Zombie taxon
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
In paleontology, a zombie taxon[1][2] (plural zombie taxa) or the zombie effect refers to a fossil that was washed out of sediments and re-deposited in rocks and/or sediments millions of years younger.[3] That basic mistake in the interpretation of the age of the fossil leads to its title,[4] in that the discovered fossil was at some point mobile (or "walking") despite the original organism having been long dead. When that occurs, the fossil is described as a "reworked fossil".
See also
Further reading
- Archibald, J. David. (1996). Dinosaur Extinction and the End of An Era. Columbia University Press, 672-684. Template:ISBN, who defined the terms zombie effect and zombie taxon/taxa.
- Weishampel, David B. et al. (2004). The Dinosauria. University of California Press. Template:ISBN.
- Abigail Lane et al. "Estimating paleodiversities: a test of the taxic and phylogenetic methods".
References
<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />
Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".