Paleogeography
The Paleogeography or Paläogeografie is a branch of geology to reconstruct and trying how the Earth looked like in earlier times. In doing so , it is based on the one hand on evaluations of sediments - because these allow most conclusions to be drawn about the distribution of mountain and water landscapes. Another important indicator of reconstruction is fossils. These suggest connections between different land areas.
background
The paleogeography relies on the knowledge of historical geology for the reconstruction. The term "geological palaeo-geography" was used for the first time in 1875 by Ami Boué in his book Some on palaeo-geological geography . This uses fossils and rocks as the main sources, which contain information about previous environmental conditions. Paleogeography is divided into several sub-areas, for example it deals with the geography of prehistoric times, creating paleogeographic maps that give an overview of the land and water distribution on the planet or the morphology of the ocean basins and the structure of the continents. Another sub-area deals with the areas of life of fossil organisms and the reconstruction of prehistoric climatic conditions . Special importance is attached to paleomagnetism , as it provides information about the position of the earth's magnetic poles and their migration in the course of the geological ages as well as about continental drift and plate kinematics .
Like modern geography , it's about figuring out what past landscapes looked like. Areas that are now desert, for example, were a sea a long time ago (as could be proven in the Sahara ). Other areas where there are mountains today used to be plains. And valleys and conspicuous sediment deposits can provide information about rivers that flowed a long time ago and which no longer exist today.
With the support of tectonics and palaeontology , a large-scale and detailed image of the earth in past geological ages can be designed. The intensive collaboration with palaeontology and biogeography has opened up a further special field: fossil records can be used to delimit the habitats of different living beings and thus draw conclusions about old land connections. This branch of research is called paleobiogeography . The resulting symbiosis of geological and biological parts allows detailed information about past epochs and results in an overall picture from which both branches benefit.
literature
- Ami Boué: Some things about palaeo-geological geography. Vienna 1875, OCLC 249048242 .
- Edgar Dacqué: Basics and Methods of Paleography. G. Fischer, Jena 1915, OCLC 15394309 .
- Franz Kossmat: Paleogeography. Geological history of the seas and continents. (= Göschen Collection. ) Göschen, Berlin 1916, OCLC 463220924 .
- Erich Thenius, Karl von Frisch: Seas and countries in the change of times. Paleogeography as the basis for biogeography. (= Understandable Science. Volume 114.) Springer, Berlin 1977, ISBN 0-387-08208-5 .
- Gerda Standke: Paleogeography of the older tertiary (Paleocene to Lower Miocene) in Central Germany. in: Journal of the German Society for Geosciences. Issue 159/1. 2008, ISSN 1860-1804 ( online ).
Web links
- Paleogeography on geologieinfo.de (maps of individual epochs)
- Paleogeography and stratigraphic basics on sundoc.bibliothek.uni-halle.de (PDF)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Paleogeography ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on geodz.com, accessed August 24, 2014.
- ↑ Paleobiogeography on Spektrum.de, accessed on August 24, 2014.
- ↑ Biogeography on Spektrum.de, accessed on August 24, 2014.
