PALEONTOLOGY TAUGHT IN THE CONTEXT OF AN UNDERGRADUATE EARTH SYSTEMS AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES CURRICULUM

Geology has undergone a recent transition from a discipline concerned with traditional applications and a solid-earth emphasis to one concerned with applications in environmental science while employing an integrated earth-systems approach. The geosciences are germane to the study of natural and anthropogenically driven environmental change and therefore have implications for environmental management and restoration. Earth-systems science treats the planetary spheres (atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, and biosphere) as a dynamic interactive network and provides society with the conceptual framework to manage global problems. The role of paleontology within this transformed curriculum should change accordingly. In addition to addressing traditional questions in earth history (e.g., evolution of life, paleoenvironmental reconstruction, biostratigraphy), paleontology provides materials and methods to the study of recent environmental change in four fundamental ways. First, subfossils serve as an indirect record of environmental effects, through an understanding of a species’ environmental tolerances, and as a direct measure of environmental change, as geochemical recorders of physical conditions. Second, deeper-time study of paleoenvironmental change provides historical precedents and lessons of plausibility by demonstrating that comparable problems existed in pre-human history. Third, the management of global problems demands an understanding of natural and human-induced variability. This typically requires environmental data that predate environmental monitoring or human occupation or existence. Paleontologic techniques are used to interpret this history. Lastly, the patterns of past and present environmental change, acquired through paleontologic methods, are ultimately used to generate mathematical models to predict future environmental conditions. Paleontology is already making significant contributions to numerous environmental and global problems, including climate change (e.g., greenhouse warming, El Nino), sea level rise, habitat loss and the biodiversity crisis, the monitoring of ecosystem health, and management and restoration of natural resources. These applications should be part of a contemporary geosciences curriculum.