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This article introduces a satellite technology, High Resolution Picture Transmission (HRPT), for a science activity. HRPT is a digital data stream transmitted from environmental satellites. The HRPT imagery is capable of providing real-time studies of regional geology, glacial processes, atmospheric processes, ocean circulation, coastal processes, hydrology, and so on. Obtaining and manipulating HRPT data creates a variety of exciting experiences in science classrooms. A Science and Technology for Individuals, Societies, and the Environment (STISE) teaching model was developed to use satellite technologies for science activities. STISE is a conceptual model for addressing key cognitive and affective parameters when designing science lessons. STISE is designed to encourage students to understand science and technology from their levels of cognition, then relate their understanding to the environment, levels of societies, and their lives. Relationships among science, technology, and society become both obvious and interesting to students as they process and interpret the HRPT imagery.

Lateral fluctuations of shoreline positions along shallow basinal margins often result in spatially and temporally overprinted (palimpsested) firmground or hardground surfaces (Frey and Basan, 1981). Recent palimpsested surfaces can teach us a great deal about the fossil record, particularly when we view them taphonomically. For the last few years we have been studying such surfaces along the seaward coast of St. Catherines Island, Georgia. In this paper we will first briefly discuss the modern salt marsh at St. Catherines Island, and its invertebrate inhabitants. This will form a basis for recognition and description of relict marsh surfaces. We will next describe the relict salt marsh surface that is currently being exhumed by coastal erosion and palimpsested by other invertebrate communities. Such palimpsested events also represent heterochronous community replacement–the disjunct temporal and (usually) spatial overprinting of an older community (or biogenic surface) by one (or more) younger communities. This interprets “replacement” as a passive, generally species non-interactive, phenomenon (contra Miller, 1986). Lastly, we will make some rather broad comparisons between the St. Catherines Island setting and what we interpret as analogous situations recorded in the Carboniferous strata of the Appalachian Basin.

Stratigraphy provides a basic temporal and spatial framework for all studies of earth history. The foundations of stratigraphy were built in the 17th and 18th centuries through the efforts of Steno and Smith. Formalization of the principles of organic evolution followed closely in the mid-19th century with the publication of the Origin of Species. Although paleoecological observations span centuries, the establishment of paleoecology as a scientific discipline is a 20th century phenomenon. Initially, paleontology (paleobiology) was an integral part of stratigraphy and housed the subdisciplinary studies of evolution and paleoecology. Retention of a stratigraphic framework soon became difficult, perhaps due to the potential for circular reasoning in the evolutionary study of fossils. If the rock record was subdivided on the basis of fossils, how could the evolutionary relationships of these organisms be evaluated when they, or related forms, had been used to construct the temporal framework?

Poorly preserved vertebrates with chevron-shaped, non-mineralized scales are described from the Lower Devonian (Gedinnian) Manlius Formation of New York State. They most closely resemble Jamoytius kerwoodi from the Silurian of Scotland, and, like that species, are found in association with phyllocarid crustaceans. This anaspid-like vertebrate and phyllocarids lived in a near-shore, carbonate shelf environment with about 0.8–1.2 m deep water of normal or somewhat above-normal salinity.

Carboniferous strata can be described, interpreted, and correlated using six scales of allocyclic transgressive-regressive (T-R) units. These T-R units are inferred to be the net result of deposition during cycles of sea-level change. All Pennsylvanian and Lower Permian strata constitute one second-order T-R unit, or synthem. The Pennsylvanian System contains third-, fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-order T-R units that can be correlated across both marine and nonmarine facies in the Appalachian Basin. This permits differentiation of allocyclic T-R units from autocyclic T-R units or fluvial autocyclic units. The hierarchical approach is also useful for predicting the location of marine horizons, coals, claystones, and various types of stratigraphic breaks. A hierarchical scheme of allocyclic T-R units could be combined with biostratigraphic, radiometric, and magnetostratigraphic data to form a practical chronostratigraphic framework for the Carboniferous.