William Smith’s work with faunal sequenceĪs Cuvier’s theory of faunal succession was being considered, William Smith, a civil engineer from the south of England, was also coming to realize that certain fossils can be found consistently associated with certain strata. The early studies of the radioactive decay of uranium and thorium into lead caused the British physicist Ernest Rutherford to suggest that. Whatever the actual cause, Cuvier felt that the evidence provided by the record of faunal succession in the Paris Basin could be interpreted by invoking recurring catastrophic geologic events, which in turn contributed to recurring massive faunal extinction, followed at a later time by biological renewal. Many of these breaks were characterized by coarser, even conglomeratic strata following a break, suggesting “catastrophic” events that may have contributed to the extinction of the biota. These, in turn, were followed by a seeming renewal of more advanced but related forms and were separated from each other by breaks in the associated rock record. Indeed, they seemed to represent extinct forms, which, when viewed in the context of the succession of strata with which they were associated, constituted part of a record of biological succession punctuated by numerous extinctions. Cuvier’s thesis, based on his analysis of the marine invertebrate and terrestrial vertebrate fauna of the Paris Basin, showed conclusively that many fossils, particularly those of terrestrial vertebrates, had no living counterparts. These breaks affect not only the lithologic character of the succession but also the character of the fossils found in the various strata.Īn 1812 study by the French zoologist Georges Cuvier was prescient in its recognition that fossils do in fact record events in Earth history and serve as more than just “follies” of nature. In fact, significant breaks frequently occur in the superpositional record.
SpaceNext50 Britannica presents SpaceNext50, From the race to the Moon to space stewardship, we explore a wide range of subjects that feed our curiosity about space!ĭetermining the relationships of fossils with rock strata The hypothesis of fossil succession in the work of Georges Cuvierĭuring this period of confrontation between the proponents of Neptunism and uniformitarianism, there emerged evidence resulting from a lengthy and detailed study of the fossiliferous strata of the Paris Basin that rock successions were not necessarily complete records of past geologic events.
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