Importance of Paleontology

Serena Cuoghi
Biology Teacher Title

The search and analysis of fossil remains opens a window into the past, allowing us to reconstruct the history of life on the planet in the first instance, however, the Knowledge derived from the various palentelogical discoveries has also greatly contributed to the development of other specialties such as: 1) evolutionary biology, allowing the establishment of existing relationships between variations of the same species that could give rise to new groups or, on the contrary, have become the cause of its extinction; 2) Comparative Biology, through which the phylogenetic relationships between species are glimpsed; and 3) Paleoecology, oriented to the reconstruction of the scenarios of the environmental characteristics that conditioned life in each era, for the understanding of ancient ecosystems and the ways in which organisms interacted with each other and with their environments.

Bones that speak for humanity

The desire to know the story that could not be told by our most remote ancestors about life on the planet has led to the development of various areas of study focused on the search for evidence stored in the elements hidden in the earth, including bones and other fossil remains, which reveal how it has been the presence of life before our most modern era, thus emerging paleontology as a specialty in charge of finding and translating all the signals present in these.

The information extracted from fossil remains about these environmental conditions is also of profound support for the development of sequencing changes in the characteristics of the elements of the planet, being thanks to this that phenomena such as global warming have been evident and understood, allowing discern the level of impact that human development has had on the change in natural terrestrial dynamics, as well as the potential for induced effects for our exclusive cause, also becoming a source of the knowledge necessary for making decisions that allow the progressive reduction of damages caused.

On the other hand, areas such as medicine and human biology have also used paleontology to understand the factors that have given rise to various structures. bones of our body and how these have been modified throughout the mutations that we have experienced as a species, helping to analyze multiple problems that can lead to diseases and syndromes with a genetic link, in addition to allowing us to understand part of the relationship between the various ethnic groups into which our society has diversified. species, the possible origins of these separations and the particular evolutionary characteristics of each one depending on the environmental conditions and the life habits that had adopted.

Biological comparisons

The geological strata are also exposed thanks to paleontological studies, thereby allowing the determination of the ages corresponding to the formation. and development of each stratum, an infinite amount of information being trapped there about the conditions conducive or not for the development of life, therefore, this area study becomes an essential resource for the sustenance of geology and vice versa, through incessant feedback between both areas for the promotion and growth of all other resources at the disposal of the discovery, interpretation and dissemination of history and, therefore, of education about it, which guides us towards also contemplating how paleontology and education come to go hand in hand, fostering the interest of people of all ages in the revealed knowledge. by science and natural history, to the point of even creating specific spaces for this purpose such as anthropological museums, natural science museums and archaeological ones, available in almost all nations and intended to provide in the foreground the local history itself as part of the cultural heritage of the people and in second, the correlation of this with the rest of global history, both aspects that are of great interest for tourist purposes that allow paleontology the power of develop in itself an economic source for the benefit of various sectors, in addition to contributing strongly to increasing awareness about the needs of the conservation of species and the change of life models that threaten the balance between species and their relationship with the environment for the sustenance of The Biodiversity.

New horizons in the Universe

Often, paleontological finds end up leading to the discovery of new species or even entire genera, so it is not surprising that the desire to find life on other planets will drive towards the incorporation of this area of ​​terrestrial study to space sciences, allowing the complementation of astrobiology with the search for possible fossil remains on the surface and accessible layers of materials from the Universe, available to technology, as the field itself evolves. space exploration, who takes away and one day perhaps the true origin of life can be completely revealed, thanks among other things to the answers found by paleontology.