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125-644: Melbourne Bone Bed is a paleontological site located at Crane Creek in Melbourne , in the U.S. state of Florida . This site contains fossils from the Late Pleistocene period 20,000 to 10,000 years before the present. The fossils include extinct animals such as varieties of camels , dire wolves , Florida cave bears , giant armadillos , giant beavers , giant bison , giant ground sloths , mammoths , mastodons , saber-toothed cats , and tapirs . The excavations were conducted at three sites;

250-471: A jigsaw puzzle . Rocks normally form relatively horizontal layers, with each layer younger than the one underneath it. If a fossil is found between two layers whose ages are known, the fossil's age must lie between the two known ages. Because rock sequences are not continuous, but may be broken up by faults or periods of erosion , it is very difficult to match up rock beds that are not directly next to one another. However, fossils of species that survived for

375-592: A "Period of Friendship" with the Ais Caciques(Chiefs) and made a color map of the area. During the 19th century, the state of Florida frequently changed the names and borders of counties. St. Lucie County was split off from Mosquito County in 1844. St. Lucie County was renamed Brevard County in 1855 after Theodore Washington Brevard , who served as Florida Comptroller from 1854 to 1860. This "Brevard County" contained very little of present-day Brevard County. Most of present-day Brevard north of Melbourne

500-632: A bomb exploded under their home, fatally injuring both of them. The murders were racially motivated and believed committed by members of the Ku Klux Klan . Four separate investigations were conducted, including the first by the FBI in 1951–1952, and the last in 2005 by the state. No one was ever prosecuted. In 1940, the United States federal government built Naval Air Station Banana River (now Patrick Space Force Base ). This military installation

625-552: A collision that formed the Moon about 40 million years later, may have cooled quickly enough to have oceans and an atmosphere about 4,440  million years ago . There is evidence on the Moon of a Late Heavy Bombardment by asteroids from 4,000 to 3,800 million years ago . If, as seems likely, such a bombardment struck Earth at the same time, the first atmosphere and oceans may have been stripped away. Paleontology traces

750-602: A common ancestor. Ideally the "family tree" has only two branches leading from each node ("junction"), but sometimes there is too little information to achieve this, and paleontologists have to make do with junctions that have several branches. The cladistic technique is sometimes fallible, as some features, such as wings or camera eyes , evolved more than once, convergently  – this must be taken into account in analyses. Evolutionary developmental biology , commonly abbreviated to "Evo Devo", also helps paleontologists to produce "family trees", and understand fossils. For example,

875-456: A constant rate. These " molecular clocks ", however, are fallible, and provide only a very approximate timing: for example, they are not sufficiently precise and reliable for estimating when the groups that feature in the Cambrian explosion first evolved, and estimates produced by different techniques may vary by a factor of two. Earth formed about 4,570  million years ago and, after

1000-403: A data source that is not limited to animals with easily fossilised hard parts, and they reflect organisms' behaviours. Also many traces date from significantly earlier than the body fossils of animals that are thought to have been capable of making them. Whilst exact assignment of trace fossils to their makers is generally impossible, traces may for example provide the earliest physical evidence of

1125-446: A few concessions to the people in the northern part of the county, and agreed not to officially move the county seat. Since construction of the new center, Viera has been for all intents and purposes the de facto seat of Brevard County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau , the county has a total area of 1,557 square miles (4,030 km ), of which 1,016 square miles (2,630 km ) is land and 541 square miles (1,400 km ) (34.8%)

1250-573: A fortunate accident during other research. For example, the 1980 discovery by Luis and Walter Alvarez of iridium , a mainly extraterrestrial metal, in the Cretaceous – Paleogene boundary layer made asteroid impact the most favored explanation for the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event – although debate continues about the contribution of volcanism. A complementary approach to developing scientific knowledge, experimental science ,

1375-530: A four-week period. Deer flies are particularly noticeable from April through June. Local bird counts indicate that there are at least 163 species of birds in the county. Turkey vultures , a migrating species, are protected by federal law. They migrate north in the summer and return in September. The county's most common winter bird is the lesser scaup , a diving duck. In 2008, half a million were counted. In 2010, 15,000 were estimated. Other birds include

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1500-402: A household in the county was $ 49,523, and the median income for a family was $ 60,842. Males had a median income of $ 48,191 versus $ 33,276 for females. The per capita income for the county was $ 27,606. About 7.2% of families and 10.5% of the population were below the poverty line , including 14.4% of those under age 18 and 6.9% of those aged 65 or over. In 2010, 8.6% of the county's population

1625-516: A later stratum. In 1925 attention shifted to the Melbourne golf course. A crushed human skull with finger, arm, and leg bones was found in association with a horse tooth. A piece of ivory that appeared to have been modified by humans was found at the bottom of the stratum containing bones. Other finds included a spear point near a mastodon bone and a turtle-back scraper and blade found with bear, camel, mastodon, horse, and tapir bones. James Gidley of

1750-584: A location in Brevard County , Florida is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Paleontology Paleontology ( / ˌ p eɪ l i ɒ n ˈ t ɒ l ə dʒ i , ˌ p æ l i -, - ən -/ PAY -lee-on- TOL -ə-jee, PAL -ee-, -⁠ən- ), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology , is the scientific study of life that existed prior to the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes

1875-821: A minor group until the first jawed fish appeared in the Late Ordovician . The spread of animals and plants from water to land required organisms to solve several problems, including protection against drying out and supporting themselves against gravity . The earliest evidence of land plants and land invertebrates date back to about 476  million years ago and 490  million years ago respectively. Those invertebrates, as indicated by their trace and body fossils, were shown to be arthropods known as euthycarcinoids . The lineage that produced land vertebrates evolved later but very rapidly between 370  million years ago and 360  million years ago ; recent discoveries have overturned earlier ideas about

2000-555: A rapid increase in knowledge about the history of life on Earth and to progress in the definition of the geologic time scale , largely based on fossil evidence. Although she was rarely recognised by the scientific community, Mary Anning was a significant contributor to the field of palaeontology during this period; she uncovered multiple novel Mesozoic reptile fossils and deducted that what were then known as bezoar stones are in fact fossilised faeces . In 1822 Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville , editor of Journal de Physique , coined

2125-583: A rare protected species , give birth near the coast of Brevard, among other places, from November 15 to April 15. The venomous brown recluse spider is not native to the area but has found the environment congenial. The Florida Butterfly Monitoring Network has counted species of butterflies monthly for a year since 2007. In 2010, it counted 45 species. Included are zebra swallowtail butterflies . Lovebug season occurs twice annually in May and August–September. Motorists encounter swarms of these while driving during

2250-543: A relatively short time can be used to link up isolated rocks: this technique is called biostratigraphy . For instance, the conodont Eoplacognathus pseudoplanus has a short range in the Middle Ordovician period. If rocks of unknown age are found to have traces of E. pseudoplanus , they must have a mid-Ordovician age. Such index fossils must be distinctive, be globally distributed and have a short time range to be useful. However, misleading results are produced if

2375-608: A steady increase in brain size after about 3  million years ago . There is a long-running debate about whether modern humans are descendants of a single small population in Africa , which then migrated all over the world less than 200,000 years ago and replaced previous hominine species, or arose worldwide at the same time as a result of interbreeding . Life on earth has suffered occasional mass extinctions at least since 542  million years ago . Despite their disastrous effects, mass extinctions have sometimes accelerated

2500-565: A woody marsh at the time, was used by the Archaic Floridians as a burial ground, with the bodies being wrapped in fabric and submerged in the peaty soil . The pond was used for interments for around a thousand years (circa 8,000–7,000 BCE). The Ais and the Jaega were the dominant tribes in the area when it is thought that Ponce De Leon landed on the shores near Melbourne Beach in 1513. There were about 10,000 of these natives in

2625-401: Is April with 1.6 inches (4.1 cm) of rainfall; the wettest is September, with 6.6 inches (17 cm). Offshore ocean temperatures have averaged: January – 64 °F (18 °C), February – 62 °F (17 °C), March – 67 °F (19 °C) and April – 72 °F (22 °C). In federal maps printed before 2012, nearly half of Brevard was classified as prone to flooding. Most of this

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2750-581: Is a county in the U.S. state of Florida . It is on the Atlantic coast of eastern Central Florida . As of the 2020 census, the population was 606,612, making it the 10th-most populated county in Florida. The official county seat is located in Titusville . A secondary center of county administration, including a circuit courthouse, was built in 1989 in the planned community of Viera, Florida ,

2875-595: Is composed only of eukaryotic cells, and the earliest evidence for it is the Francevillian Group Fossils from 2,100  million years ago , although specialisation of cells for different functions first appears between 1,430  million years ago (a possible fungus) and 1,200  million years ago (a probable red alga ). Sexual reproduction may be a prerequisite for specialisation of cells, as an asexual multicellular organism might be at risk of being taken over by rogue cells that retain

3000-482: Is hard to decide at what level to place a new higher-level grouping, e.g. genus or family or order ; this is important since the Linnaean rules for naming groups are tied to their levels, and hence if a group is moved to a different level it must be renamed. Paleontologists generally use approaches based on cladistics , a technique for working out the evolutionary "family tree" of a set of organisms. It works by

3125-671: Is less frequently hit by direct hurricane landfalls than are portions of the Panhandle or South Florida . There are two predominant reasons for this. First, westward-moving tropical systems often reach an atmospheric ridge weakness in the Bermuda High by the time they approach Florida at a latitude as northerly as Brevard County. Combined with frontal systems that exit the United States' East Coast , many of these tropical systems are steered northwest and eventually curve northward offshore along Florida's East Central Coast. A second reason

3250-443: Is often said to work by conducting experiments to disprove hypotheses about the workings and causes of natural phenomena. This approach cannot prove a hypothesis, since some later experiment may disprove it, but the accumulation of failures to disprove is often compelling evidence in favor. However, when confronted with totally unexpected phenomena, such as the first evidence for invisible radiation , experimental scientists often use

3375-594: Is one that contained an extinct "crocodile-like" marine reptile, which eventually came to be known as the mosasaurid Mosasaurus of the Cretaceous period. The first half of the 19th century saw geological and paleontological activity become increasingly well organised with the growth of geologic societies and museums and an increasing number of professional geologists and fossil specialists. Interest increased for reasons that were not purely scientific, as geology and paleontology helped industrialists to find and exploit natural resources such as coal. This contributed to

3500-401: Is our only means of giving rocks greater than about 50 million years old an absolute age, and can be accurate to within 0.5% or better. Although radiometric dating requires very careful laboratory work, its basic principle is simple: the rates at which various radioactive elements decay are known, and so the ratio of the radioactive element to the element into which it decays shows how long ago

3625-410: Is that hurricanes making landfall along the Florida peninsula Gulf Coast often weaken to a tropical storm by the time they move northeast and reach Brevard County. (2004's Charley was an exception). No major hurricane, defined as category 3 or higher, has struck Brevard since 1850, the beginning of recorded climate. Although residents may refer to past storms as "hurricanes", by the time they strike

3750-1012: Is the major waterway route in Brevard County. It includes the Indian River . Additional waterways include Lake Washington , Lake Poinsett , Lake Winder , Sawgrass Lake , the St. Johns River, and the Banana River . Dredging for the Intracoastal created 41 spoil islands in the Brevard portion of the Indian River. Brevard County is the sole county in the Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). Palm Bay, Melbourne, and Titusville are designated as principal cities in

3875-503: Is thought to have been propelled by coevolution with pollinating insects. Social insects appeared around the same time and, although they account for only small parts of the insect "family tree", now form over 50% of the total mass of all insects. Humans evolved from a lineage of upright-walking apes whose earliest fossils date from over 6  million years ago . Although early members of this lineage had chimp -sized brains, about 25% as big as modern humans', there are signs of

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4000-580: Is water. Most of the water is the Atlantic Ocean , the St. Johns River and the Indian River Lagoon . The county is larger in area than the nation of Samoa and nearly the same size, and population, as Cape Verde . Located halfway between Jacksonville and Miami , Brevard County extends 72 miles (116 km) from north to south, and averages 26.5 miles (42.6 km) wide. Emphasizing

4125-656: The Canaveral National Seashore , the St. Johns National Wildlife Refuge , the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge , several conservation areas managed by the St. Johns River Water Management District , Brevard County's Environmentally Endangered Lands Program Sanctuaries, and lands dedicated by the State as conservation areas. The underlying limestone in the county is relatively young at 150,000 years old. This means that

4250-582: The Middle Ages the Persian naturalist Ibn Sina , known as Avicenna in Europe, discussed fossils and proposed a theory of petrifying fluids on which Albert of Saxony elaborated in the 14th century. The Chinese naturalist Shen Kuo (1031–1095) proposed a theory of climate change based on the presence of petrified bamboo in regions that in his time were too dry for bamboo. In early modern Europe ,

4375-538: The Neogene - Quaternary . In deeper-level deposits in western Europe are early-aged mammals such as the palaeothere perissodactyl Palaeotherium and the anoplotheriid artiodactyl Anoplotherium , both of which were described earliest after the former two genera, which today are known to date to the Paleogene period. Cuvier figured out that even older than the two levels of deposits with extinct large mammals

4500-457: The Palm Bay – Melbourne – Titusville , FL Metropolitan Statistical Area . The first Paleoindians arrived in the area near Brevard county between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago. The Paleoindians were semi-nomadic people who lived in smaller groups. After a few thousand years, a new group of settlers appeared known as " the archaic people ." These people were primarily fishermen, as opposed to

4625-637: The Permian–Triassic extinction event . Amphibians Extinct Synapsids Mammals Extinct reptiles Lizards and snakes Extinct Archosaurs Crocodilians Extinct Dinosaurs Birds Naming groups of organisms in a way that is clear and widely agreed is important, as some disputes in paleontology have been based just on misunderstandings over names. Linnaean taxonomy is commonly used for classifying living organisms, but runs into difficulties when dealing with newly discovered organisms that are significantly different from known ones. For example: it

4750-516: The Permian–Triassic extinction event . A relatively recent discipline, molecular phylogenetics , compares the DNA and RNA of modern organisms to re-construct the "family trees" of their evolutionary ancestors. It has also been used to estimate the dates of important evolutionary developments, although this approach is controversial because of doubts about the reliability of the " molecular clock ". Techniques from engineering have been used to analyse how

4875-613: The Smithsonian Institution joined Loomis in 1926, and continued to collect from the site until 1929. C. P. Singleton also continued to collect from the Golf Course site when Loomis and Gidley were absent, reportedly with the permission of the Smithsonian and some funding from Harvard University . The Melbourne site has been described as "one of the "Big Three" late Pleistocene sites discovered in Florida during

5000-636: The South Beaches . There are also several beaches along the coast of the county. The North Reach includes 9.4 miles (15.1 km) of coastline from Cape Canaveral, through Cocoa Beach, to Patrick Space Force Base. The Patrick Space Force Base beach is 4.1 miles (6.6 km) long. South of Patrick SFB, the Mid Reach includes the 7.6 miles (12.2 km) of coastline in Satellite Beach. The South Reach includes 3.8 miles (6.1 km) of beach in

5125-454: The embryological development of some modern brachiopods suggests that brachiopods may be descendants of the halkieriids , which became extinct in the Cambrian period. Paleontology seeks to map out how living things have changed through time. A substantial hurdle to this aim is the difficulty of working out how old fossils are. Beds that preserve fossils typically lack the radioactive elements needed for radiometric dating . This technique

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5250-502: The red-shouldered hawk , the loggerhead shrike , the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker , Cooper's hawks , pileated woodpeckers , Savannah sparrows , rails (which also includes coots ), Florida scrub jays (an endangered species), wood storks , grackles , great horned owls , northern mockingbirds , brown thrashers , catbirds , green-winged teals , greater yellowlegs , western sandpipers , least sandpipers , dowitchers , and American white pelicans . Peak migration in

5375-526: The " jigsaw puzzles " of biostratigraphy (arrangement of rock layers from youngest to oldest). Classifying ancient organisms is also difficult, as many do not fit well into the Linnaean taxonomy classifying living organisms, and paleontologists more often use cladistics to draw up evolutionary "family trees". The final quarter of the 20th century saw the development of molecular phylogenetics , which investigates how closely organisms are related by measuring

5500-742: The 1930s, Harry T. Moore was a civil rights leader, teacher , and founder of the Brevard County NAACP . After the war he became president of the state NAACP. After the Supreme Court had ruled in 1944 that white primaries were unconstitutional, he conducted voter registration drives and succeeded in registering 31% of black voters in Florida, a higher percentage than in any other southern state. The white establishment resisted, firing both him and his wife Harriette in 1946 from their teaching positions as economic blackmail against them because of their activism. On Christmas night, 1951,

5625-555: The Early Cambrian , along with several "weird wonders" that bear little obvious resemblance to any modern animals. There is a long-running debate about whether this Cambrian explosion was truly a very rapid period of evolutionary experimentation; alternative views are that modern-looking animals began evolving earlier but fossils of their precursors have not yet been found, or that the "weird wonders" are evolutionary "aunts" and "cousins" of modern groups. Vertebrates remained

5750-463: The Earth's organic and inorganic past". William Whewell (1794–1866) classified paleontology as one of the historical sciences, along with archaeology , geology, astronomy , cosmology , philology and history itself: paleontology aims to describe phenomena of the past and to reconstruct their causes. Hence it has three main elements: description of past phenomena; developing a general theory about

5875-750: The Golf Course site on the east bank of Crane Creek on the Melbourne Golf and Country Club (south of West New Haven Avenue), the Singleton Estate site about 1 mile (1.6 km) southeast of the Golf Course site, and a minor site on the south bank of Crane Creek about 1 mile (1.6 km) west of the Golf Course site. C. P. Singleton discovered the bones of a mammoth ( Mammuthus columbi ) on his property along Crane Creek , 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from Melbourne, and brought in Amherst College paleontologist Frederick B. Loomis to excavate

6000-708: The MSA. The MSA was created as the Melbourne-Titusville-Cocoa, Florida Standard MSA in 1972, renamed the Melbourne-Titusville-Palm Bay, Florida MSA in 1983, and given its current title in 2003. The county is unofficially divided into three sections: North County, comprising Titusville , Mims and Port St. John ; Central Brevard, which includes Cocoa , Rockledge , Merritt Island , and Cocoa Beach ; and South County, which includes Melbourne , Palm Bay , Grant , Valkaria , and

6125-566: The Palm Bay–Melbourne–Titusville, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area as the 98th most populous metropolitan statistical area and the 96th most populous primary statistical area of the United States as of July 1, 2012. The county has a Köppen climate classification of Cfa, with a year-round distribution of rainfall. This means a humid subtropical climate with hot, humid summers and mild winters. There are distinct wet and dry seasons. The dry lasts from December through May,

6250-412: The ability to reproduce. The earliest known animals are cnidarians from about 580  million years ago , but these are so modern-looking that they must be descendants of earlier animals. Early fossils of animals are rare because they had not developed mineralised , easily fossilized hard parts until about 548  million years ago . The earliest modern-looking bilaterian animals appear in

6375-466: The adults in the county. Of those, a local agency counted in 2010 that 225 of the veterans were homeless. In 2012, the Urban Institute ranked the Brevard metro fourth in the country for racial equality. Criteria were integration of neighborhoods, income, and the quality of schools minorities attend. The area was ranked first for Hispanic equality with whites. In 2010, the median income for

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6500-477: The age of 18 living with them, 48.28% were married couples living together, 11.80% had a female householder with no husband present, and 35.40% were non-families. 28.44% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.53% (4.00% male and 8.53% female) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.33 and the average family size was 2.84. There were 74,000 veterans who lived in Brevard in 2010, accounting for 21% of

6625-515: The appearance of moderately complex animals (comparable to earthworms ). Geochemical observations may help to deduce the global level of biological activity at a certain period, or the affinity of certain fossils. For example, geochemical features of rocks may reveal when life first arose on Earth, and may provide evidence of the presence of eukaryotic cells, the type from which all multicellular organisms are built. Analyses of carbon isotope ratios may help to explain major transitions such as

6750-658: The area at the end of that period. Human remains, Pleistocene animals and Paleo-Indian artifacts similar to those from the Melbourne Bone Bed were found in Vero Beach , 30 miles (48 km) south of Melbourne, and similar Paleo-Indian artifacts were found at the Helen Blazes archaeological site , 10 miles (16 km) southwest of Melbourne. This paleontological site article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about

6875-522: The area. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés gave an early account of the Ais people in 1570 when he was shipwrecked off of Cape Canaveral. He faced hostile natives but through the use of a bluff was able to escape from them and get back to St. Augustine. In 1605 , Alvero Mexia was dispatched from St. Augustine to the Indian River area on a diplomatic mission to the Ais Indian Nation. He helped establish

7000-625: The atmosphere increased their effectiveness as nurseries of evolution. While eukaryotes , cells with complex internal structures, may have been present earlier, their evolution speeded up when they acquired the ability to transform oxygen from a poison to a powerful source of metabolic energy. This innovation may have come from primitive eukaryotes capturing oxygen-powered bacteria as endosymbionts and transforming them into organelles called mitochondria . The earliest evidence of complex eukaryotes with organelles (such as mitochondria) dates from 1,850  million years ago . Multicellular life

7125-415: The bodies of ancient organisms might have worked, for example the running speed and bite strength of Tyrannosaurus , or the flight mechanics of Microraptor . It is relatively commonplace to study the internal details of fossils using X-ray microtomography . Paleontology, biology, archaeology, and paleoneurobiology combine to study endocranial casts (endocasts) of species related to humans to clarify

7250-729: The border between biology and geology , but it differs from archaeology in that it excludes the study of anatomically modern humans . It now uses techniques drawn from a wide range of sciences, including biochemistry , mathematics , and engineering. Use of all these techniques has enabled paleontologists to discover much of the evolutionary history of life , almost back to when Earth became capable of supporting life, nearly 4 billion years ago. As knowledge has increased, paleontology has developed specialised sub-divisions, some of which focus on different types of fossil organisms while others study ecology and environmental history, such as ancient climates . Body fossils and trace fossils are

7375-401: The causes of various types of change; and applying those theories to specific facts. When trying to explain the past, paleontologists and other historical scientists often construct a set of one or more hypotheses about the causes and then look for a " smoking gun ", a piece of evidence that strongly accords with one hypothesis over any others. Sometimes researchers discover a "smoking gun" by

7500-763: The characteristics and evolution of humans as a species. When dealing with evidence about humans, archaeologists and paleontologists may work together – for example paleontologists might identify animal or plant fossils around an archaeological site , to discover the people who lived there, and what they ate; or they might analyze the climate at the time of habitation. In addition, paleontology often borrows techniques from other sciences, including biology, osteology , ecology, chemistry , physics and mathematics. For example, geochemical signatures from rocks may help to discover when life first arose on Earth, and analyses of carbon isotope ratios may help to identify climate changes and even to explain major transitions such as

7625-520: The chronological order in which rocks were formed, is useful to both paleontologists and geologists. Biogeography studies the spatial distribution of organisms, and is also linked to geology, which explains how Earth's geography has changed over time. Although paleontology became established around 1800, earlier thinkers had noticed aspects of the fossil record. The ancient Greek philosopher Xenophanes (570–480 BCE) concluded from fossil sea shells that some areas of land were once under water. During

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7750-625: The cities of Cape Canaveral, Cocoa Beach, Indialantic, Melbourne Beach, Patrick Space Force Base, Indian Harbour Beach, and Satellite Beach. The American Indian Association of Florida submitted in October 2011 a proposal to name the island after the Ais people . In January 2012 the United Third Bridge and the Florida Puerto Rican/Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Melbourne submitted a proposal to name

7875-479: The communities of Indialantic and Melbourne Beach. At the southern end of the county, the South Beaches are the final 14.5 miles (23.3 km) of beach south of Melbourne Beach to Sebastian . The United States Board on Geographic Names considered two proposals in 2012 to officially name the barrier island extending from Port Canaveral to Sebastian Inlet . The 45-mile-long (72 km) island includes

8000-482: The county government. A centrally located County Government Center in Viera was established to provide more accessible services to residents in the southern part of the county. It houses the various county government branches, including Housing and Human Services, Juvenile Justice, Public Safety, Public Works and Solid Waste Management. The Brevard County government had annual expenditures just over $ 1 billion in

8125-1069: The county, most have subsided to tropical storms or depressions . But because of the threat of storm surge , the beach community on the barrier island is often required to evacuate well in advance of the storm. The possibility of storm surge is diminished when the storm comes across the state instead of directly from the Atlantic. Five hurricanes have directly affected Brevard since 1950: David (September 3, 1979); Erin (August 2, 1995) – made landfall near Sebastian Inlet and caused mostly minor wind damage and more extensive flooding countywide; Charley (August 13, 2004) – caused damage in Titusville and North Brevard; Frances (September 3, 2004) – struck neighboring Vero Beach in Indian River County directly and caused widespread wind damage throughout Brevard; and Jeanne (September 26, 2004) – struck Vero Beach directly, following very nearly

8250-529: The county. There were 1,677 manatees in Brevard County in 2015, out of a total of 6,063 in the state. This was an increase from 2014 when there was a total of 612 in Brevard County. Manatees experience numerous threats within Brevard, where 312 died in the first half of 2021. Bottlenose dolphin are commonly seen in the Intracoastal Waterway. Fish and reptiles include alligators , red snapper , sea turtles , North Atlantic right whales ,

8375-421: The county. Residents in the southern end of the county talked of creating a new county to serve them. The county decided to build a new county administration complex at Viera , near the geographical center of the county. This complex was started in 1989. Residents in the north also threatened secession. Their proposal to form a new county, to be called Playalinda, had some momentum in the early 90s. The county made

8500-412: The county. The population density was 597.7 inhabitants per square mile (230.8/km ). As of 2021, 18.2% of residents were under the age of 18 and 24.2% were age 65 and over. There were 294,224 housing units and 76.2% of them were owner-occupied. There were 242,657 households in which the average household size was 2.46. In 2015, interracial marriage constituted 29% of all marriages, the fourth highest in

8625-566: The current boundary since 1907. Brevard County is known as the Space Coast due to the influence of the John F. Kennedy Space Center and the aerospace industry on its economy. As such, it was designated with the telephone area code 321 , as in " 3, 2, 1 liftoff ". The county has several incorporated cities and towns, primarily along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean and is mostly rural or suburban west of Interstate 95 . Brevard County comprises

8750-445: The date when lineages first appeared. For instance, if fossils of B or C date to X million years ago and the calculated "family tree" says A was an ancestor of B and C, then A must have evolved more than X million years ago. It is also possible to estimate how long ago two living clades diverged – i.e. approximately how long ago their last common ancestor must have lived – by assuming that DNA mutations accumulate at

8875-594: The development of mammalian traits such as endothermy and hair. After the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66  million years ago killed off all the dinosaurs except the birds, mammals increased rapidly in size and diversity, and some took to the air and the sea. Fossil evidence indicates that flowering plants appeared and rapidly diversified in the Early Cretaceous between 130  million years ago and 90  million years ago . Their rapid rise to dominance of terrestrial ecosystems

9000-561: The development of the body plans of most animal phyla . The discovery of fossils of the Ediacaran biota and developments in paleobiology extended knowledge about the history of life back far before the Cambrian. Increasing awareness of Gregor Mendel 's pioneering work in genetics led first to the development of population genetics and then in the mid-20th century to the modern evolutionary synthesis , which explains evolution as

9125-482: The different levels of deposits represented different time periods in the early 19th century. The surface-level deposits in the Americas contained later mammals like the megatheriid ground sloth Megatherium and the mammutid proboscidean Mammut (later known informally as a "mastodon"), which were some of the earliest-named fossil mammal genera with official taxonomic authorities. They today are known to date to

9250-562: The east coast of the state, mangroves have normally dominated the coast from Cocoa Beach southward. Northward these may compete with salt marshes moving in from the north, depending on the annual weather conditions. Live oak trees, various grasses, and juniper plants were sufficiently common to generate pollen noticeable by some people in February 2011. As of the 2020 United States census , there were 606,612 people, 236,005 households, and 148,934 families residing in

9375-409: The end of the 20th century have been particularly important as they have provided new information about the earliest evolution of animals, early fish, dinosaurs and the evolution of birds. The last few decades of the 20th century saw a renewed interest in mass extinctions and their role in the evolution of life on Earth. There was also a renewed interest in the Cambrian explosion that apparently saw

9500-423: The eventual county seat of Titusville. Later, the southern portion of the county was cut off to form St. Lucie County, which in turn spawned Martin and Indian River County. The first concerted development the area occurred with the extension of Henry Flagler 's Florida East Coast Railroad into the area. The railroad reached Titusville in 1886 and Melbourne in 1894. With the railroad came increased settlement and

9625-439: The evolution of life on earth. When dominance of an ecological niche passes from one group of organisms to another, this is rarely because the new dominant group outcompetes the old, but usually because an extinction event allows a new group, which may possess an advantageous trait, to outlive the old and move into its niche. Brevard County, Florida Brevard County ( / b r ə ˈ v ɑːr d / brə- VARD )

9750-410: The evolution of the human brain. Paleontology even contributes to astrobiology , the investigation of possible life on other planets , by developing models of how life may have arisen and by providing techniques for detecting evidence of life. As knowledge has increased, paleontology has developed specialised subdivisions. Vertebrate paleontology concentrates on fossils from the earliest fish to

9875-466: The evolutionary history of life back to over 3,000  million years ago , possibly as far as 3,800  million years ago . The oldest clear evidence of life on Earth dates to 3,000  million years ago , although there have been reports, often disputed, of fossil bacteria from 3,400  million years ago and of geochemical evidence for the presence of life 3,800  million years ago . Some scientists have proposed that life on Earth

10000-555: The exceptional events that cause quick burial make it difficult to study the normal environments of the animals. The sparseness of the fossil record means that organisms are expected to exist long before and after they are found in the fossil record – this is known as the Signor–Lipps effect . Trace fossils consist mainly of tracks and burrows, but also include coprolites (fossil feces ) and marks left by feeding. Trace fossils are particularly significant because they represent

10125-543: The fall is from the last week in September through the first week in October. Fall migration tends to be stronger than spring because birds typically take different flyways. Native trees include cabbage palm (the state tree of Florida), fringetree , coral bean , sweet acacia , geiger tree , firebush , beautyberry , coral honeysuckle , and blanket flower . Other native plants include sea grape , red mulberry , purslane , dandelion , Spanish bayonet , blackberry , Jerusalem artichoke , dogwood , and gallberry . On

10250-651: The first half of the 20th Century". The skull found at the Melbourne Golf Course was exhibited at the Paleontological Society of America meeting in 1925. This discovery sparked a 30-year debate between geologists and archaeologists resulting in the skull becoming known as the Melbourne Man. Recent consensus dates the Melbourne Man as early as 10,000 BC confirming that Native Americans coexisted with Pleistocene mammals in

10375-422: The first tourists. The first major land boom began in the 1920s after the end of World War I . People flooded into the state of Florida, both tourists from northern winters and new full-time residents, and land prices soared. The Great Depression temporarily stopped growth in Florida. Before the start of World War II , the largest industries in Brevard were commercial fishing, citrus, and tourism. Beginning in

10500-510: The fiscal year 2009–2010, exclusive of the municipalities. In 2009, real estate taxes for homesteaded property averaged 0.83% of the value of the property. Real estate taxes are levied by each authority. They are collected by the County Tax Collector. The total taxable real estate base was $ 33.7 billion in 2009. County taxes rose 26.5% in total per capita revenue from 2002 to 2007, and 49.8% in property tax per capita in

10625-515: The focus of paleontology shifted to understanding evolutionary paths, including human evolution , and evolutionary theory. The last half of the 19th century saw a tremendous expansion in paleontological activity, especially in North America. The trend continued in the 20th century with additional regions of the Earth being opened to systematic fossil collection. Fossils found in China near

10750-449: The following: At the end of the 18th century Georges Cuvier 's work established comparative anatomy as a scientific discipline and, by proving that some fossil animals resembled no living ones, demonstrated that animals could become extinct , leading to the emergence of paleontology. The expanding knowledge of the fossil record also played an increasing role in the development of geology, particularly stratigraphy . Cuvier proved that

10875-580: The fossil record: different environments are more favorable to the preservation of different types of organism or parts of organisms. Further, only the parts of organisms that were already mineralised are usually preserved, such as the shells of molluscs. Since most animal species are soft-bodied, they decay before they can become fossilised. As a result, although there are 30-plus phyla of living animals, two-thirds have never been found as fossils. Occasionally, unusual environments may preserve soft tissues. These lagerstätten allow paleontologists to examine

11000-574: The geographic center of the county. Before the arrival of non- indigenous settlers in the 16th century, the area was inhabited by Native Americans . The county is the site of the Windover Archeological Site , which contained evidence of habitation over 7,000 years ago. Brevard County was established in 1855 and is named after Theodore Washington Brevard , an early Florida settler and state comptroller . The county's boundaries were changed and reduced numerous times, resulting in

11125-491: The ground will not develop the sinkholes that are prevalent in the spine of Florida, where limestone is from 15 to 25 million years old. There are 4,000 species of animals locally. Common mammals include North American river otters , bobcats , white-tailed deer , raccoons , marsh rabbits , scrub lizards , rat snakes , and opossum . Feral pigs , introduced by Europeans, present an occasional traffic hazard. There are an estimated 3,500 endangered gopher tortoises in

11250-687: The history and driving forces behind their evolution. Land plants were so successful that their detritus caused an ecological crisis in the Late Devonian , until the evolution of fungi that could digest dead wood. During the Permian period, synapsids , including the ancestors of mammals , may have dominated land environments, but this ended with the Permian–Triassic extinction event 251  million years ago , which came very close to wiping out all complex life. The extinctions were apparently fairly sudden, at least among vertebrates. During

11375-533: The history of Earth's climate and the mechanisms that have changed it  – which have sometimes included evolutionary developments, for example the rapid expansion of land plants in the Devonian period removed more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, reducing the greenhouse effect and thus helping to cause an ice age in the Carboniferous period. Biostratigraphy , the use of fossils to work out

11500-472: The hunting and gathering way of life which characterized the Paleoindians. The Windover Archeological Site , discovered in 1982, was found during excavation to have the largest collection of human remains and artifacts of the early Archaic Period (6,000–5,000 BCE), or more than 8,000 years before present. It has been designated as a National Historic Landmark . The Windover pond, which would have been

11625-542: The immediate ancestors of modern mammals . Invertebrate paleontology deals with fossils such as molluscs , arthropods , annelid worms and echinoderms . Paleobotany studies fossil plants , algae , and fungi. Palynology , the study of pollen and spores produced by land plants and protists , straddles paleontology and botany , as it deals with both living and fossil organisms. Micropaleontology deals with microscopic fossil organisms of all kinds. Instead of focusing on individual organisms, paleoecology examines

11750-434: The index fossils turn out to have longer fossil ranges than first thought. Stratigraphy and biostratigraphy can in general provide only relative dating ( A was before B ), which is often sufficient for studying evolution. However, this is difficult for some time periods, because of the problems involved in matching up rocks of the same age across different continents . Family-tree relationships may also help to narrow down

11875-538: The interactions between different ancient organisms, such as their food chains , and the two-way interactions with their environments.   For example, the development of oxygenic photosynthesis by bacteria caused the oxygenation of the atmosphere and hugely increased the productivity and diversity of ecosystems . Together, these led to the evolution of complex eukaryotic cells, from which all multicellular organisms are built. Paleoclimatology , although sometimes treated as part of paleoecology, focuses more on

12000-463: The internal anatomy of animals that in other sediments are represented only by shells, spines, claws, etc. – if they are preserved at all. However, even lagerstätten present an incomplete picture of life at the time. The majority of organisms living at the time are probably not represented because lagerstätten are restricted to a narrow range of environments, e.g. where soft-bodied organisms can be preserved very quickly by events such as mudslides; and

12125-456: The investigation of evolutionary "family trees" by techniques derived from biochemistry , began to make an impact, particularly when it was proposed that the human lineage had diverged from apes much more recently than was generally thought at the time. Although this early study compared proteins from apes and humans, most molecular phylogenetics research is now based on comparisons of RNA and DNA . Fossils of organisms' bodies are usually

12250-452: The island Ponce de León Island , after Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León . In December 2012, the island was ultimately not named. Brevard County has 16 municipalities. The largest by population is Palm Bay and the smallest is Melbourne Village. The United States Office of Management and Budget has designated Brevard County as the Palm Bay–Melbourne–Titusville, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area. The United States Census Bureau ranked

12375-409: The logic that, if groups B and C have more similarities to each other than either has to group A, then B and C are more closely related to each other than either is to A. Characters that are compared may be anatomical , such as the presence of a notochord , or molecular , by comparing sequences of DNA or proteins . The result of a successful analysis is a hierarchy of clades – groups that share

12500-409: The most informative type of evidence. The most common types are wood, bones, and shells. Fossilisation is a rare event, and most fossils are destroyed by erosion or metamorphism before they can be observed. Hence the fossil record is very incomplete, increasingly so further back in time. Despite this, it is often adequate to illustrate the broader patterns of life's history. There are also biases in

12625-434: The nation, which averaged 17%. The population was distributed by age with 19.8% under the age of 18, 7.9% from 18 to 24, 21.5% from 25 to 44, 30.4% from 45 to 64, and 20.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 45.5 years. For every 100 females there were 96.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.9 males. In 2010, there were 229,692 households, out of which 23.20% had children under

12750-502: The national average of 27.7%, but the same as the rest of Florida. 14.7% of residents over 25 had undergraduate degrees in engineering. This is almost twice the national average. In 2010, 90.20% of residents spoke only English at home, while 5.29% spoke Spanish , 0.62% German , 0.61% French , and 0.47% French Creole (mostly Haitian Creole ) at home. In total, 9.80% of the population spoke languages other than English in their household. Brevard county commissioners are elected by

12875-414: The outcome of events such as mutations and horizontal gene transfer , which provide genetic variation , with genetic drift and natural selection driving changes in this variation over time. Within the next few years the role and operation of DNA in genetic inheritance were discovered, leading to what is now known as the "Central Dogma" of molecular biology . In the 1960s molecular phylogenetics ,

13000-426: The position halfway down Florida are two state roads that have been numbered at the midpoint of Florida's numbering system, State Road 50 and State Road 500 . Marshes in the western part of this county, together with those in neighboring Indian River country, are the source of the St. Johns River, which becomes navigable within the county. The Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway along the eastern edge of Brevard County

13125-452: The principal types of evidence about ancient life, and geochemical evidence has helped to decipher the evolution of life before there were organisms large enough to leave body fossils. Estimating the dates of these remains is essential but difficult: sometimes adjacent rock layers allow radiometric dating , which provides absolute dates that are accurate to within 0.5%, but more often paleontologists have to rely on relative dating by solving

13250-419: The program. Beginning in the 1960s, new bridges constructed across the waterways were designed as high-rise steel, designed to be high enough to allow passage of boats underneath. As the county was long, people in the southern, more populous side of the county complained about being so distant from the county seat. The county seat of Titusville was 50 miles (80 km) from Palm Bay , the most populous city in

13375-506: The public to establish ordinances and policies for the county. The Commission appoints a County Manager , who executes the will of the commission. The county employed about 2,900 workers in 2009. There are 16 autonomous municipal governments within the county. The various cities, towns and villages of Brevard have varying reliance on services provided by the Brevard County government. About 100,000 households are located outside organized municipalities, and their occupants are directly served by

13500-432: The radioactive element was incorporated into the rock. Radioactive elements are common only in rocks with a volcanic origin, and so the only fossil-bearing rocks that can be dated radiometrically are a few volcanic ash layers. Consequently, paleontologists must usually rely on stratigraphy to date fossils. Stratigraphy is the science of deciphering the "layer-cake" that is the sedimentary record, and has been compared to

13625-701: The same approach as historical scientists: construct a set of hypotheses about the causes and then look for a "smoking gun". Paleontology lies between biology and geology since it focuses on the record of past life, but its main source of evidence is fossils in rocks. For historical reasons, paleontology is part of the geology department at many universities: in the 19th and early 20th centuries, geology departments found fossil evidence important for dating rocks, while biology departments showed little interest. Paleontology also has some overlap with archaeology , which primarily works with objects made by humans and with human remains, while paleontologists are interested in

13750-532: The same path as Frances. The latter two storms caused widespread damage in South Brevard, and resulted in $ 2.8 billion in claim payments. Slightly more than half of one percent (0.6%) of houses were lost. The following storms did not affect Brevard County with hurricane-force winds: Floyd (September 15, 1999), and Irene (October 16, 1999). Tropical Storm Fay dropped a record rainfall of 27.65 inches (70.2 cm) in 2008. The winter of 2009–2010

13875-668: The same time frame. Delinquent taxes were $ 36 million in 2008. In 2012 bonds issued by the county were given a rating of AA by the Fitch Group and improved ratings by Moody's . Brevard County has two unique election districts. One governs Port Canaveral ; the other, the maintenance of the Sebastian Inlet . County Commissioners: Commissioners were paid $ 60,272.98 annually as of January 2023. The following are elected school board officials: The following are considered state officials but are elected and paid by

14000-478: The similarity of the DNA in their genomes . Molecular phylogenetics has also been used to estimate the dates when species diverged, but there is controversy about the reliability of the molecular clock on which such estimates depend. The simplest definition of "paleontology" is "the study of ancient life". The field seeks information about several aspects of past organisms: "their identity and origin, their environment and evolution, and what they can tell us about

14125-621: The skeleton. Loomis found a second elephant with a "large rough flint instrument" among fragments of the elephant's ribs. Loomis found in the same stratum mammoth, mastodon , horse , ground sloth , tapir , peccary , camel , and saber-tooth cat bones, all extinct in Florida since the end of the Pleistocene 10,000 years ago. At a nearby site a human rib and charcoal were found in association with Mylodon , Megalonyx , and Chlamytherium (ground sloth) teeth. A finely worked spear point found with these items may have been displaced from

14250-470: The slow recovery from this catastrophe a previously obscure group, archosaurs , became the most abundant and diverse terrestrial vertebrates. One archosaur group, the dinosaurs, were the dominant land vertebrates for the rest of the Mesozoic , and birds evolved from one group of dinosaurs. During this time mammals' ancestors survived only as small, mainly nocturnal insectivores , which may have accelerated

14375-439: The southern part of Brevard split off to form a new county, St. Lucie County in 1905. Gradually, the borders of Brevard County were shifted northward while the county got "pinched" eastward. The portions of Brevard County in present-day Broward and Palm Beach counties were given to Dade County, western areas of the county were given to Polk and Osceola County, and parts of Volusia and Orange Counties were given to Brevard including

14500-625: The study of fossils to classify organisms and study their interactions with each other and their environments (their paleoecology ). Paleontological observations have been documented as far back as the 5th century BC. The science became established in the 18th century as a result of Georges Cuvier 's work on comparative anatomy , and developed rapidly in the 19th century. The term has been used since 1822 formed from Greek παλαιός ( 'palaios' , "old, ancient"), ὄν ( 'on' , ( gen. 'ontos' ), "being, creature"), and λόγος ( 'logos' , "speech, thought, study"). Paleontology lies on

14625-629: The systematic study of fossils emerged as an integral part of the changes in natural philosophy that occurred during the Age of Reason . In the Italian Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci made various significant contributions to the field as well as depicted numerous fossils. Leonardo's contributions are central to the history of paleontology because he established a line of continuity between the two main branches of paleontology – ichnology and body fossil paleontology. He identified

14750-642: The wet from June through November. During the dry season, periods of drought often occur, and can lead to a persistent and high wild land fire threat. In numerous instances these fires have caused property damage. Several fires in 2008 forced the evacuation of Bayside High School , in the town of Palm Bay . In that particular event, 162 homes were damaged. January is the coldest month, with an average low of 50.7 °F (10.4 °C) and an average high 71 °F (22 °C). The warmest months are July and August with average highs of 90 °F (32 °C) and average lows of 72.2 °F (22.3 °C). The driest month

14875-406: The word "palaeontology" to refer to the study of ancient living organisms through fossils. As knowledge of life's history continued to improve, it became increasingly obvious that there had been some kind of successive order to the development of life. This encouraged early evolutionary theories on the transmutation of species . After Charles Darwin published Origin of Species in 1859, much of

15000-454: Was "seeded" from elsewhere , but most research concentrates on various explanations of how life could have arisen independently on Earth. For about 2,000 million years microbial mats , multi-layered colonies of different bacteria, were the dominant life on Earth. The evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis enabled them to play the major role in the oxygenation of the atmosphere from about 2,400  million years ago . This change in

15125-744: Was foreign born , with 59.4% being naturalized American citizens . Of foreign-born residents, 49.1% were born in Latin America , 22.9% were born in Europe , 18.3% born in Asia , 6.4% in North America , 2.4% born in Africa , and 0.9% were born in Oceania . In 2010, 90% of residents had a high school degree, compared with 85% statewide. In 2009, 25.7% of residents had an undergraduate degree, below

15250-424: Was in the relatively undeveloped low-lying areas, west of Interstate 95, on the banks of the St. Johns River . About 18,900 homes out of 164,000 single-family homes were in that area. Florida is located both in the subtropical and the tropical climate zone , and thus regularly affected by hurricanes . Although Brevard County is located along Florida's eastern peninsula, because of associated weather patterns, it

15375-449: Was part of either Volusia or Orange counties. Brevard County in 1856 extended as far west as Polk County and as far south as coastal Dade County. Complicating the discussion of Brevard County in the 19th century is that the boundaries have shifted such that the southernmost parts of present-day Brevard, were originally the northernmost parts. The original county seat was located at Susannah , an early name for present day Fort Pierce. Later

15500-616: Was the coldest on record since 1937, when such records were first kept. Planting season, which normally starts around February 14, came six weeks later instead. Some flowers and herbs are planted as early as January. December 2010 was the coldest December on record. Brevard County works together with the federal and state government to control pollution and preserve wetlands and coastal areas through lands dedicated to conservation and wildlife protection. There are 250 square miles (650 km ) of federally protected wildlife refuges . These lands include Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge ,

15625-561: Was the first of major federal investment in projects to aid the development of Brevard County. In the late 1950s, the government opened the Long Range Proving Ground. This later became the Kennedy Space Center. These facilities helped stimulate development in the county; where Brevard had once been considered a "backwoods" area of Florida, it attracted more educated workers and scientists associated with

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