Most mandatory and optional taught units are completed by Christmas, and examined in January. The Literature Review unit runs from before Christmas until the end of February. The research work then follows, consisting of the Research Methods in Palaeobiology unit to be completed by Easter, then moving seamlessly into the main Thesis unit after Easter, to be completed by September 15th.

Core Programme

EASCM0001 - CURRENT CONTROVERSIES IN PALAEOBIOLOGY AND MACROEVOLUTION (10 c.p.)
The purpose of this unit is to discuss and debate controversial areas in palaeobiology. The main aims are: to improve your knowledge of controversial subject areas; to improve your communication skills, particularly in oral presentations, and; to encourage independent assessment of the evidence for competing hypotheses.

EASCM0003 - SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION (10 c.p.)
The main aims of this unit are to improve communication skills, in writing and orally; to improve students' performance in thinking, organising ideas, and in preparing persuasive documents and talks; presentation of scientific results and hypotheses in the primary scientific literature, in other kinds of review and popular literature, as talks at conferences, as posters, as web pages, and in the media.

EASCM0035 - PHYLOGENETIC METHODS IN PALAEOBIOLOGY (10 cp)
This is a practical skills unit, covering the basics of the preparation of macro- and microfossils, as well as numerical methods in cladistics, molecular phylogenetics, statistics, disparity, morphometrics, comparative phylogenetics, and macroevolutionary research.

EASCM0034 - LITERATURE REVIEW (20 cp)
This unit consists of a series of exercises that allow students to develop their professional skills in planning and executing research, in particular scientific writing, finding information, literature review, and project planning.

EASCM0038 - RESEARCH METHODS IN PALAEOBIOLOGY (30 cp)
This is the first part of the thesis, consisting of a 'proof of concept' study in which students complete a thorough collection and analysis of a subset of their data to ensure the materials and methods are working, and so they can move onto the main Thesis study with confidence in the materials and data on the one hand, and their knowledge of methods and equipment on the other.

EASCM1016 - THESIS (60 cp)
The thesis title is chosen early in the year, and previous taught units provide a thorough grounding for designing and executing a top-quality thesis which consists of original, independent research work. The thesis is written as a manuscript for publication in a leading international scientific journal, and each year more than half the completed projects are published.

*EASCM0037 GEOLOGY FOR RESEARCH PALAEOBIOLOGISTS (10 cp)
Introduction to geology; geological time; earth history (including history of oceans, atmospheres, and climates, and incorporating basic stratigraphic methods, sedimentary facies analysis, sedimentary geochemistry); sedimentology (petrology of sedimentary rocks, field sedimentological methods (including logging), facies interpretation, environmental recnstruction), field skills, geological maps.

EASCM0036 - VERTEBRATE PALAEOBIOLOGY AND EVOLUTION (10 cp)
The evolution of vertebrates with emphasis on anatomy and phylogeny, descriptions of key groups of fishes, amphibians, reptiles (especially dinosaurs), birds and mammals. Diversity, evolution, and relationships of the vertebrates, and current debates concerning their behaviour, biology, and evolution.

EASCM0024 - BIOMECHANICS AND FUNCTIONAL MORPHOLOGY (10 cp)
Biomechanical principles and techniques, adaptation and constraint, concepts of structural mechanics, overview of the biology and functional morphology of the musculoskeletal system, feeding and cranial evolution, locomotion on land (dinosaurs, hominids and arthropods), in water (plesiosaurs) and air (insects, pterosaurs, birds), physiology (dinosaurian and mammalian endothermy) and fighting and display structures.

EASCM1014 - THE MARINE RECORD OF PAST CLIMATE CHANGE (10 cp)
Marine microfossils and their application to reconstructing past climatic events. Introduction to microfossils including foraminifera, calcaerous nannofossils, diatoms and radiolaria. Understanding how different types of proxy records can be applied to reconstruct environmental parameters (eg temperature, ocean circulation) during geological time including PETM, Pliocene and K/Pg.

ARCHM1000 - EARLY HUMAN ORIGINS (10 cp)
History of ideas about hominid evolution. Modern primate societies, and implications for early hominid behaviour. Fossil record of monkeys, apes and early humans: early finds and latest discoveries; ideas about patterns of evolution based on fossils and molecules. Palaeopathology.

**BIOL20212 - EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY (10 cp)
Methods of phylogenetic reconstruction and classification for recent and fossil organisms. Phenetics and cladistics. Morphological and molecular systematics. Macroevolution and phylogeny. Species concept and levels of classification and taxonomy. Examples will include microbial molecular phylogenetics, origin of vertebrates, evolution of major locomotor clades in chordates.

EASC30008 - EVOLUTION OF THE BIOSPHERE (10 cp)
Principles of stratigraphy; global diversification; mass extinctions; morphometric change; trends; completeness of the fossil record; systematic issues; main drivers of macroevolution.

BIOL31131 - FLOWERING PLANTS (10 cp)
Diversity and biology of flowering plants; origins; the flower; reproductive biology of angiosperms; pollination systems, plant-pollinator interactions and the role of flower-pollinator co-evolution in the adaptive radiation of angiosperms; modes of speciation.