Principle of faunal succession - Wikipedia Principle of faunal succession For the principal of ecological success following disturbance, see ecological succession. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( February 2009 ) The principle of faunal succession, also known as the law of faunal succession, is based on the observation that sedimentary rock strata contain fossilized flora and fauna, and that these fossils succeed each other vertically in a specific, reliable order that can be identified over wide horizontal distances. A fossilized Neanderthal bone will never be found in the same stratum as a fossilized Megalosaurus, for example, because neanderthals and megalosaurs lived during different geological periods, separated by many millions of years. This allows for strata to be identified and dated by the fossils found within. This principle, which received its name from the English geologist William Smith, is of great importance in determining the relative age of rocks and strata. The fossil content of rocks together with the law of superposition helps to determine the time sequence in which sedimentary rocks were laid down. Evolution explains the observed faunal and floral succession preserved in rocks. Faunal succession was documented by Smith in England during the first decade of the 19th century, and concurrently in France by Cuvier ( with the assistance of the mineralogist Alexandre Brongniart ). Archaic biological features and organisms are succeeded in the fossil record by more modern versions. For instance, paleontologists investigating the evolution of birds predicted that feathers would first be seen in primitive forms on flightless predecessor organisms such as feathered dinosaurs. This is precisely what has been discovered in the fossil record : simple feathers, incapable of supporting flight, are succeeded by increasingly large and complex feathers. In practice, the most useful diagnostic species are those with the fastest rate of species turnover and the widest distribution ; their study is termed biostratigraphy, the science of dating rocks by using the fossils contained within them. In Cenozoic strata, fossilized tests of foraminifera are often used to determine faunal succession on a refined scale, each biostratigraphic unit ( biozone ) being a geological stratum that is defined on the basis of its characteristic fossil taxa. An outline microfaunal zonal scheme based on both foraminifera and ostracoda was compiled by M.B. Hart ( 1972 ). Simply, the earlier fossil life forms are simpler than more recent forms, and more recent forms are most similar to existing forms ( principle of faunal succession ). See also The Wikibook Historical Geology has a page on the topic of : Principle of faunal succession Law of superposition Principle of cross-cutting relationships Principle of lateral continuity Principle of original horizontality References Jump up ^ Winchester, Simon ( 2001 ), The Map that Changed the World : William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology, New York : HarperCollins, pp. 59 -- 91, ISBN 0 - 06 - 093180 - 9 Jump up ^ Yu, Mingke ; Wu, Ping ; Widelitz, Randall B. ; Chuong, Cheng - Ming ( 21 November 2002 ), `` The morphogenesis of feathers '', Nature, 420 ( 6913 ) : 308 -- 312, doi : 10.1038 / nature01196, PMC 4386656 Jump up ^ Evolutionary Analysis, 4th Edition. p 61. Geologic principles and processes Stratigraphic principles Principle of original horizontality Law of superposition Principle of lateral continuity Principle of cross-cutting relationships Principle of faunal succession Principle of inclusions and components Walther 's law Petrologic principles Intrusive Extrusive Volcanic Exfoliation Weathering Pedogenesis Diagenesis Compaction Metamorphism Geomorphologic processes Plate tectonics Salt tectonics Tectonic uplift Subsidence Marine transgression Marine regression Sediment transport Fluvial processes Aeolian processes Glacial processes Mass wasting processes This paleontology article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Principle_of_faunal_succession&oldid=840745276 '' Categories : Paleontology stubs Paleontological concepts and hypotheses Dating methods Stratigraphy Hidden categories : Articles needing additional references from February 2009 All articles needing additional references All stub articles Talk About Wikipedia Català Deutsch Eesti Español Euskara Italiano עברית Nederlands 日本 語 Português 中文 5 more Edit links This page was last edited on 11 May 2018, at 22 : 01 ( UTC ). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia ® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. About Wikipedia

Question: who formulated the principles of stratigraphy and faunal succession
Answer: English geologist William Smith