Frontiers of Paleontology?

[alexr]

So I googled a bit about frontiers of paleontology, and didn't find much. Somethings about biomineralisation?

So when tiktalik was discovered, did that represent the last "missing link, " are there any other missing links? What gaps are left to fill in?

What rock layers are we yet to crack open?

Regards 

Alexander Radchik

 

[Fossildude19]

Welcome to the Forum. 

To answer your questions, in my thinking:

 

So I googled a bit about frontiers of paleontology, and didn't find much. Some things about biomineralisation?

Paleoecology, taphonomy (including biomineralization) and paleobiology, could all be considered frontiers. There will always be frontiers in Paleontology, as we can never know the limit of everything there is to know about this subject.  

 

So when Tiktalik was discovered, did that represent the last "missing link, " are there any other missing links?  

No.  I'm sure there are still many out there yet to be found.

 

What gaps are left to fill in? Many, many gaps. Due to the rarity of creatures becoming fossils, it is impossible to tell exactly what gaps there are in the fossil record.

 

What rock layers are we yet to crack open?  All of the ones that haven't been found yet, or exposed at the earth's surface, or studied completely. 

[LordTrilobite]

5 hours ago, alexr said:

What gaps are left to fill in?

The origin or pterosaurs and turtles springs to mind. It's still not really known how pterosaur flight evolved and it's also still unknown where turtles actually sit in the phylogenetic tree.

[Miocene_Mason]

A skeleton either confirming or denying Paranthropus robustus's relationship to the two other robust Australopithecines, or the postcranial remains of Sahalanthropus tchadensis, or DNA of any hominid pre Homo Heidelbergensis would be nice for paleoanthropologists, paleobotanists would like a Ordovician plant rather than spores, and fossils clearing up to phylogeny of Cambrian Arthropods would be helpful, as would viable dinosaur DNA, just to name a few....

[Hapchazzard]

16 hours ago, alexr said:

are there any other missing links?

 

Definitely. Here are some more:

 

1. What is the relationship between the Ediacaran biota and modern animals? (this is probably the biggest modern question in paleontology)

2. What is the exact relationship between the Archaeocyaths and the rest of the sponges?

3. What group of anthozoans do the stony corals descend from? Or in general, what is the relationship between the stony corals, rugose corals and tabulates? All three groups have obscure beginnings and no clear ancestor.

4. In general, there are a lot of miscellaneous genera that we aren't able to neatly pin down in the tree of life and that constantly keep getting shuffled around. For example, Tetradium from the late Ordovician, which was originally considered a tabulate coral, then a sponge, and currently a rhodophyte, or Calathium, a prominent early-to-mid Ordovician reef builder which was originally considered an algae but is now (quite unsurely) placed by some authors among the sponges. Of course, these aren't exactly "frontiers" but they still represent interesting organisms that paleontology still has a lot of questions about.

[FossilDAWG]

Your lack of "hits" from a google search for "frontiers of paleontology" likely reflects your choice of key words, rather than there being nothing left to do in paleontology.

 

Quite a few great suggestions have been offered already.  My personal interest leans towards the radiation of the invertebrate phyla, especially the arthropods, and the movement of plants and arthropods on to the land.  Phylogenies based on genomic data clearly show that the arthropods have a long history (dating well into the Precambrian) before fossils of several well defined arthropod groups appear in the "Cambrian explosion".  Also insects diverged from the Remipedes, a "crustacean" group, in the Ordovician or earliest Silurian, but the oldest insect fossil comes from the Devonian.  Where are the fossils?  Tiktalik was found not by pure chance (though some chance was involved) but rather due to a focused search concentrating on rocks that were deposited at the right time and under the right environment.  The same approach may be useful for very early arthropod splits, and for the earliest land plants.

 

Don

[alexr]

I appreciate your input, I have to apologize for the simple way I asked the question as it was mainly motivated to elicit a response(which I a happy with.) A generally agree with most of what you have said and would like to write more, but have a bad back ache and will write smth when it goes away... 

Regards 

Alex R