What palaecology !? And its applications
Answers
Paleoecology is the study of interactions between organisms and/or interactions between organisms and their environments across geologic timescales.
Applications:
In oil exploration, oil is known to favor certain rockrypes, such as porous sands or limestones. In a lagoon setting (where a river meets the sea), for example, you will find sand dunes, mudflats, and river gravels adjacent to each other. Only the sand dune may contain oil. In exploration, these ancient geologic environments are deeply buried and and cannot be visualized ( except with high resolution seismic, in some cases), so the only way to ‘reconstruct’ them is with drillhole samples. Careful examination of the drill core will tell you many things, including: which direction relative to present-day was the ocean and the land; where are you in the lagoon setting, the mudflats, the dunes, in between?; was the sand permeable or not, etc. The remains of plants and animals (the ecology) in the core can ‘locate’ you in a much larger environment. If the mudflats are large (thousands of feet between the land and sea), where are you, close to the water or the land, how deep beneath water level? This information may guide a new drill hole. There are many scenarios like this.
it is the study of interactions between organisms and their environment.
Applications:
it is used for management and restoration efforts.
As a discipline, paleoecology interacts with, depends on and informs a variety of fields including paleontology, ecology, climatology and biology.