Areopaleontology/Areopaleogenomics
What is Paleogenomics? Paleogenomics is the study of the origins of today's different and diverse genomes of Earth's inhabitants. Paleogenomics is closely related to Astrobiology. Astrobiology is the search for evidence of life on other planets. The obvious reason for this relation is because the field of paleogenomics often delves into areas that are usually thought of as astrobiologic fields. Paleogenomic looks for remnants of life no matter how old it may be. This is part of the reason that paleogenomics often infringes upon astrobiologic areas.
To get started, here are some definitions that may be useful while viewing these pages.
| Exopaleontology | study of non-terran life, that is, not indigenous to Earth's biosphere |
| Meteoritic Paleontology | study of fossils found on meteorites |
| Areopaleontology | study of martian life, that is, life or fossils found in Mars's biosphere |
| Nanopaleontology | study of chemical life |
| Micropaleontology | study of cellular life |
| Macropaleontology | study of whole organisms |
| Megapaleontology | study of planetary surface features |
Even though the fields that I have listed above are considered paleontologic, they are closely related to the field of paleogenomics.
Genomics, in general, is primarily concerned with the characterization
and the analysis of genetic material from a wide range of organisms, including
man. In the next few years, many different genomes of organisms, including
man, will be determined. While this is a feat in itself, the hardest part
is yet to come. After these genomes are determined, there will be a great
amount of work involved in determining what parts of the genomes do what
and how each of these different parts react with one another.
While all of this is extremely exciting and very important, it still does not explain who we are and where we came from...a question that scientists have been trying to explain since the time of the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers. This is where the field of paleogenomics comes in to play. Paleogenomics takes ancient samples of DNA and decodes them. In this way, paleogenomics "writes" a sort of history book of genetic information. This allows scientists to see the trends and movements of genetics/genomics from ancient times to today.
The below links take you to pages concerning the different fields that contribute and envelope the field of paleogenomics.