Invertebrate Palaeontology and Sequence Stratigraphy: complementary methods and evidence to explain the geological record

Abstract

The fossil record and the stratigraphic record are two components of the geological record different in nature, and they can be separately interpreted and tested in many cases of Invertebrate Palaeontology. Abundance, diversity and stratigraphic persistence are outstanding features of the fossil invertebrates. Therefore, the complementarity (as the capacity of two contrasted theories together to explain a body of phenomena, although each separately accounts for only some aspects) or the consilience (as the fact or condition of being inferred from different phenomena) between Palaeontology and Sequence Stratigraphy through the study of fossil invertebrates is specially useful for the interpretation of the geological record and the palaeoenvironmental changes. Keywords:Invertebrate animals, fossil record, stratigraphic record, palaeontological cycles, palaeoenvironmental cycles