Taphonomic approaches to time resolution in fossil assemblages: Introduction

Abstract

Since their inception in 1978, the annual short courses sponsored by the Paleontological Society have aimed to broaden and to enhance the professional education of paleontologists, including students new to the field. The 1993 short course continues in that tradition, but differs from many previous courses in focussing not on a taxonomic group but on a broader aspect of the fossil record, namely the time resolution of fossil assemblages. This seemed an especially good topic for a short course because questions of absolute and relative time – how old? how fast? how synchronously? – pervade paleontology and historical geology in general.