Talk:List of index fossils

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A fact from List of index fossils appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 23 May 2004. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that corals, graptolites, brachiopods and trilobites are frequently used as index fossils?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2004/May.

Wikipedia

WikiProject[edit]

This project probably belongs in either WP Geology or WP Biology. Since I am not a specialist in either field, I will add this page to WP Geology and hope that an expert can categorize it appropriately. Nimur 17:09, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Homework Question[edit]

WP:NOTFORUM

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Here is a question i want to know.What makes index fossils useable as time markers in rocks?I have these four conclusions but i don't know which one is the answer,

A.They are hard to find.
B.They only lived for about 1 million years.
C.They were alive for hundreds of millions of years.
D.They were only found in one location.

I need to know which one is the answer,can you please help me?You can e-mail me at (EMAIL REMOVED) with the answer.Thanks for your time.

I'd suggest reading the article. It already explains pretty clearly how index fossils are used, and what constitutes a good index fossil (tip: abundant and so easy to find, but only existed for a short period of geological time). --Plumbago 10:11, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also, you probably don't want to include your email on a wikipedia page; it's a ripe target for spammers. Nimur 16:55, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unclear sentence?[edit]

I can't help but wonder what the sentence "Bitches had found them before too." is doing in this article.

It was WP:Vandalism, and has been removed. You can help remove vandalism if you spot it! Use the "Edit This Page" tab. Nimur 13:27, 24 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Local index fossils[edit]

Many of the taxa in the table are only local index fossils and certainly not worldwide. Therefore, the table is rather useless: no geographic area has been mentioned.--Tom Meijer (talk) 18:37, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Besides, no remark has been made that the application of index fossils is a rather oldfashioned method in biostratigraphy. This should be added. --Tom Meijer (talk) 18:41, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is an important topic which has been treated in a shabby manner. It is important to invertebrate palaeontology, indications of climate change, chronostratigraphy, and to teaching field geology. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:41, 18 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Redirection of Index fossils redirect to Index fossils in Biostratigraphy[edit]

As said earlier, Index fossils, et. al. is an important concept, much better, if still incompletely, covered in the new redirect target.

The present list is at best misleading. If it is intended as a list of Index species, there are dozens in the Ammonites and Inoceramids of the second half of the Cretaceous alone. It may be safe to say (without actually taking the time to count) that there are hundreds in North America alone.

IveGoneAway (talk) 04:29, 28 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]