Digging Deeper Into the Fossil Record

Digging Deeper Into the Fossil Record

For this discussion, I'd like you to think of something that particularly intrigued you about the fossil record, then dig deeper: learn even more about this new topic!

 Exploring a vast topic

Since there are mountains of research about fossils, it can be difficult to pick out one topic.  Here's a brief list of questions off the top of my head -- but don't limit yourself to these topics.

How has earth's climate changed in the past?  What other dinosaurs have we determined the color of?  What caused the major extinction events?  When did dinosaurs evolve flight?  --or you could rekindle some interest you had as a child and learn more about your favorite dinosaur!

 Dig Deeper

To learn more, you may need to conduct a few internet searches (again, I recommend Google ScholarLinks to an external site.).  Your first search should lead you to more information and give you a better idea of what to look for in your second search.

For example, let's say I'm interested in ancient climate change.  After searching for "ancient climate change" and reviewing a few sites, I learn that there is a science called "paleoclimatology."  Now I have a new search term!  I might also learn what eras experienced drastic climate change, so I can now search for what happened during those eras.

Basically, we might not know the right questions at the beginning of this exercise, but after learning a bit more about our interests, we can ask better and better questions.  This can lead us to some truly interesting information out there.

This discussion is worth up to 10 points.  Here's how you can earn them for this week:

Part A: Introduce a topic

Make a post where you introduce a topic for discussion.  This topic can be anything relating to our fossil record.