This book recognizes and celebrates the contributions of Professor Ashok Sahni to the field of paleontology. Prof. Sahni established a School of Vertebrate Palaeontology at Panjab University, Chandigarh, India, where he trained many of today’s vertebrate paleontologists of India. The book covers topics on evolutionary patterns, macroevolutionary events, origination and radiation events, changes in physical environments & climate and their implications for biodiversity dynamics, intercontinental affinities and biogeographic connections in a plate tectonic framework. The book begins by exploring India in the age of the dinosaurs, discussing new fossil remains from the Jurassic Era, then moves through the Cretaceous and Eocene to provide a picture on faunal and floral changes in Gondwanaland in the context of plate tectonics. Furthermore, the book explores the evolutionary patterns and biotic dispersals that resulted from the northward drift of Indian plate during the Cretaceous and its collision with Asia in the Eocene. The respective chapters reveal the role of plate tectonics and climate in shaping the geographical distribution of plants and animals in Gondwana, specifically in India, as well as the post-India/Asia collision implications for biodiversity changes and biogeography in the region’s continental environments. Given its scope, the book will appeal to vertebrate paleontologists, evolutionary biologists, and paleobiogeographers.

Maintaining the qualities that sent previous editions into multiple printings, this edition continues to explore the role that microbes have played in specific geological processes. The author discusses acidophilic iron-oxidizing bacteria, acidophilic iron- and metal sulfide-oxidation, and the geomicrobiology of bauxites. He covers geomicrobial methods, mineral formation and transformation, biodegradation or transformation of organics and inorganics, carbonates, silicates, phosphates, metal-oxides, and metal-sulfides, and practical applications of geomicrobial processes. The book includes end-of-chapter summaries, 2800 up-to-date literature citations, and a glossary.

Uncovers the Key Role Microbes Play in the Transformation of Oxidizable and Reducible MineralsMany areas of geomicrobial processes are receiving serious attention from microbiologists, specifically the role microbes play in the formation and degradation of minerals and fossil fuels and elemental cycling. Most notably, the latest research finds that

This volume brings together scholars working in diverse traditions of the humanities in order to offer a comprehensive analysis of the environmental catastrophe as the modern-day apocalypse. Drawing on philosophy, theology, history, literature, art history, psychoanalysis, as well as queer and decolonial theories, the authors included in this book expound the meaning of the climate apocalypse, reveal its presence in our everyday experiences, and examine its impact on our intellectual, imaginative, and moral practices. Importantly, the chapters show that eco-apocalypticism can inform progressively transformative discourses about climate change. In so doing, they demonstrate the fruitfulness of understanding the environmental catastrophe from within an apocalyptic framework, carving a much-needed path between two unsatisfactory approaches to the climate disaster: first, the conservative impulse to preserve the status quo responsible for today’s crisis, and second, the reckless acceptance of the destructive effects of climate change. This book will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars interested in the contributions of both apocalypticism and the humanities to contemporary ecological debates.

Neville Price presents a major breakthrough in our understanding of the subject of plate tectonics in this new book. In this ambitious look at the importance of impacts of objects from space on the earth, he challenges the fundamentals of the theory on which geoscience has rested for the past 25 years. In the latter half of the 20th century

Dynamics of Plate Tectonics and Mantle Convection, written by specialists in the field, gathers state-of-the-art perspectives on the dynamics of plate tectonics and mantle convection. Plate tectonics is a unifying theory of solid Earth sciences. In its initial form, it was a kinematic theory that described how the planet's surface is fragmented into several rigid lithospheric plates that move in relation to each other over the less viscous asthenosphere. Plate tectonics soon evolved to describe the forces that drive and resist plate movements. The Earth sciences community is now developing a new perspective that looks at plate tectonics and mantle convection as part of a single system. Why does our planet have plate tectonics, and how does it work? How does mantle convection drive the supercontinent cycle? How have tectono-convective modes evolved over the Earth's history? How did they shape the planet and impact life? Do other planets have mantle convection and tectonics? These are some of the fascinating questions explored in this book. This book started with a challenge from the editor to the authors to provide perspectives from their vantage point and open the curtain to the endeavors and stories behind the science. - Provides diverse perspectives from different experts around the world in plate tectonics and geodynamics - Includes the most up-to-date knowledge on plate tectonics and mantle convection - Sets the scene for the developments and challenges likely to be faced by researchers in the future of geodynamics

This part B of the fourth volume of The Crustacea contains chapters on: ● Crustaceans in the Biosphere ● Crustaceans and Mankind ● Crustaceans in Art ● Orders Lophogastrida, Stygiomysida, and Mysida [collectively known as Mysidacea] As evident from the number 4B tagged to this volume, vol. 4 as originally planned had to be split into two fascicles, 4A and 4B, simply because of the numbers of pages covered by the various contributions meant for volume 4. The chapters in this book grew out of those in the French edition volumes 7(II) and 7(III)(A). Overall, this constitutes the seventh tome published in this English series, viz., preceded by volumes 1 (2004), 2 (2006), 9A (2010), 9B (2012), 3 (2012), and 4A (2013). Readers/users should note that from vol. 4A onward we have had to abandon publishing the chapters in the serial sequence as originally envisaged by the late Prof. J. Forest, because the various contributions, i.e., both the updates and the entirely new chapters, have become available in a more or less random order.

Before any other influences began to fashion life and its lavish diversity, geological events created the initial environments--both physical and chemical--for the evolutionary drama that followed. Drawing on case histories from around the world, Arthur Kruckeberg demonstrates the role of landforms and rock types in producing the unique geographical distributions of plants and in stimulating evolutionary diversification. His examples range throughout the rich and heterogeneous tapestry of the earth's surface: the dramatic variations of mountainous topography, the undulating ground and crevices of level limestone karst, and the subtle realm of sand dunes. He describes the ongoing evolutionary consequences of the geology-plant interface and the often underestimated role of geology in shaping climate. Kruckeberg explores the fundamental connection between plants and geology, including the historical roots of geobotany, the reciprocal relations between geology and other environmental influences, geomorphology and its connection with plant life, lithology as a potent selective agent for plants, and the physical and biological influences of soils. Special emphasis is given to the responses of plants to exceptional rock types and their soils--serpentines, limestones, and other azonal (exceptional) substrates. Edaphic ecology, especially of serpentines, has been his specialty for years. Kruckeberg's research fills a significant gap in the field of environmental science by connecting the conventionally separated disciplines of the physical and biological sciences. Geology and Plant Life is the result of more than forty years of research into the question of why certain plants grow on certain soils and certain terrain structures, and what happens when this relationship is disrupted by human agents. It will be useful to a wide spectrum of professionals in the natural sciences: plant ecologists, paleobiologists, climatologists, soil scientists, geologists, geographers, and conservation scientists, as well as serious amateurs in natural history.

One needs to look at only a small portion of the enormous literature on plate tectonics published in the last 15 years to realize that there are many differences between the various reconstructions that have been presented. It becomes obvious that, although there is a general agreement about the presence of an assembly of continents (a Pangaea) in the early Mesozoic, there is considerable disagreement among earth scientists as to the configurement of the assembly and the manner and timing of the subsequent dispersal. While the revolution in geophysics was taking place, systematic work in paleontology and neontology was being carried out. This book is an attempt to incorporate the biological evidence into the theory of plate tectonics.The author traces the changing relationships among the various biogeographic regions and demonstrates how such changes may often be correlated with the gradual geographic alteration of the earth's surface. He analyses recent information about the distribution of widespread groups of terrestrial and freshwater vertebrates, invertebrates and plants, and discusses the biogeographical effects of the movement of oceanic plates.It is particularly important to obtain dependable information about certain critical times in the history of continental relationships. We need to know when the terrestrial parts of the earth were broken apart and when they were joined together. The present investigation makes it clear that we cannot depend entirely on evidence from plate tectonics nor will purely biological evidence suffice. This book thus provides much of interest to systematists working on contemporary groups of plants and animals, paleontologists, evolutionary biologists, and professors teaching courses in biogeography.