Evaluating Paleontologic Data Relating to Bio-Events

Measurements of diversity and extinction intensity around bio-events in local stratigraphic sections and global taxonomic data bases include some degree of uncertainty, or potential error. Sources of uncertainty involve failure to sample rarer species in all collections and imprecise age correlations and species counts, among others. This chapter presents several methods for evaluating this paleontologic uncertainty. For fossil ranges in local sections, methods are reviewed that might help to discriminate between true gradual (or stepwise) extinction and apparent gradual decline resulting from sampling effects. For tabulated extinctions in regional or global data bases, methods are evaluated for measuring extinction intensity and procedures are presented for calculating relative uncertainty.

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