The Geological Survey of Canada and many university departments frequently open their doors to the public. This allows you the opportunity to find out what that peculiar rock was that was propping granny's door open for the last 50 years, or perhaps to find out more about that strange tooth that Uncle Fred had on his mantleshelf for as long as you can remember. The incredible diversity of life on Earth through time has resulted in a fossil record that is extremely rich in information. Paleontologists try to unravel and understand the complexity of the fossil record as it records the history and development of life on Earth.
Paleontology is the biological part of geology.
Each period of time on Earth is marked by a unique assemblage of plants and animals that is unmistakably distinct from every other assemblage. This has permitted the establishment of a finely calibrated geological time scale for at least the last 600 million years of Earth history. The establishment of these distinct periods of time based on distinct fossil assemblages is called biostratigraphy and is of fundamental importance to geology because it can help determine the sequence and rate of geological events. The idea that the composition of fossil skeletal materials may reflect the chemistry of the oceans in which they were formed has led to much recent research to establish patterns of ocean temperature, salinity and relative oxygen content. These new directions of paleontological research require multidisciplinary studies involving aspects of chemistry , geology and biology.