Re: paleonet Re: Geobiology

[Bill Chaisson <chaisson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 5:32 PM +0100 10/24/02, N. MacLeod wrote:
>Etymology is OK, but I was hoping to take the deeper temperature of 
>people's feelings toward geobiology. From the responses thus far it 
>seems that the term (and perhaps the subject) has little resonance 
>with PaleoNet subscribers? Is that correct? Do people just not know 
>much about geobiology or have they considered it and decided that 
>geobiology really doesn't have much to offer them?

I have considered it the largely province of geochemists and 
micropaleontologists who are interested in bacteria.  It is my 
understanding that geobiology is about how biology might have 
mediated the creation of and continued operation of 'earth systems'. 
The field seems to focus (if you can call it that) on the big 
picture:  why does the Earth as a whole work in the way it does?  How 
did it happen in the first place and what keeps it going?

>  I suppose my question is whether anyone sees any advantage for 
>paleontology to assimilate geobiology the way paleobiology was 
>assimilated. Geobiology's current practitioners (e.g., Andy Knoll) 
>clearly have offered paleontology an invitation to join them.

Prof. Knoll is a good example of a geoscientist interested in 'early 
Earth' questions.  If you have a historical bent, then it is to the 
early events that geobiology devotes its attention.  But if you have 
an ahistorical bent (i.e. you are a geochemist), then there is a lot 
more for you to do in geobiology because the systems that came 
together in the Archaean and Proterozoic are presumably still 
operating pretty much the same way.  And if they aren't, well that's 
interesting too, but it is still an ahistorical question.

>I'm curious as to why geobiology seems to be a such a non-starter.

I am guessing that the majority of paleontologists are (a) interested 
in less synoptic problems; (b) not interested in the role of biota in 
the operation of geochemical systems; (c) interested in organismic 
level of organization and 'higher'

Bill
-- 
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William P. Chaisson         
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Rochester                       ph  585-275-0601
Rochester, New York  14627  USA            fax  585-244-5689

http://www.earth.rochester.edu/chaisson/chaisson.html