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埋藏學，指研究化石的埋藏條件及其產地的形成原因，即研究生物體從死亡到形成化石的全部歷史過程。埋藏學的提出，使古生物學和地質學更緊密地扣合。本課程是針對已有古生物學基礎的學生，讓他們更了解現代古生物學所需要的知識及最新的研究方法及手段。學生將透過大量的文獻閱讀、口頭和展板報告、學期作業以及考試來深刻地了解埋藏學的應用潛力。

教課書：
Taphonomy – Process and Bias Through Time
Editors: Peter A. Allison, David J. Bottjer
ISBN: 978-90-481-8642-6 (Print); 978-90-481-8643-3 (Online)

課程行程表
Week1 Taphonomy: Bias and Process Through Time
Week 2 Taphonomic Overprints on Phanerozoic Trends in Biodiversity:
Lithification and Other Secular Megabiases
Week 3 Taphonomic Bias in Shelly Faunas Through Time: Early Aragonitic
Dissolution and Its Implications for the Fossil Record
Week 4 Comparative Taphonomy and Sedimentology of Small-Scale
Mixed Carbonate/Siliciclastic Cycles: Synopsis of Phanerozoic Examples
Week 5 Taphonomy of Animal Organic Skeletons Through Time
Week 6 Molecular Taphonomy of Plant Organic Skeletons
Week 7 The Relationship Between Continental Landscape Evolution and the Plant-Fossil Record: Long Term Hydrologic Controls on Preservation
Week 8 Hierarchical Control of Terrestrial Vertebrate Taphonomy over Space and Time: Discussion of Mechanisms and Implications for Vertebrate Paleobiology
Week 9 Midterm
Week 10 Microtaphofacies: Exploring the Potential for Taphonomic Analysis in Carbonates
Week 11 Taphonomy of Reefs Through Time
Week 12 Silicification Through Time
Week 13 Phosphatization Through the Phanerozoic
Week 14 Three-Dimensional Morphological (CLSM) and Chemical (Raman) Imagery of Cellularly Mineralized Fossils
Week 15 Taphonomy in Temporally Unique Settings: An Environmental Traverse in Search of the Earliest Life on Earth
Week 16 Evolutionary Trends in Remarkable Fossil Preservation Across the Ediacaran–Cambrian Transition and the Impact of Metazoan Mixing
Week 17 Mass Extinctions and Changing Taphonomic Processes: Fidelity of the Guadalupian, Lopingian, and Early Triassic Fossil Records
Week 18 Final exam