What sorts of “paleo” topics are you interested in writing about?  Can’t think of anything?  Here are some general ideas for topics. Don’t feel constrained to this list.  These are just ideas that might help those of you who really can’t think of anything to write about at this stage.

General Ideas & Topics

1.  Extinction events in Geologic Time, such as the Permian/Triassic Extinctions, the Cretaceous/Tertiary Extinctions

2.  Early history of life, development of eukaryotic cells, significance of Banded Iron Formations (BIFs)

3.  History of paleontology/geology:  The growth of the current main ideas in paleontology

4.  The time significance of fossils-how geologists use them for time interpretation

5.  Plate tectonics and ancient climates-how they affected the distribution of plants or specific groups of animals

6. Biodiversity in the geologic past, patterns seen then as compared to now

7. Global warming-has it been warmer in the past, and how do we know?

8. Ecosystems of the past-the characters change but the ecosystems remain the same, such as the reef ecosystem, for example.

9. Biochemistry-how many ways are there to make a CaCO3 shell?

10. Stable isotopes as tracers of ancient climate change in fossils

11.  Genetic material recovered from fossils-what it means

12.  Symmetry of body plans in invertebrates-why are there so few?