Faunal Succession with Foraminifera

During this activity students will learn about the earliest concepts of determining geologic time with fossils. The various fossil flora and fauna in rocks can be used to correlate a suite of rock layers from one location to another based on relative age. Students will use the principle of faunal succession to organize a series of rock samples in stratigraphic order by applying the concepts of first appearance datum (FAD; evolutionary origin in time of a species) and last appearance datum (LAD; extinction point in time of a species). This case study relies on the concept of ‘range’ of a fossil when fossil distribution is looked at in stratigraphic order (from the oldest FAD, to the youngest LAD).