Paleontology is applied in many and diverse ways to geological mapping, research, and mineral exploration.

Paleontology was one of the founding disciplines of the science of geology, and we practice it today. Fossils large and small spawned biostratigraphy, the best technique ever created for dating ancient rocks. The interrelated concepts of geological time, the evolution of life, global mass extinctions, and interdependent earth systems rank among the most fundamental and awesome scientific contributions of all time. Surely paleontology, which is so central to these themes, is more critical to geological training and general life-appreciation skills now than it has ever been. Paleontology is the study of nothing less than the entire history, including crises, of past animal and plant life on this planet that we call home. The geological time scale does not exist without this core discipline of geology, and any interpretations deriving from it, such as geological maps and cross-sections in Phanerozoic terranes, are only as good as the age data that they imply.

With fossil zones averaging less than 1 Ma in duration for many geological systems ( Callomon, 1984; Cope, 1993) and becoming more refined with each passing year of research, no other component of ancient sedimentary rocks offers anything close in time-stratigraphic resolution. What this means is that all attempts to reconstruct paleogeographies without paleontology are doomed to be inaccurate, often grossly so. This is a strong statement and is meant to be. In particular, paleofacies maps based on log correlations that purport to portray former land and seascapes generally do not. What they do show are areal configurations of rock units that are determined by the correlation of petrophysical measurements, tempered in some cases by core and cuttings descriptions. Shaw (1964) has best shown the entirely contradictory transgressive-regressive histories that result from recognition of diachronous facies equivalents contrasted with those derived from the more commonly generated lithofacies maps alone. Fossils are unequalled tools for understanding the sedimentary rock record and what has happened to it for several reasons. Because of organic evolution and extinction events, empirical successions of fossils can be recognized, making them unrivalled time indicators. This process is called BIOSTRATIGRAPHY. Because animals and plants lived in equilibrium with their environment, fossils found in their original setting provide valuable data regarding that environment, including its chemical characteristics. When they are transported from their living environment, they provide data regarding that transport and the factors relating to it. These various studies are mutually interrelated and comprise PALEOECOLOGY, PALEOBIOGEOCHEMISTRY, and TAPHONOMY. They are closely linked with their companion discipline, sedimentology, which is the study of the host sediments.

Animal and plant groups are not generally spread across the globe, but live in particular regions to which they are restricted by living conditions, competition and predation, and within which they evolved distinctive traits. Fossils therefore serve as indicators of ancient biotic provinces, and their study is PALEOBIOGEOGRAPHY. Similarities from one area to another indicate connections, such as similar climates, or connecting seaways or landmasses, powerful tools in the construction of paleogeographical maps. Together with paleoecological characteristics, these data are a basis for the interpretation of ancient climates and depositional conditions that might have produced hydrocarbon-generating source rocks or reservoirs.

Most fossils are composed of carbonate or phosphate combined with organic material. They are affected by heat, pressure, surrounding fluid composition and all the other agents that change the character of sedimentary rocks after they are deposited. Thus fossils are sensitive indicators of THERMAL ALTERATION, a powerful tool in predicting hydrocarbon generation potential.

All these topics contribute fundamental data to the analysis of sedimentary basins, and to the exploration for coal, oil and gas, which are themselves the remains of ancient life.

The earliest, and still most important, use of fossils is in biostratigraphy. The importance of fossils for the correct identification of rock units was recognized late in the seventeenth century. The early applications of biostratigraphy to road and canal construction in areas of shallow bedrock in England were employed empirically well before the major features of evolution were stated by Darwin, Wallace and others. A vastly expanded knowledge base, backed by a sound theoretical framework, ensures that paleontology continues to play a major role in sedimentary basin studies. With continuing study, not only are the ranges of useful fossils becoming finer, more certain, and applicable across broader areas, but a larger number of fossil groups are becoming useful.

Exploring for hydrocarbons and minerals is expensive, and involves many sophisticated techniques. It is deserving of the most reliable data available. Imprecise data and inaccurate correlations cannot be used to identify inconsistencies in interpretations, and can only sustain meaningless speculation. Without precise, biostratigraphically based correlations, you can't recognize mistakes, or confirm true relationships and their implications. Paleontology provides a risk-reduction tool, as well as a source of critical primary data for sedimentary basin interpretations.

It is a basic truth in stratigraphy that shifting depositional environments produce lithological units that are diachronous ("Walther's Law"). Correlation of lithological units or their subsurface indicators on the basis of their physical characteristics results in conceptual models that often do not reflect the actual spatial distribution of ancient sedimentary systems at particular moments of geological time, even if the rock correlations are accurate. Time correlations provided by fossils permit the spatial relationships of differing environments and lithologies to be recognized and allow paleogeographic reconstructions to be drawn.

Progress in biostratigraphy requires continuing development of its techniques and tools. Principal among them is taxonomy, the documentation of the similarities and differences between different fossil species and higher taxa, leading to the differentiation of their relative stratigraphic positions. As taxonomic research continues, taxa are either subdivided or grouped to reflect current views and enhance their usefulness, and examples of homeomorphy and evolutionary lineages and extinction events become better understood.

Modern approaches tend to emphasize the development of zonations in previously poorly known taxonomic groups, such as Radiolaria; the integration of zonations based on different fossil groups; and correlations among different basins and fossil provinces, between nonmarine basinal and shelf successions, and between surface and subsurface sections. International programs, where reconstructions and correlations are supraregional in scale, especially demonstrate the need for additional and more highly refined paleontological data.

Even in thoroughly collected, relatively well known areas of Europe, new biostratigraphic data are constantly being unearthed, and the geological interpretations deriving from them are undergoing constant revision. Current workers worldwide continue to be excited by important fossil finds, and by modern multitaxial correlation projects. The importance of such new discoveries are all the more applicable to the vast terranes of countries such as Canada, where our knowledge of the basic geology and paleontology is to a large extent still in the reconnaissance stages, the latter especially in the subsurface of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin.

With modern high-definition seismic techniques and processing capabilities, there is no problem identifying seismic sequences. The principles of seismic or any other sequence analysis are simple but they can include mechanisms that ensure apparent internal consistency, shielding us from knowledge of the errors that would be recognized if other appropriate tools were applied. With a modicum of sedimentological data, appropriate facies can be assigned. Add the three-dimensional component and we've not only mapped the depositional units and facies, but we've also revealed the accretionary processes in time and space!

If only it were that easy. The enormous power and potential of sequence stratigraphy can only be properly harnessed if we know with precision the geological ages of the rocks within and around our proposed sequences. Only then do we have evidence of the validity of the sequences themselves, their temporal relation with other sequences above and below them, and their relation with apparently equivalent sequences elsewhere (Poulton, 1988; Sageman, 1992). Much has been written about the circular reasoning inherent in the concept of correlating imprecisely dated sequences globally, and then using the interpreted correlations as a dating tool in their own right. Clearly any proliferation of sequence stratigraphic studies should be accompanied by the required paleontological studies.

Too often in sequence stratigraphic studies, the tools by which interpretations can be verified and refined are judged to be simply not worth the considerable effort that detailed technical verifications can provide, and too often when they have been applied after a sequence model has already been developed, they have destroyed entirely the model they were meant to support. Paleontology serves less than optimally as a late-stage add-on to formulated models. It does not often comfort those most in need of its services, particularly when it is applied too late. Paleontology must be fully integrated into a stratigraphic project from the initial planning stages to be most effective. There are no short cuts. Acquiring sufficient background knowledge can involve the systematic collection, separation and identification of huge numbers of fossils. It is built on an edifice of descriptive taxonomy with foundations stretching back through decades of specialized literature of international scope.

Animals and plants are adapted to their environments to a high degree, and the relationships of ancient organisms to their environments is a highly complex, multidisciplinary subject. Thus many fossils and assemblages have proven to be sensitive indicators of depositional environment, paleobathymetry, water temperature, salinity, etc. Such interpretations often depend on comparisons with relevant living species and communities and on relating the fossils to the rocks in which they occur. Paleoecological interpretations derived from fossil distributions clearly must not conflict with paleoenvironmental interpretations based on other data. The data that can be derived from paleoecology is vast, and applied in collaboration with other data, can enhance enormously any paleoenvironmental or paleogeographic reconstruction (Smith, 1989). Overlook this at your peril. A quick initial analysis of fossil assemblages is a time-saving first step in the identification of potential hydrocarbon source rocks.

Several fossil groups, such as conodonts and palynomorphs, record the thermal conditions that have affected the rocks containing them, and therefore lead to understanding of the hydrocarbon potential of source rocks. These fossils darken in colour depending on how much heat they have been subjected to. Using these colour variations as a scale is a technique that is a cheap and easily acquired by-product of taxonomic and biostratigraphic research. New techniques permitting graptolites, scolecodonts, and foraminifera to be used in this way have been developed at the Geological Survey of Canada, extending the range of conditions where paleontological thermal maturity studies can be applied.

The fact that the fossil specimens also provide dates that permit reworked material to be disregarded, allows colour alteration to be used as a check on vitrinite reflectance and mass geochemical techniques of organic maturity, and a refinement of the results obtained from these tools. The palynologist's ability to interpret both age and thermal characteristics of each palynomorph in a preparation can help to resolve problems arising from reworked material.

Thermal maturation studies contribute powerfully to regional geological and tectonic interpretations as well. Regional trends and local anomalies in maturation patterns provide constraints on regional geological histories. Among the questions geologists seek to answer are those relating to the significance of unconformities in the histories of basins; thickness of overburden, which is in turn related to burial/subsidence characteristics of a basin or orogenic terrane; and variations in heat flow characteristics, which relate to rate of burial, fluid flow, and local intrusives.

Reworked fossils can be valuable provenance indicators. Sometimes, their message is almost unbelievable. Just one example: reworked palynomorphs in Cretaceous sediments of the Labrador Shelf are identical to species found in older rocks in western Canada (Williams, 1986). Recent geomorphological studies have identified unequivocal evidence of a vast west-east drainage system that stretched across Canada and carried these tiny seeds to their final depositional site (McMillan and Duk-Rodkin, 1995). The implications of such paleogeographic insights are profound and may well spawn future successes in exploration ventures. Reworking of fossils bedevils paleontologists who work in the Beaufort Basin, yet the recognition of such assemblages offers huge opportunities to include paleontology with reflection seismology and sedimentology in a multidisciplinary effort to unravel the evolution of structures that cannibalized and buried each other as they deformed. The insights gained from such an exercise might reveal a changing geometry of possible fluid migration paths during burial that could strongly influence prospect recognition. If every clastic deposit is represented by an unconformity somewhere else, then paleontology provides a reliable key to that somewhere else.

This report has outlined only a few of the practical applications of paleontology. Others include contributions to the history of life and the biosphere, as well as touristic and aesthetic sectors, and are not insignificant economically. Nowlan (1993) has outlined some of the trends in which paleontology is heading as a research discipline.

Such a vast and variously applicable discipline as paleontology must contribute its full potential to the future of a country like Canada, with its huge landmass, dependence on mineral resources, and relatively little explored sedimentary basins, tectonic belts, and paleontological data-base. The difficulties of reconciling the conflicting challenges of this essential discipline with the fast pace of modern geoscience activities have generated a great deal of recent discussion and proposals for carrying paleontology forward (Allmon, 1993; Economist, 1988; Leffingwell, 1994; Shirley, 1994). Paleontology remains the essential reliable discipline for sedimentary basin analysis. Paleontology takes away a large part of the uncertainty from geological interpretations in Phanerozoic terranes and therefore reduces the element of luck or chance in mineral and hydrocarbon exploration. To not put paleontology to its optimal use in the exploration industry risks the waste of a great deal of effort and expense acting upon inaccurate interpretations.

In a field where the published and unpublished knowledge bases are so vast, the potential for computer software to speed up paleontological data access and interpretation, including fossil images and taxonomic catalogues, is huge. Today there is no reason for an organization's corporate memory to reside only inside its employees' heads. Heads (and eyes) of paleontologists will always be needed to describe, identify and interpret fossil assemblages, but much of the data storage and manipulation can be assigned to machines, so that the slow and labor-intensive aspect of paleontology can be partly overcome.

Paleontology is an international discipline, and around the world specialists are becoming fewer by the year. Electronic communication between specialists, and between specialists and their potential users internationally, promises to optimize what resources are available (O'Neill, 1994).

In part, communicating with potential clients in the geosciences involves adopting more business-like attitudes than have been traditionally in place, including greater client sensitivity, and more accessible communication of results and requirements (Leffingwell, 1994). Itself inherently multidisciplinary, it is essential to integrate paleontology at early planning stages into projects aimed at a great variety of other goals.

This essay is modified from a paper by T.P. Poulton and J.S. Bell: Proceedings of the Oil and Gas Forum '95; Geological Survey of Canada Open File 3058, p. 527-531.

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Cope, J.C.W. 1993. High resolution biostratigraphy; in High resolution stratigraphy, (ed.) E.A. Hailwood and R.B. Kidd; Geological Society Special Publication, No. 70, p. 257-265.

The Economist, 1988. Fossils - the story-telling science; The Economist, Dec. 18, 1988 issue, p. 101-106.

Leffingwell, H.A. 1994. Reinvigorating industrial micropaleontology; American Paleontologist, v. 2, p. 1-4.

McMillan, N.J. and Duk-Rodkin, A. 1995. The Bell River System: Tertiary drainage from the eastern Cordillera to the Labrador Sea; Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 3058, p. 495-496.

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Shirley, K. 1993. Good ol' paleo never looked so new; American Association of Petroleum Geologists Explorer, April 1993 issue, p. 42,43,45.

Smith, P.L. 1989. Paleobiogeography and plate tectonics; Geoscience Canada, v. 15, no. 4, p. 261-279.

Williams, E.V. 1986. Palynological study of the continental shelf sediments of the Labrador Sea; Ph.D. thesis, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, 214 p.