You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
This book is a collection of papers presented in the symposia, held in Beijing, on palaeontology and historical geology. The papers deal with different topics, providing information on Palaeobiogeography and Palaeoecology of Asian countries, their faunal content, and fossil preservation.
Some 250 million years ago, the earth suffered the greatest biological crisis in its history. Around 95 percent of all living species died out—a global catastrophe far greater than the dinosaurs' demise 185 million years later. How this happened remains a mystery. But there are many competing theories. Some blame huge volcanic eruptions that covered an area as large as the continental United States; others argue for sudden changes in ocean levels and chemistry, including burps of methane gas; and still others cite the impact of an extraterrestrial object, similar to what caused the dinosaurs' extinction. Extinction is a paleontological mystery story. Here, the world's foremost authority on...
This volume explores geological boundaries in time and space using palynology and micropalaeontology. Boundaries produce distinct signatures in the micropalaeontological record. They can tell us much about the response of biotic systems to environmental change in both marine and terrestrial realms. Different microfossil groups and geological contexts require their own approaches, definitions and considerations of boundaries. The papers here cover the methodology of boundary identification from biostratigraphical, ecological and palaeoenvironmental perspectives.
There are few stories more remarkable than the evolution of life on earth. This Very Short Introduction presents a succinct guide to the key episodes in that story - from the very origins of life four million years ago to the extraordinary diversity of species around the globe today. Beginning with an explanation of the controversies surrounding the birth of life itself, each following chapter tells of a major breakthrough that made new forms of life possible: including sex and multicellularity, hard skeletons, and the move to land. Along the way, we witness the greatest mass extinction, the first forests, the rise of modern ecosystems, and, most recently, conscious humans. Introducing ideas...
Permian and Triassic are the interval known for the integration and separation of Pangea, the closure of the Palaeotethys and the opening of Mesotethys. They were associated with a series of worldwide events including the Late Palaeozoic glaciation and succeeding extensive evaporatic and reef formations, the end-Palaeozoic regression, strong orogenies and widespread volcanism and magmatism, and finally, the Permo-Triassic biotic macro-extinction. These events resulted in the formation of enormous reserves of coal, petroleum, evaporites, phosphorites and metal resources. The Permian and Triassic thus constitutes a time interval particularly important both for understanding the Earth's history...