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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Morphodynamics is defined as the unique interaction among environment, functional morphology, developmental constraints, phylogeny, and time—all of which shape the evolution of life. These fabricational patterns and similarities owe their regularity not to a detailed genetic program, but to extrinsic factors, which may be mechanical, chemical, or biological in nature. These self-organizing mechanisms are the focus of Morphodynamics. Illustrated by numerous examples from across the biological spectrum, this book embodies the foundation of noted paleontologist Adolf Seilacher’s thinking on the study of morphodynamics. It represents his unique approach of presenting paleontology from an ecological and constructional perspective, rather than a purely taxonomic one. The hallmark of Seilacher’s storied career has been a constructional and functional focus. He begins by discussing the basic principles—form, pattern formation, ecology and evolution, as well as the factors that override those processes. Next, he examines how morphodynamic principles are implemented in various invertebrates including single-celled protists, Ediacarans, sponges, coelenterates, shelled organisms, worms, arthropods, and echinoderms. The final chapter explores how morphogenetic principles may apply to clonal colonial organisms. Summarizing seventy years of research into the interactions of form, function, and evolution, the book is copiously illustrated with the author’s own distinctive drawings and an abundance of photos. It provides a framework for readers to pose their own questions and sharpen their interpretive skills on this fascinating topic.

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.

Astrobiology is a remarkably interdisciplinary field. This reference serves as a key to understanding technical terms from the different subfields of astrobiology, including astronomy, biology, chemistry, the geosciences and the space sciences.

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.