.), 1990, Palaeobiology: A Synthesis. Blackwell Scientific

Briggs, D. E. G., and Crowther, P. R. (eds.), 2001, Palaeobiology II: A Synthesis. Blackwell Scientific

Moore, R. C., Lallicker, C. G., and Fisher, A. G., 1952, Invertebrate Fossils. McGraw-Hill.

Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, Parts A-X, R. C. Moore, editor, University of Kansas Press (in cabinet in back of room).

Evaluation: I will use a variety of methods to assess your performance in this course. Graded work will include lecture and lab exams, written assignments an oral presentation and a curated fossil collection. I will not grade any work turned in late! Enthusiasm and thoughtful participation in discussions, lab and on the field trip count, even if only subjectively. Formula for grading will be as follows:

Foram project 15%
 Fossil collection/paper 15%

Exam I 15%
 Discussion/paper 5%

Lab exams (2) 20%
 Seminar presentation/paper 15%

Exam II 15%

Course Objectives: This course provides a survey of the major fossil-forming groups of invertebrate animals. You will be exposed to many subdisciplines of paleontology and learn how fossils may be used to reconstruct ancient organism communities, environments and evolutionary history. You will learn about the origin and early evolution of life, and subsequent large-scale diversity patterns over geologic time. You will have the opportunity to collect and curate your own fossil collection, and apply your collection to an interpretation of the environments that existed in Iowa during Devonian time (~350 million years ago).

Academic Honesty: Cornell College expects all members of the Cornell community to act with academic integrity.  An important aspect of academic integrity is respecting the work of others.  A student is expected to explicitly acknowledge ideas, claims, observations, or data of others, unless generally known.  When a piece of work is submitted for credit, a student is asserting that the submission is her or his work unless there is a citation of a specific source.  If there is no appropriate acknowledgement of sources, whether intended or not, this may constitute a violation of the College’s requirement for honesty in academic work and may be treated as a case of academic dishonesty.  The procedures regarding how the College deals with cases of academic dishonesty appear in The Compass, our student handbook, under the heading “Academic Policies – Honesty in Academic Work.”

Students with Disabilities: Students who need accommodations for learning disabilities must provide documentation from a professional qualified to diagnose learning disabilities.  For more information click here.

Students requesting services may schedule a meeting with the disabilities services coordinator as early as possible to discuss their needs and develop an individualized accommodation plan.  Ideally, this meeting would take place well before the start of classes.

At the beginning of each course, the student must notify the instructor within the first three days of the term of any accommodations needed for the duration of the course.

COURSE SCHEDULE

Unless listed otherwise, readings in parentheses refer to course text

DAY 1


AM: Course organization, history of paleontology.
readings handed out for afternoon lecture and Tuesday morning (Chap. 1)
Extinction seminar readings handed out 


PM: Origin of life, Cambrian explosion, Burgess Shale (Handouts)

DAY 2


AM: Early Life, continued, Taphonomy (Chap. 1)


PM: Taphonomy

DAY 3
ALL DAY Field Trip: Troy Mills Quarry

DAY 4
AM/PM: Taxonomy (Chap. 4) (paper due; 9 AM)

DAY 5
AM: Fossil Populations I (Chaps. 2, 3, 5); papers handed out for Tuesday discussion

P.M. Trace Fossils (Chap. 18)

DAY 6


AM: CLASS MEETS AT 8:15 A.M.: Extinction seminar (seminar paper due, 8 a.m.)


PM: Fossil populations II (Chaps. 2, 3, 5)

DAY 7


AM: 
 Fossil populations III (Chap. 8, pp. 141-146);

PM: Discussion: Phanerozoic Diversity

DAY 8


AM: Protoctista - foram project handed out (Chap. 11, handout); (paper due, 9 a.m.)

PM: Porifera (Chap. 12)


DAY 9


AM Cnidaria (Chap. 12)


PM: Catch-up as needed

DAY 10


AM: Lecture exam


PM: Lab exam

DAY 11


AM/PM: Lophophorates: Brachiopods and Bryozoans (Chap. 13)

DAY 12


AM/PM: Introduction to molluscs: Bivalves (Chap. 15)

DAY 13


AM/PM: Gastropods and Cephalopods (Chap. 15)
Foram projects due, 3 p.m.

DAY 14


AM/PM: Arthropods (Chap. 14)

DAY 15


AM/PM: Echinoderms (Chap. 16)

DAY 16


Fossil collection/paper due, 9 a.m.
Catch-up as needed.

DAY 17


Lab exam, 9 a.m.

DAY 18


Final Exam, 9 a.m.