GL 310 PALEOBOTANY
SYLLABUS
DR. R.A. GASTALDO
204 PETRIE HALL
Week 1
Perspectives on Late Twentieth Century Paleontological Research
Plant
Taphonomy: Physiological, Necrological, and Traumatic processes
Week 2
Taphonomy: Biogeochemical Processes of Plant
Fossilization and Preservational Modes
Biostratinomic Processes in Volcaniclastic, Fluvial-Lacustrine, and
Coastal Deltaic Terrains
Week 3
Biostratinomic Processes in Peat Accumulating and the Nearshore
Marine Realm
Systematics and Evolutionary Processes in the Plant Kingdom
Week 4
Monerans and Protoctists; Evolution and Diversification of PreCambrian
Life
Evolutionary Trends in Non-Vascular Plants: Priming for Land
Conquest
Week 5
Mid-Paleophytic Evidence for the Acquisition of Land Habit and
Tracheophyte Emergence
Evolution of Vegetational Tiering and Canopy Diversification
Consult the ONLINE Biology Textbook for a review of Plant Anatomy if necessary.
Week 6
The Appearance of Forests and Adaptive Characters for Stressed Environments
The Permo-Carboniferous: Diversification Responses to Times of
Icehouse-Greenhouse
Week 7
Early Mesophytic Global Diversification: A New Fasçade for an
Era
Week 8
The Cenophytic and the Evolution of Angiospermy: Hypotheses and Conjecture
Angiosperm Radiations & Evidence for a Late Cretaceous Terrestrial
Extinction Event
Week 9
Fossil Plant Remains as Paleoclimatic Indicators
Tertiary Community Distribution in Response to Global Climatic
Trends
TEXTBOOKS
Broadhead, T.W. ed. 1986. Land Plants: Notes for a Short Course. University of Tennessee
Department of Geological Sciences Studies in Geology 15:1-212.
Gastaldo, R.A. 1983. Paleobotany Lab Manual: An Interdisciplinary Approach. Auburn
University Printing Service. 124p.
LIBRARY RESERVE READINGS
Committee on the Conduct of Science, National Science Foundation, 1989.
On Being a
Scientist. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C. 22p.
Gastaldo, R.A. 1992. Taphonomic considerations for plant evolutionary investigations.
Palaeobotanist 41:211-223.
Gastaldo, R.A. 1994. The genesis and sedimentation of phytoclasts with examples from coastal
environments in A. Traverse, ed. Sedimentation of Organic Particles. Cambridge University
Press. Chapter 7, pp. 103-127.
Traverse, A. 1988. Plant Evolution Dances to a Different Beat. Historical Geology 1:277-301.
Schopf, J.W. 1993. Microfossils of the Early Archean Apex Chert: New Evidence of the Antiquity
of Life. Science. 260:640-646
Knoll, A.H. 1992. The early evolution of eukaryotic organisms: a geological perspective. Science
256:673-678.
Retallack, G.J. 1992. What to call early plant formations on land. PALAIOS 7:508-520.
DiMichele, W.A. 1995. Ecolgical patterns in time and space. Paleobiology 20:89-92.
Gastaldo, R.A., DiMichele, W.A., and Pfefferkorn, H.W. 1996. Out of the Icehouse into the
Greenhouse: A Late Paleozoic Analog for Modern Global Vegetational Change. GSA Today
6(10):1-7.
Retallack, G.J. 1997. Neogene Expansion of the North American Prairie. PALAIOS 12:380-390.
