Books in the The Critical Moments and Perspectives in Earth History and Paleobiology series

The Triassic period is generally viewed as the beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs. For paleontologists, however, it also marks the rise of the world's first modern land ecosystems.Over the past three decades, extensive, worldwide fieldwork has led to the discovery of many new species of Triassic animals and plants, suggesting that faunal and floral changes already began in the Middle Triassic and were more protracted than previously thought. The Late Triassic is a pivotal time in the evolution of life on land, with many of the major groups of present-day vertebrates and insects first appearing in the fossil record. This book provides the first detailed overview of life on land during the Triassic period for advanced students and researchers. Noted vertebrate paleontologists Hans-Dieter Sues and Nicholas C. Fraser also review the biotic changes of this period and their possible causes.

"This book explores the ecological consequences of the twin extinction events--the one that occurred within the Late Devonian (the end-Frasnian extinction) and the one that closed the Devonian period (the end-Famennian extinction)--for the evolution of terrestrial animal life on Earth--Provided by publisher.

This text provides background and steps in defining geometric parameters for organic form in order to generate a spectrum of other possible forms. It also addresses simulation of actual processes of morphogenesis, aiming to attain a nuanced comprehension of how evolutionary processes work.

The Ecology of the Cambrian Radiation offers a comprehensive and surprising picture of the Earth at that ancient time. The book contains contributions from thirty-three authors hailing from ten countries and will be of interest to paleontologists, geologists, biologists, and other researchers interested in the global Earth-life system.

Describes the Eocene-Oligocene extinctions, an important turning-point in Earth history approximately 40 million years ago, when the first signs of Antarctic glaciation appeared. The text relates how, during a period of global cooling, the planet's climate and vegetation changed dramatically.

Carefully examines the events recorded at the major Permo-Triassic boundary sections and documents the patterns of extinction and survival among the major groups of marine and terrestrial plants and animals. Erwin also provides a detailed summary of the climatic, geologic, geophysical and geochemical events of the Late Permian and Early Triassic.

The northern Adriatic Sea is transient, most recently flooded between 18,000 to 6,000 years ago following the last glacial maximum, and it will drain again with the onset of the next glacial period. This book enables us to understand better the ecological structure of the Adriatic's floor.

A variety of methods have developed to study pre-Quaternary climates. This text offers an exploration of these methods. It focuses on description and analysis of palaeoclimate indicators, offering explanations of biotic and lithological indicators in marine and terrestrial realms.

Focuses on the 46-million-year Ordovician Period (489-443 my), when a bewildering array of adaptive radiations of Paleozoic and Modern-type biotas appeared in marine habitats, the first animals (arthropods) walked on land, and the first non-vascular bryophyte-like plants colonized terrestrial areas with damp environments.

Using the geologic records of ocean and lake sediment, ice cores, corals, and other natural archives, Principles of Paleoclimatology describes the history of the Earth's climate-the ice age cycles, sea level changes, volcanic activity, changes in atmosphere and solar radiation-and the resulting, sometimes catastrophic, biotic responses.

What do we now know about the origins of plants on land, from an evolutionary and an environmental perspective? The essays in this collection present a synthesis of our present state of knowledge, integrating current information in paleobotany with physical, chemical, and geological data.

Addressing the history of the earth in terms of geological process and the resolution of the fossil record, Martin presents a lucid report on the current state of knowledge of a group of interconnected themes-process, scale and hierarchy, and methodologies of historical sciences.

This photographically rich volume provides a synthetic overview of a wide sample of Lagerstatten from marine environments reaching back in time to the Precambrian, more than 500 million years ago. These occurrences of exceptional fossil preservation are providing scientists with a new source of evidence to understand how life has evolved in the Earth's oceans.

This photographically rich volume provides a synthetic overview of a wide sample of Lagerstatten from marine environments reaching back in time to the Precambrian, more than 500 million years ago. These occurrences of exceptional fossil preservation are providing scientists with a new source of evidence to understand how life has evolved in the Earth's oceans.

The first book to approach the Cretaceous extinction-the period during which dinosaurs disappeared from Earth-from the perspective of the fossil record.

Drawing evidence from molecular biology and the fossil record, this study discusses the evolution of metabolism, the eukaryotic host cell, the evolution of the meiotic cell, the acquisition of mitochondria and plastids, and the controversy over the origin of motility organelles.