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Sampling from the Fossil Record

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2017

Carl F. Koch
Carl F. Koch*
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia 23529-0496
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Extract

The effects of sampling the fossil record are much greater then one would intuitively expect because most species are rare. That is, most species are represented by extremely few specimens and occur in extremely few collections. In many studies, species which occur only once are considered to be either endemic, stenotopic or of short species duration when in fact these species may not have any of these characteristics but, in fact, are very rare and thus occur in the fossil record very infrequently.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Short Courses in Paleontology , Volume 4: Analytical Paleobiology , 1991 , pp. 4 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 Paleontological Society 

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References

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