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Author: Andrew Ross Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 9780674017290 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 76
Book Description
The fossilized resin of ancient trees, amber preserves organic material--most commonly insects and other invertebrates--and with it the shape and surface detail that are usually obliterated or hopelessly distorted during the mineralization we associate with fossils. This fascinating substance offers a unique intersection of the fields of paleontology, botany, entomology, and mineralogy.
Author: George O. Poinar Publisher: Stanford University Press ISBN: 9780804720014 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 388
Book Description
"Amber is a semi-precious gem that is formed over eons by natural forces out of the resin of trees. Human fascination with amber dates back to prehistoric times, when it was probably considered to have magical powers and was used for adornment and trade. Amber amulets and beads dating from 35,000 to 1,800 B.C. have been found, and where they have been found (for example in graves hundreds of miles from their chemically determined origins) has often helped to establish ancient trade routes." "The preservative qualities of plant resins were well known by the ancients. The Egyptians used resins to embalm their dead, and the Greeks used them to preserve their wine. Amber often preserved fossils, frequently in a pristine state, of all kinds of animal and plant organisms that made contact with the sticky substance and became trapped in it. These fossils include such fragile organisms as nematodes and mushrooms that ordinarily are not preserved under normal processes of fossilization, as well as larger organisms like scorpions and lizards, and the fossils are preserved in their full three-dimensional form, complete with minute details of scales, mouth parts, antennae, and hairs. It has even been suggested that viable DNA may persist in some amber-trapped organisms." "This book is a compendium of all that we know about life found in amber. It surveys all life forms, from microbes to vertebrates and plants, that have been reported from amber deposits throughout the world, beginning with the earliest pieces dating from some 300 million years ago. It also describes the formation of amber and the location, geological history, and early exploration of the major world amber deposits, including those still being worked today." "The book also provides practical information on how to determine fake amber containing present-day forms of life. It can serve as a beginning for tracing the geological history of a particular group of animals or plants or even reconstructing ancient paleoenvironments, and because amber fossils are preserved so completely, in a transparent medium, they can be intimately compared with related living species. Finally, the book discusses what amber fossils can tell us about evolution and speciation, cellular preservation, and paleosymbiosis." "The book is illustrated with 37 color photographs, 154 black-and-white photographs and drawings, and 8 maps."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Author: Andrew Ross Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 9780674017290 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 76
Book Description
The fossilized resin of ancient trees, amber preserves organic material--most commonly insects and other invertebrates--and with it the shape and surface detail that are usually obliterated or hopelessly distorted during the mineralization we associate with fossils. This fascinating substance offers a unique intersection of the fields of paleontology, botany, entomology, and mineralogy.
Author: George O. Poinar Publisher: ISBN: Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 100
Book Description
"This illustrated book, the first major review of Lebanese amber, covers all aspects of this rare and highly valued resin, including its origin and its role as a commodity in ancient cultures. The authors discuss each plant and animal fossil thus far recovered from the amber, including nematodes, snails, mites, spiders and insects, and the earliest complete feather.".
Author: Pierre Francois Dominique Cockx Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
In order to reconstruct Cretaceous ecology and environments, this thesis investigates amber deposits in Myanmar and Western Canada, through chemical analyses of amber and study of the inclusions. As part of this work, I described a bird foot and a large series of feather inclusions from the amber of Myanmar. In the bird specimen, a series of osteological features and the morphology of the claws, support a systematic placement among Enantiornithes. I was able to describe delicate integumentary structures associated with the foot. This included scutellate scale feathers, a type of feather that has only been documented in Burmese amber specimens. Their distribution and relative size on the longest digit of the foot suggest a mechanosensory tactile function, and may allow us to draw parallels to some modern birds with tactile feathers on their feet. This finding strongly supports the longest digit acting as part of the feeding strategy of the bird, and fits well with previous interpretations of habitat use by enantiornithines. This dissertation demonstrates that even isolated vertebrate remains in amber are of high scientific interest. Through a detailed study of more than 180 Burmese amber samples preserving feathers, a diverse assemblage of Cretaceous feathers has been recovered. This provides the opportunity to document and investigate several structural types of feathers, ontogenetic stages, and pigmentation patterns. Based on recent work that associates feather types with skeletal remains, I was able to attribute many of the feathers to putative source animals. Although a few feathers may belong to non-avian dinosaur taxa, this survey confirmed earlier hypotheses that Enantiornithes were the dominant source of feathers in this ecosystem. The structure and pigmentation patterns reported added to larger-scale hypotheses regarding the groups present in the Cretaceous amber forest. One particular subset of ornamental feathers warranted detailed study because of its unusual structure. I determined that rachis-dominated feathers (RDFs) form a distinct morphotype characterized by a ventrally open rachis and a flexibility that was not documented previously. These results allow us to refine our evolutionary-developmental (evo-devo) models for integumentary structures in dinosaurs by providing additional data on structures preceding modern feathers. The structural features observed support a particular pathway for evolutionary development in feather subcomponents, addressing a major question in evo-devo models of feathers which have been based predominantly on modern material. A research deficit was addressed by focusing on Upper Cretaceous bonebed amber deposits of Western Canada. I established that amber can provide paleoecological, paleoenvironmental, paleoclimatic, and paleogeographic data, thus improving our knowledge of dinosaur habitats and their biota. Stable isotope analyses of amber refined our knowledge of the actual position and extant of the Western Interior Seaway (WIS) during the Late Cretaceous. A marine signal indicates the presence of remnants of the WIS near the deposits studied. Fourier-transform Infrared spectra showed that the dominant tree in the forests belonged to the Cupressaceae group. Feather fragments in Pipestone Creek amber, reveal the presence of aquatic birds (e.g., Hesperornithes and Ichthyornithes) 73 Ma, in Pachyrhinosaurus habitats. Insect inclusions yielded new species of Mymarommatidae wasp and Psocoptera which add to the fossil record and support the ecological interpretations based on amber chemistry. Ultimately, this line of research further supports paleoenvironmental hypotheses based on other sources of data. It also provided a new source of information on Cretaceous terrestrial habitats at high latitude, and a source for comparisons to other amber deposits during the latter part of the Cretaceous.
Author: Andrew Ross
Author: George O. Poinar
Author: David Penney
Author: Andrew Ross
Author: David Penney
Author: George O. Poinar
Author: David A. Grimaldi
Author: David A. Grimaldi
Author: Art Borkent
Author: Pierre Francois Dominique Cockx
Author: David A. Grimaldi