From the author of the bestselling ESCAPING FROM EDEN. Do our world mythologies convey our ancestors' ideas about God? Or are they in reality ancestral memories of extra-terrestrial contact? How do ancient stories of contact, adaptation and abduction relate to people's experiences around the world today? The Scars of Eden will take you around the world to hear first-hand from ancestral voices alongside contemporary experiencers and world-renowned researchers. Recent revelations from US Navy, the Pentagon, and French Intelligence bring the reader right up to date in examining what has been forgotten and remembered, hidden and disclosed. If world mythologies, including the Bible, have confused the idea of God with ancient ET visitations, what difference does it make? How does it impact society today? And why is this cultural taboo so widespread and, for the author, so personal?

The graptolites constitute one of the geologically most useful taxonomic groups of fossils for dating rock successions, understanding paleobiogeography and reconstructing plate tectonic configurations in the Lower Palaeozoic. Graptolites were largely planktic, marine organisms, and as one of the first groups that explored the expanses of the world s oceans are vital for understanding Palaeozoic ecology. They are the best and often the only fossil group for dating Lower Palaeozoic rock successions precisely. Thousands of taxa have been described from all over the planet and are used for a wide variety of geological and palaeontological (biological) research topics. The recent recognition of the modern pterobranch Rhabdopleura as a living benthic graptolite enables a much better understanding and interpretation of the fossil Graptolithina. In the decades since the latest edition of the Graptolite Treatise, the enormous increase of knowledge on this group of organisms has never been synthesised in a compelling and coherent way, and information is scattered in scientific publications and difficult to sort through. This volume provides an up-to-date insight into research on graptolites. Such research has advanced considerably with the use of new methods of investigation and documentation. SEM investigation and research on ultrastructure of the tubaria has made it possible to compare extant and extinct taxa in much more detail. Cladistic interpretation of graptolite taxonomy and evolution has advanced the understanding of this group of organisms considerably in the last two decades, and has highlighted their importance in our understanding of evolutionary processes. This book will show graptolites, including their modern, living relatives, in a quite new and fascinating light, and will demonstrate the impact that the group has had on the evolution of the modern marine ecosystem. This book is aimed not only at earth scientists but also at biologists, ecologists and oceanographers. It is a readable and comprehensible volume for students at the MSc level, while remaining accessible to undergraduates and non-specialists seeking up-to-date information about this fascinating topic in palaeobiology.

New online resources are opening doors for education and outreach in the Earth sciences. One of the most innovative online earth science portals is Macrostrat and its mobile client Rockd - an interface that combines geolocated geological maps with stratigraphic information, lithological data, and crowd-sourced images and descriptions of outcrops. These tools provide a unique educational opportunity for students to interact with primary geological data, create connections between local outcrops and global patterns, and make new field observations. Rockd incorporates an aspect of social media to its platform, which creates a sense of community for users. This Element outlines these resources, gives instructions on how to use them, and provides examples of how to integrate these resources into a variety of paleontology and earth science courses.

People hold a variety of prior conceptions that impact their learning. Prior conceptions that include erroneous or incomplete understandings represent a significant barrier to durable learning, as they are often difficult to change. While researchers have documented students' prior conceptions in many areas of geoscience, little is known about prior conceptions involving paleontology. In this Element, data on student prior conceptions from two introductory undergraduate paleontology courses are presented. In addition to more general misunderstandings about the nature of science, many students hold incorrect ideas about methods of historical geology, Earth history, ancient life, and evolution. Of special note are student perceptions of the limits of paleontology as scientific inquiry. By intentionally eliciting students' prior conceptions and implementing the pedagogical strategies described in other Elements in this series, lecturers can shape instruction to challenge this negative view of paleontology and improve student learning.

Lecturing has been a staple of university pedagogy, but a shift is ongoing because of evidence that active engagement with content helps strengthen learning and build more advanced skills. The flipped classroom, which delivers content to students outside of the class meeting, is one approach to maximize time for active learning. The fundamental benefit of a flipped class is that students learn more, but ensuring student preparation and engagement can be challenging. Evaluation policies can provide incentives to guide student effort. Flipping a class requires an initial time commitment, but the workload associated with evaluating student work during the course can be mitigated. The personal interactions from active learning are extremely rewarding for students and instructors, especially when class sizes are small and suitable room layouts are available. Overall, flipping a course doesn't require special training, just a willingness to experiment, reflect, and adjust.

Research-led, research-oriented, and research-based teaching incorporate research into teaching to different degrees. Research-led teaching focuses on content and informs students about current research findings, while research-oriented teaching focuses on techniques and often occurs in research methods courses. In research-based teaching, students participate in research. Through this involvement, they benefit from improved content knowledge, research skills, and life skills, as well as enhanced personal development. Research-embedded courses can make such benefits available to a wide range of students. Best practices in experiential learning and the incorporation of research in teaching include intentionality, planning, authenticity, reflection, training, monitoring, assessment, and acknowledgment. In this Element, these principles of best practice are illustrated by courses with embedded student research. Guidelines are presented for how to plan and execute a semester-long course-embedded research project, as well as alternative and shorter-term approaches. Research-based teaching provides challenges for students and faculty, but the benefits for all stakeholders are strong.

University dinosaur courses provide an influential venue for developing aptitude beyond knowledge of terrestrial Mesozoic reptiles. Passion for dinosaurs, when properly directed, can trigger interest in science and be used to develop critical thinking skills. Examination of dinosaur paleontology can develop competence in information analysis, perception of flawed arguments, recognition of persuasion techniques, and application of disciplined thought processes. Three methods for developing critical thought are outlined in this Element. The first uses dinosaur paleontology to illustrate logical fallacies and flawed arguments. The second is a method for evaluating primary dinosaur literature by students of any major. The final example entails critique of dinosaur documentaries based on the appearance of dinosaurs and the disconnect between scientific fact and storytelling techniques. Students are owed more than dinosaur facts; lecturers should foster a set of skills that equips students with the tools necessary to be perceptive citizens and science advocates.

The educational benefits of replacing in-class lectures with hands-on activities are clear. Such active learning is a natural fit for paleontology, which can provide opportunities for examining fossils, analyzing data and writing. Additionally, there are a number of topics in the field that are exciting to geology majors and non-majors alike: very few can resist the lure of dinosaurs, huge meteor impacts, vicious Cretaceous sharks or a giant Pleistocene land mammal. However, it can seem difficult to introduce these techniques into a large general education class full of non-majors: paleontological specimens provide a natural starting point for hands-on classroom activities, but in a large class it is not always practical or possible to provide enough fossil material for all students. The Element introduces different types of active learning approaches, and then explains how they have been applied to a large introductory paleontology class for non-majors.

Research on learning and cognition in geoscience education research and other discipline-based education communities suggests that effective instruction should include three key components: a) activation of students' prior knowledge on the subject, b) an active learning pedagogy that allows students to address any existing misconceptions and then build a new understanding of the concept, and c) metacognitive reflections that require students to evaluate their own learning processes during the lesson. This Element provides an overview of the research on student-centered pedagogy in introductory geoscience and paleontology courses and gives examples of these instructional approaches. Student-centered learning shifts the power and attention in a classroom from the instructor to the students. In a student-centered classroom, students are in control of their learning experience and the instructor functions primarily as a guide. Student-centered classrooms trade traditional lecture for conceptually-oriented tasks, collaborative learning activities, new technology, inquiry-based learning, and metacognitive reflection.

Hands-on learning in paleontology, and geology in general, is fairly common practice. Students regularly use rocks, fossils, and data in the classroom throughout their undergraduate career, but they typically do it sitting in a chair in a lab. Kinesthetic learning is a teaching model that requires students to be physically active while learning. Students may be involved in a physical activity during class or might be using their own bodies to model some important concept. This Element briefly discusses the theory behind kinesthetic learning and how it fits into a student-centered, active-learning classroom. It then describes in detail methods for incorporating it into student exercises on biostratigraphy, assessment of sampling completeness, and modeling evolutionary processes. Assessment data demonstrates that these exercises have led to significantly improved student learning outcomes tied to these concepts.

Gran Barranca in Patagonia exposes the most complete sequence of middle Cenozoic paleofaunas in South America. It is the only continuous continental fossil record of the Southern Hemisphere between 42 and 18 million years ago, when climates at high latitudes transitioned from warm humid to cold dry conditions. This volume presents the geochronology of the fossil mammal sequence and a compilation of the latest studies of the stratigraphy, sedimentology, mammals, plants, invertebrates and trace fossils. It is also the first detailed treatment of the vertebrate faunal sequence at Gran Barranca, providing important new evidence about biotic diversity and evolution in the native species. A revised taxonomy allows a reevaluation of the origination and extinction of herbivorous mammals, marsupials, and xenarthrans, and the earliest occurrence of rodents and primates in southern latitudes. Academic researchers and advanced students in vertebrate paleontology, geochronology, sedimentology and paleoprimatology will value this wealth of new information.

Fossils are essential to the reconstruction of the evolution of life and episodes in Earth history. Knowledge of biomineralization - the processes associated with the formation of mineralized biological structures - is essential to properly evaluate data derived from fossils. This book emphasizes skeletal formation and fossilization in a geologic framework in order to understand evolution, relationships between fossil groups, and the use of biomineral materials as geochemical proxies for understanding ancient oceans and climates. The focus is on shells and skeletons of calcareous organisms, and the book explores the fine structures and mode of growth of the characteristic crystalline units, taking advantage of most recent physical methodological advances. The book is richly illustrated and will be of great interest to advanced students and researchers in paleontology, Earth history, evolution, sedimentology, geochemistry, and materials science.

Coastal exposures of the Santa Cruz Formation in southern Patagonia have been a fertile ground for recovery of Early Miocene vertebrates for more than 100 years. This volume presents a comprehensive compilation of important mammalian groups which continue to thrive today. It includes the most recent fossil finds as well as important new interpretations based on ten years of fieldwork by the authors. A key focus is placed on the paleoclimate and paleoenvironment during the time of deposition in the Middle Miocene Climatic Optimum (MMCO) between twenty and fifteen million years ago. The authors present the first reconstruction of what climatic conditions were like and present important new evidence of the geochronological age, habits and community structures of fossil bird and mammal species. Academic researchers and graduate students in paleontology, paleobiology, paleoecology, stratigraphy, climatology and geochronology will find this a valuable source of information about this fascinating geological formation.

The fossil history of plant life in Antarctica is central to our understanding of the evolution of vegetation through geological time and also plays a key role in reconstructing past configurations of the continents and associated climatic conditions. This book provides the only detailed overview of the development of Antarctic vegetation from the Devonian period to the present day, presenting Earth scientists with valuable insights into the break up of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana. Details of specific floras and ecosystems are provided within the context of changing geological, geographical and environmental conditions, alongside comparisons with contemporaneous and modern ecosystems. The authors demonstrate how palaeobotany contributes to our understanding of the paleoenvironmental changes in the southern hemisphere during this period of Earth history. The book is a complete and up-to-date reference for researchers and students in Antarctic paleobotany and terrestrial paleoecology.

Palaeontology, the scientific study of fossils, has developed from a descriptive science to an analytical science used to interpret relationships between Earth and life history. This book provides a comprehensive and thematic treatment of applied palaeontology, covering the use of fossils in the ordering of rocks in time and in space, in biostratigraphy, palaeobiology and sequence stratigraphy. Robert Wynn Jones presents a practical workflow for applied palaeontology, including sample acquisition, preparation and analysis, and interpretation and integration. He then presents numerous case studies that demonstrate the applicability and value of the subject to areas such as petroleum, mineral and coal exploration and exploitation, engineering geology and environmental science. Specialist applications outside of the geosciences (including archaeology, forensic science, medical palynology, entomopalynology and melissopalynology) are also addressed. Abundantly illustrated and referenced, Applications of Palaeontology provides a user-friendly reference for academic researchers and professionals across a range of disciplines and industry settings.

This second volume completes the unique survey of North American Tertiary mammals, and covers all the remaining taxa not contained in Volume 1. It provides a complete listing of mammalian diversity over time and space, and evaluates the effect of biogeography and climatic change on evolutionary patterns and faunal transitions, with the distribution in time and space of each taxon laid out in a standardized format. It contains six summary chapters that integrate systematic and biogeographic information for higher taxa, and provides a detailed account of the patterns of occurrence for different species at hundreds of different fossil localities, with the inclusion of many more localities than were contained in the first volume. With over thirty chapters, each written by leading authorities, and an addendum that updates the occurrence and systematics of all of the groups covered in Volume 1, this will be a valuable reference for paleontologists and zoologists.

Part of the Fossils and Strata Monograph Series from the Scandinavian University Press The published study, Orthacean and Strophomenid Brachiopods from the Lower Silurian of the Central Oslo Region, is part of an international series on stratigraphy and paleontology.

Why are humans so fond of water? Why is our skin colour so variable? Why aren't we hairy like our close ape relatives? A savannah scenario of human evolution has been widely accepted primarily due to fossil evidence; and fossils do not offer insight into these questions. Other alternative evolutionary scenarios might, but these models have been rejected. This book explores a controversial idea - that human evolution was intimately associated with watery habitats as much or more than typical savannahs. Written from a medical point of view, the author presents evidence supporting a credible alternative explanation for how humans diverged from our primate ancestors. Anatomical and physiological evidence offer insight into hairlessness, different coloured skin, subcutaneous fat, large brains, a marine-type kidney, a unique heat regulation system and speech. This evidence suggests that humans may well have evolved, not just as savannah mammals, as is generally believed, but with more affinity for aquatic habitats - rivers, streams, lakes and coasts. Key Features: Presents the evidence for a close association between riparian habitats and the origin of humans Reviews the "savannah ape" hypothesis for human origins Describes various anatomical adaptations that are associated with hypotheses of human evolution Explores characteristics from the head and neck such as skull and sinus structures, the larynx and ear structures and functions

The object of this book is to explain how to create a synthesis of complex biostratigraphic data, and how to extract from such a synthesis a relative time scale based exclusively on the fossil content of sedimentary rocks. Such a time scale can be used to attribute relative ages to isolated fossil-bearing samples. The book is composed of 10 chapters together with several appendices. It is a totally revised version of “Biochronological Correlations” published in 1991 and includes various new chapters. The book offers a solution for the theoretical problem of how fossils can be used to make reliable quantitative stratigraphic correlations in sedimentary geology. It also describes the use of highly efficient software along with several examples. The authors compare their theoretical model with 2 other relevant studies: probabilistic stratigraphy and constrained optimization (CONOP).

1. 1 Nautilus and Allonautilus: Two Decades of Progress W. Bruce Saunders Department of Geology Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr PA 19010 wsaunder@brynmawr. edu Neil H. Landman Division of Paleontology American Museum of Natural History New York, New York 10024 landman@amnh. org When Nautilus: Biology and Paleobiology of a Living Fossil was published in 1987, it marked a milestone in cross-disciplinary collaboration. More than half of the contributing authors (36/65) were paleontologists, many of whom were collaborating with neontological counterparts. Their interest in studying this reclusive, poorly known animal was being driven by a search for clues to the mode of life and natural history of the once dominant shelled cephalopods, through study of the sole surviving genus. At the same time, Nautilus offered an opportunity for neontologists to look at a fundamentally different, phylogenetically basal member of the extant Cephalopoda. It was a w- win situation, combining paleontological deep-time perspectives, old fashioned expeditionary zeal, traditional biological approaches and new techniques. The results were cross-fertilized investigations in such disparate fields as ecology, functional morphology, taphonomy, genetics, phylogeny, locomotive dynamics, etc. As one reviewer of the xxxvi Introduction xxxvii book noted, Nautilus had gone from being one of the least known to one of the best understood of living cephalopods.

Three major aspects that distinguish this book are that (1) it contains the most detailed analysis of the sexual reproduction (oogenesis, fertilization and embryonic incubation) in a particular phylum of the aquatic invertebrates (Bryozoa) ever made; this analysis is based on an exhaustive review of the literature on that topic published over the last 260 years, as well as extensive original histological, anatomical and morphological data obtained during studies of both extant and extinct species; (2) this broad analysis has made it possible to reconstruct the major patterns, stages and trends in the evolution of sexual reproduction in various bryozoan clades, showing numerous examples of parallelisms during transitions from broadcasting to embryonic incubation, from planktotrophic to non-feeding larvae and from lecithotrophy to placentation; corresponding shifts in oogenesis, fertilization and embryonic development are discussed in detail; and (3) the key evolutionary novelties acquired by Bryozoa are compared with similar innovations that have evolved in other groups of marine invertebrates, showing the general trends in the evolution of their sexual reproduction. Ecological background of these innovations is considered too. Altogether these aspects make the monograph an “Encyclopedia of bryozoan sexual reproduction,” offering an integral picture of the evolution of this complex phenomenon.

Determining the precise timing for the evolutionary origin of groups of organisms has become increasingly important as scientists from diverse disciplines attempt to examine rates of anatomical or molecular evolution and correlate intrinsic biological events to extrinsic environmental events. Molecular clock analyses indicate that many major groups are twice as old, or more, than a literal reading of the fossil record attests, implying that the fossil record is incomplete. Few paleontologists agree that the fossil record is inadequate, arguing instead that our understanding of the molecular clock is far from ideal. Telling the Evolutionary Time: Molecular Clocks and the Fossil Record represents a discussion between molecular biologists and paleontologists, in which they investigate the significance of competing sources of data, explain the nature of molecular clocks and the fossil record, and strive to develop compromise models that incorporate contradictory opinions. These are presented as a series of case studies dealing with many of the most important groups of complex organisms, such as protists, land plants, flowering plants, complex animals, chordates, vertebrates, tetrapods, and modern birds. Bringing fresh insight and various perspectives to a complicated argument, this book assembles all sides of the debate into one comprehensive text. It is a significant volume for research scientists and advanced students across the field of evolutionary biology.

Paleontologists and geologists struggle with research questions often complicated by the loss or even absence of key paleobiological and paleoenvironmental information. Insight into this missing data can be gained through direct exploration of analogous living organisms and modern environments. Creative, experimental and interdisciplinary treatments of such ancient-Earth analogs form the basis of Lessons from the Living. This volume unites a diverse range of expert paleontologists, neontologists and geologists presenting case studies that cover a spectrum of topics, including functional morphology, taphonomy, environments and organism-substrate interactions.

This book provides a representative assessment of the state of the art of research on Paleogene rotaliid larger foraminifera. It gives an overview of the current understanding of systematics of this group and, in particular, of its biostratigraphic importance and palaeobiogeography. The senior author of the work, late Professor Hottinger, a leading scientist in the field, both from a systematic and applied side, presents in this book his most recent advances. The foraminiferal family Rotaliidae is a traditional group used frequently which plays an important role for petroleum exploration in the biostratigraphy and palaeobiogeography of Paleogene shallow water deposits in the Middle East. This book aims to introduce rotaliid representatives as index fossils that can be recognized in random thin-sections of cemented rocks. The book is generously illustrated with an unprecedented degree of accuracy. The selection of taxa is restricted to forms having lived in the Paleocene and the Eocene, where their biostratigraphic significance is much higher than during later epochs. However, some additional rotaliid taxa, from the Late Cretaceous or that do not belong to the family Rotaliidae sensu stricto, are included in this book in order to demonstrate particular roots of rotaliid phylogenetic lineages in the previous community maturation cycle or to delimit the taxon Rotaliidae with more precision. This book can be considered as a reference in the field.