The Cambrian radiation was the explosive evolution of marine life that started 550,000,000 years ago. It ranks as one of the most important episodes in Earth history. This key event in the history of life on our planet changed the marine biosphere and its sedimentary environment forever, requiring a complex interplay of wide-ranging biologic and nonbiologic processes. 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.

The Cambrian Period records one of the most extraordinary transitions in the history of life. Although animals may have first appeared nearly 700 million years ago, with the earliest sponges, their initial diversifications appear to have been modest until a richly diverse fossil fauna appeared abruptly about 170 million years later. In The Cambrian Explosion, Erwin and Valentine synthesize research from many fields to explain why there was such remarkable novelty of animal forms.

The fossil record offers a surprising image: that of evolutionary radiations characterized by intense increases in cash or by the sudden diversification of a single species group, while others stagnate or die out. In a modern world, science carries an often pessimistic message, surrounded by studies of global warming and its effects, extinction crisis, emerging diseases and invasive species. This book fuels frequent "optimism" of the sudden increase in biodiversity by exploring this natural phenomenon. Events of Increased Biodiversity: Evolutionary Radiations in the Fossil Record explores this natural phenomenon of adaptive radiation including its effect on the increase in biodiversity events, their contribution to the changes and limitations in the fossil record, and examines the links between ecology and paleontology's study of radiation. - Details examples of evolutionary radiations - Explicitly addresses the effect of adaptation driven by ecological opportunity - Examines the link between ecology and paleontology's study of adaptive radiation

This volume, aimed at the general reader, presents life and times of the amazing animals that inhabited Earth more than 500 million years ago. The Cambrian Period was a critical time in Earth's history. During this immense span of time nearly every modern group of animals appeared. Although life had been around for more than 2 million millennia, Cambrian rocks preserve the record of the first appearance of complex animals with eyes, protective skeletons, antennae, and complex ecologies. Grazing, predation, and multi-tiered ecosystems with animals living in, on, or above the sea floor became common. The cascade of interaction led to an ever-increasing diversification of animal body types. By the end of the period, the ancestors of sponges, corals, jellyfish, worms, mollusks, brachiopods, arthropods, echinoderms, and vertebrates were all in place. The evidence of this Cambrian "explosion" is preserved in rocks all over the world, including North America, where the seemingly strange animals of the period are preserved in exquisite detail in deposits such as the Burgess Shale in British Columbia. Cambrian Ocean World tells the story of what is, for us, the most important period in our planet's long history.

"[An] extraordinary book. . . . Mr. Gould is an exceptional combination of scientist and science writer. . . . He is thus exceptionally well placed to tell these stories, and he tells them with fervor and intelligence."—James Gleick, New York Times Book Review High in the Canadian Rockies is a small limestone quarry formed 530 million years ago called the Burgess Shale. It hold the remains of an ancient sea where dozens of strange creatures lived—a forgotten corner of evolution preserved in awesome detail. In this book Stephen Jay Gould explores what the Burgess Shale tells us about evolution and the nature of history.

A major new book overturning our assumptions about how evolution works Earth’s natural history is full of fascinating instances of convergence: phenomena like eyes and wings and tree-climbing lizards that have evolved independently, multiple times. But evolutionary biologists also point out many examples of contingency, cases where the tiniest change—a random mutation or an ancient butterfly sneeze—caused evolution to take a completely different course. What role does each force really play in the constantly changing natural world? Are the plants and animals that exist today, and we humans ourselves, inevitabilities or evolutionary flukes? And what does that say about life on other planets? Jonathan Losos reveals what the latest breakthroughs in evolutionary biology can tell us about one of the greatest ongoing debates in science. He takes us around the globe to meet the researchers who are solving the deepest mysteries of life on Earth through their work in experimental evolutionary science. Losos himself is one of the leaders in this exciting new field, and he illustrates how experiments with guppies, fruit flies, bacteria, foxes, and field mice, along with his own work with anole lizards on Caribbean islands, are rewinding the tape of life to reveal just how rapid and predictable evolution can be. Improbable Destinies will change the way we think and talk about evolution. Losos's insights into natural selection and evolutionary change have far-reaching applications for protecting ecosystems, securing our food supply, and fighting off harmful viruses and bacteria. This compelling narrative offers a new understanding of ourselves and our role in the natural world and the cosmos.

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

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.

This text discusses whether the origin of radically new kinds of organisms - new higher taxa - are the result of normal Darwinian evolution proceeding, or whether unusual genetic processes and/or special environmental circumstances are necessary.