The discovery of fossilized remains of living organisms, especially far away from their characteristic habitats (for example, marine animals on mountain tops), has long attracted the attention of scientists and philosophers.
Paleontology is the study of organisms that existed on Earth in the past and is one of the biological sciences. It is closely related to the related natural sciences of geology and geography: paleontological data form the basis of the biostratigraphic method, play an important role in environmental forecasting, and can be used in paleogeographic reconstructions and forecasting future climate change. In addition, paleontology combines with archeology to understand the history of human society, its art, culture, and economic activities, such as hunting, cattle breeding, agriculture, etc. The study of the stages of biota development helps to establish geological age, correlate earth layers, develop issues of paleogeography, anthropology, etc.
The largest branches of paleontology are paleozoology and paleobotany. A special place belongs to paleoecology. These sections, in turn, are divided into quite large subsections. A separate section of paleontology is taphonomy, the science of the burial of organic remains and the formation of their locations.
Nowadays, paleontology is developing rapidly. It plays a significant role in revealing the patterns of development of the organic world, in establishing the ideas of evolution and in shaping the materialistic worldview in natural science.
For a long time, the hypothesis of the self-origination of life on Earth, i.e., its emergence from chemicals shortly after the formation of the atmosphere, prevailed. Sometimes these processes were considered simultaneous. It was believed that at that time our planet had conditions favorable for the formation of amino acids, proteins, nucleic acids, “protocells” and, ultimately, living cells, from which a huge variety of organisms were formed in the course of evolution. Recently, the hypothesis that life, already at the cellular level, or even in the form of spores and bacteria, was brought to Earth from outer space has been gaining more and more support. It is possible that it, as well as water, the basis of all life forms on our planet, was brought with it by giant ice meteorites that bombarded the Earth and the Moon at the end of the Archean era.
Of all the diversity of organisms that lived in the past, only a very small fraction is preserved in the fossil record, and not all of it is accessible to researchers. Only the paleontological documents recovered from the depths of the earth reveal the chronicle of the Earth. The variety of paleontological documents is enormous. For the most part, these are fossilized (i.e., fossilized), or mummified, or buried in ice or amber remains of plants and animals, their prints in rocks, shells and mollusc cores, etc. Paleontological documents also include traces of their vital activity – endoglyphs and exoglyphs. The former are traces of plant roots, animal tracks, etc. preserved inside rocks; the latter are paw prints, crawling or falling marks, coprolites, gnawing on bones or wood, and so on. Modern research methods make it possible to extract from fossils and study the structure of chemophosphates – molecules of alkanes, fatty acids, amino acids, and even DNA that were once part of living things.
Paleontological data must be taken into account when addressing environmental issues, which have become particularly relevant in recent years. They allow us to reveal the reasons for the flourishing of some forms and the extinction of others, as well as to recreate the habitats of endangered or extinct species; to assess the possibilities and consequences of acclimatization and reacclimatization of certain species.
It is worth noting that paleontological documents are sometimes mistakenly considered to be various formations of inorganic origin or even artifacts.