The coming of age of facies geology is sharply highlighting the significant role that paleontology plays in understanding basin geology. Growing recognition that exploration for stratigraphic traps requires close time-stratigraphic control is also bringing paleontology increasingly into exploration work. As key members of stratigraphic teams, paleontologists must not only pick "tops" but, equally, must be aware of environmental effects on organisms in order to evaluate time-significance of so-called "marker bugs." Moreover, fossil assemblages must be analyzed comprehensively to facilitate interpretation of depositional patterns.

Increased need for paleontology has stimulated research on little-known fossils to supplement forms conventionally used. Improvements in microscopes have materially aided these investigations; magnifications of 500 to 2,500× can now be used routinely, and X-ray techniques permit examination at 10,000× or more. As a result of notable advances in techniques, concepts, and knowledge, a number of fossil groups, including spores, pollen, "hystrichs," coccoliths, tintinnids, favreinids, nannoconids, conodonts, and chitinozoans, have been increasingly used for dating and correlating, and for interpreting depositional environments. These "new" forms fill gaps in existing control based largely on foraminifera. Effort is also being made to expand knowledge and application of macrofoss ls and of biofacies to understand more fully the interrelationships of fossils and facies. This expanding knowledge of faunas and floras is bringing paleontology into its proper role as a key to basin geology and as the indispensable tool in stratigraphic-trap exploration.

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