3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

Everything we know about the origins and evolution of life comes from the geologic record: bones and shells, stromatolites, ancient DNA, and subtle variations in the chemical and isotopic composition of rocks. But what processes — biological and abiological — determine which living things really do “live forever” as fossil biosignatures, and which are lost to the sands of time? In this course, students will learn how researchers read and interpret the geologic record of life and quantify its limitations, to better understand how life came to be and how it has changed through time. They will learn how organisms’ lifestyles and metabolisms affect the chemical and physical properties of their environment and how the process of fossilization is facilitated by physiology, ecological relationships, and diagenesis. Students will engage with a wide range of content, from interdisciplinary academic research articles to speculative science fiction, and work with geologic samples and chemical and isotopic datasets.