Fossil

Fossils (from Classical Latin fossilis; literally, "obtained by digging") are the preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous (fossil-containing) rock formations and sedimentary layers (strata) is known as the fossil record.

The study of fossils across geological time, how they were formed, and the evolutionary relationships between taxa (phylogeny) are some of the most important functions of the science of paleontology. Such a preserved specimen is called a "fossil" if it is older than some minimum age, most often the arbitrary date of 10,000 years. Hence, fossils range in age from the youngest at the start of the Holocene Epoch to the oldest, chemical fossils from the Archaean Eon, up to 3.48 billion years old, or even older, 4.1 billion years old, according to a 2015 study. The observation that certain fossils were associated with certain rock strata led early geologists to recognize a geological timescale in the 19th century. The development of radiometric dating techniques in the early 20th century allowed geologists to determine the numerical or "absolute" age of the various strata and thereby the included fossils.

Fossil Record

Fossil Record is a biannual peer-reviewed scientific journal covering palaeontology. It was established in 1998 as the Mitteilungen aus dem Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, Geowissenschaftliche Reihe and originally published on behalf of the Museum für Naturkunde by Wiley-VCH; since 2014 it has been published by Copernicus Publications. The editors-in-chief are Martin Aberhan, Dieter Korn, and Florian Witzmann (Museum für Naturkunde).

Abstracting and indexing

The journal is abstracted and indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded, BIOSIS Previews, The Zoological Record, and Scopus. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2013 impact factor of 0.913.

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