Error /problems in determining a palaeoenvironment

Error in determining a palaeoenvironment can be made due to the following factors:

1. Transport

This will cause a mixing of faunas from different environment

- Reworking of older sediments

- Contemporaneous transport

- As suspended load.The empty shells of dead foraminifera can be transported hundreds of miles offshore. Result:shallow water forms in deep water deposit

- By currents. This may be reflected in species or size sorted assemblages.

- By turbidity currents or slides.

- Vegetation. Attached living species may be transported over vast distances, when the vegetation is uprooted

- Wind. Empty shells of dead foraminifera may be blow land inwards

2. Bioturbation

The effect of bioturbation is rather minimal. Burrowing organisms may cause the mixing of different assemblages.

3. Diagenesis

Solution of calcareous test or the calcareous cement of arenaceous species can result in the complete absence of a fossil

4. Caving and contamination

Different preservation, colour or the degree of abrasion can be clue in determining transported or reworked faunas.

for more information please see foraminifera in http://regionalgeology.info

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Introduction geology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Geology (from Greek: γη, gê, "earth"; and λόγος, logos, "speech" lit. to talk about the earth) is the science and study of the solid matter that constitutes the Earth. Encompassing such things as rocks, soil, and gemstones, geology studies the composition, structure, physical properties, history, and the processes that shape Earth's components. It is one of the Earth sciences. Geologists have established the age of the Earth at about 4.6 billion (4.6x10⁹) years, and have determined that the Earth's lithosphere, which includes the crust, is fragmented into tectonic plates that move over a rheic upper mantle (asthenosphere) via processes that are collectively referred to as plate tectonics. Geologists help locate and manage the Earth's natural resources, such as petroleum and coal, as well as metals such as iron, copper, and uranium. Additional economic interests include gemstones and many minerals such as asbestos, perlite, mica, phosphates, zeolites, clay, pumice, quartz, and silica, as well as elements such as sulfur, chlorine, and helium. Geology is also of great importance in the applied fields of civil engineering, soil mechanics, hydrology, environmental engineering and geohazards.

Planetary geology (sometimes known as Astrogeology) refers to the application of geologic principles to other bodies of the solar system. Specialised terms such as selenology (studies of the moon), areology (of Mars), etc., are also in use. Colloquially, geology is most often used with another noun when indicating extra-Earth bodies (e.g. "the geology of Mars").

The word "geology" was first used by Jean-André Deluc in the year 1778 and introduced as a fixed term by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure in the year 1779. The science was not included in Encyclopædia Britannica's third edition completed in 1797, but had a lengthy entry in the fourth edition completed by 1809.An older meaning of the word was first used by Richard de Bury to distinguish between earthly and theological jurisprudence.

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