The Rise and Fall of the Ediacaran Biota PDF Download

Author: Patricia Vickers-Rich
Publisher: Geological Society of London
ISBN: 9781862392335
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 476

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Book Description
The Proterozoic and early Phanerozoic was a time punctuated by a series of significant events in Earth history. Glaciations of global scale wracked the planet, interfingered with dramatic changes in oceanic and atmospheric chemistry and marked changes in continental configuration. It was during these dynamic and 'weedy' times that metazoans first appeared, diversified, culminating in the appearance of hard tissue skeletons and deep 'farming' of the marine substrate, in late Proterozoic and first few millions of years of the Phanerozoic. This book is the culmination of two symposia of UNESCO International Geological Correlation Project 493, one in Prato (Italy) in 2004, the second in Kyoto (Japan) in 2006. Both dealt specifically with the precise timing of physical events and teasing out of the effects which these changing environments, climates, global chemistry and palaeogeography had on the development and diversification of animals, culminating in the spectacular Ediacaran/Vendian faunas of the late Precambrian.

Author: Alcides N. Sial
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119382483
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
Winner of the 2020 PROSE Award for Earth Science! Exploring environmental changes through Earth’s geological history using chemostratigraphy Chemostratigraphy is the study of the chemical characteristics of different rock layers. Decoding this geochemical record across chronostratigraphic boundaries can provide insights into geological history, past climates, and sedimentary processes. Chemostratigraphy Across Major Chronological Boundaries presents state-of-the-art applications of chemostratigraphic methods and demonstrates how chemical signatures can decipher past environmental conditions. Volume highlights include: Presents a global perspective on chronostratigraphic boundaries Describes how different proxies can reveal distinct elemental and isotopic events in the geologic past Examines the Archaean-Paleoproterozoic, Proterozoic-Paleozoic, Paleozoic-Mesozoic, and Mesozoic-Paleogene boundaries Explores cause-and-effect through major, trace, PGE, and REE elemental, stable, and radiogenic isotopes Offers solutions to persistent chemostratigraphic problems on a micro-global scale Geared toward academic and researchgeoscientists, particularly in the fields of sedimentary petrology, stratigraphy, isotope geology, geochemistry, petroleum geology, atmospheric science, oceanography, climate change and environmental science, Chemostratigraphy Across Major Chronological Boundaries offers invaluable insights into environmental evolution and climatic change. Read the Editors' Vox: https://eos.org/editors-vox/unravelling-the-past-using-elements-and-isotopes

Author: Mikhail A. Fedonkin
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801886799
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
An essential resource for paleontologists, biologists, geologists, and teachers, The Rise of Animals is the best single reference on one of earth's most significant events.

Author: Pengju Liu
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119564158
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Fossils and Strata is an international series of monographs and memoirs in palaeontology and biostratigraphy, owned by, and published on behalf of, The Lethaia Foundation in cooperation between the Scandinavian countries. Fossils and Strata forms part of the same structured publishing programme as the international journal Lethaia and provides a complementary outlet for more comprehensive systematic and regional monographs, including taxonomic descriptions. Fossils and Strata also offers the publication of thematic special issues comprising a series of shorter contributions.

Author: Simon Conway Morris
Publisher: Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press
ISBN:
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Paleontologist Simon Conway Morris provides a guided tour of the world's richest treasure trove of fossils--a fantastically rich deposit of bizarre and bewildering Cambrain fossils, located in Western Canada. 4 plates. 90 linecuts.

Author: Mark A. McMenamin
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231105590
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
Including twenty-two photographs and more than fifty drawings of these strikingly beautiful early life forms, this book presents a mesmerizing documentary of a major scientific discovery: the oldest animal fossils ever discovered.

Author: Anthony J. Martin
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253006023
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 715

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Book Description
Have you ever wondered what left behind those prints and tracks on the seashore, or what made those marks or dug those holes in the dunes? Life Traces of the Georgia Coast is an up-close look at these traces of life and the animals and plants that made them. It tells about how the tracemakers lived and how they interacted with their environments. This is a book about ichnology (the study of such traces) and a wonderful way to learn about the behavior of organisms, living and long extinct. Life Traces presents an overview of the traces left by modern animals and plants in this biologically rich region; shows how life traces relate to the environments, natural history, and behaviors of their tracemakers; and applies that knowledge toward a better understanding of the fossilized traces that ancient life left in the geologic record. Augmented by illustrations of traces made by both ancient and modern organisms, the book shows how ancient trace fossils directly relate to modern traces and tracemakers, among them, insects, grasses, crabs, shorebirds, alligators, and sea turtles. The result is an aesthetically appealing and scientifically grounded book that will serve as source both for scientists and for anyone interested in the natural history of the Georgia coast.

Author: A.T. Brasier
Publisher: Geological Society of London
ISBN: 1786202794
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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Book Description
This volume in memory of Professor Martin Brasier, which has many of his unfinished works, summarizes recent progress in some of the hottest topics in palaeobiology including cellular preservation of early microbial life and early evolution of macroscopic animal life, encompassing the Ediacara biota. The papers focus on how to decipher evidence for early life, which requires exceptional preservation, employment of state-of-the-art techniques and also an understanding gleaned from Phanerozoic lagerstätte and modern analogues. The papers also apply Martin’s MOFAOTYOF principle (my oldest fossils are older than your oldest fossils), requiring an integrated approach to understanding fossils. The adoption of the null-hypothesis that all putative traces of life are abiotic until proven otherwise, and the consideration of putative fossils within their spatial context, characterized the work of Martin Brasier, as is well demonstrated by the papers in this volume.

Author: Nelson R Cabej
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 0128143126
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Epigenetic Mechanisms of the Cambrian Explosion provides readers with a basic biological knowledge and epigenetic explanation of the biological puzzle of the Cambrian explosion, the unprecedented rapid diversification of animals that began 542 million years ago. During an evolutionarily instant of ~10 million years, which represents only 0.3% of the time of existence of life on Earth, or less than 2% of the time of existence of metazoans, all of the 30 extant body plans, major animal groups (phyla) and several extinct groups appeared. The work helps address this phenomena and tries to answer remaining questions for evolutionary biology, epigenetics, and scientific researchers. The book recognizes and presents objective representations of alternative theories for epigenetic evolution in this period, with the author drawing on his epigenetic theory of evolution to explain the causal basis of the Cambrian explosion. Both empirical evidence and theoretical arguments are presented in support of this thought-provoking epigenetic theory. - Explains the Cambrian explosion from an entirely epigenetic view - Takes a causal rather than descriptive approach to the phenomenon - Allows for a broad readership, including those with only a basic biological knowledge, while maintaining scientific rigor

Author: Eric Buffetaut
Publisher: Geological Society of London
ISBN: 9781862391437
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
Pterosaurs were a peculiar group of Mesozoic vertebrates, which acquired the ability to fly in an original way, using a membrane attached to a single finger of the hand. Ever since the first description of a pterosaur skeleton in 1784, these remarkable animals have elicited much discussion and controversy among palaeontologists, and many basic questions about their origin, evolution and biology remain disputed. In the last few years, interest in pterosaurs has been revived by numerous discoveries of new and sometimes remarkably preserved specimens, which have enlarged and changed our picture of this group. The volume begins with descriptions of several new pterosaurs from the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous of Europe, North and South America, and Africa. Following this, alternative hypotheses of pterosaur phytogeny and evolution are put forward. Several papers discuss the functional anatomy of pterosaurs and its implications for aerial locomotion. The study of pterosaur footprints provides important new evidence concerning their terrestrial locomotion, and this approach is used in several contributions. A developing aspect of pterosaur research is bone histology, as shown by the final papers in this collection.