Receptaculitids are extinct high-level fossils that provide a window into the history of life. After the discovery and analysis of a deposit of phosphatized receptaculitids on the Baltic Sea island of Oland, the authors conclude that receptaculitids possess an attribute not found in any other group of organisms, living or fossil.

This volume brings together a series of papers that address the topic of reconstructing behavior in the primate fossil record. The literature devoted to reconstructing behavior in extinct species is ovelWhelming and very diverse. Sometimes, it seems as though behavioral reconstruction is done as an afterthought in the discussion section of papers, relegated to the status of informed speculation. But recent years have seen an explosion in studies of adaptation, functional anatomy, comparative sociobiology, and development. Powerful new comparative methods are now available on the internet. At the same time, we face a rapidly growing fossil record that offers more and more information on the morphology and paleoenvironments of extinct species. Consequently, inferences of behavior in extinct species have become better grounded in comparative studies of living species and are becoming increas ingly rigorous. We offer here a series of papers that review broad issues related to reconstructing various aspects of behavior from very different types of evi dence. We hope that in so doing, the reader will gain a perspective on the various types of evidence that can be brought to bear on reconstructing behavior, the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches, and, perhaps, new approaches to the topic. We define behavior as broadly as we can including life-history traits, locomotion, diet, and social behavior, giving the authors considerable freedom in choosing what, exactly, they wish to explore."

Palaeobiogeography is a complex subject which processes information provided by both Biology and Earth Sciences. It is conceptually and philosophically equivalent to neobiogeography. Nevertheless, its methods are somewhat different, since it is limited by the incompleteness of the fossil record. On the other hand, it has direct access to the time dimension, a key ingredient of organic evolution. Mesozoic benthonic mollusks, and especially bivalves, have a great potential for palaeobiogeographical analysis due to their commonly good preservation, abundance, diversity and high dispersion potential at the larval stage. From a merely descriptive point of view, the analysis of their distribution shows latitudinal gradients and distributional patterns, both at regional and global scales, which are the basis for the recognition of biochoremas or palaeobiogeographical units of different ranks. Moving forward towards a causal
palaeobiogeography, these organisms also provide interesting insight into particular biogeographical questions, such as bipolarity and its origin. The evolution in time of the
recognized biochoremas can be discussed in relation to palaeoclimas and extinction events. Finally, some of the results obtained from the analysis of the distribution of past
bivalve biotas were even used to propose and discuss the development of marine corridors and argue about the distribution of continents in the past.

The Holy Cross Mountains of Poland yield an abundance of marine Devonian fossils that have been studied and described since the mid-nineteenth century. Reef-formers are a major part of the overall fauna, and the stromatoporoids and the rugose corals have already received full attention. This publication extends full descriptive cover to the third of the important reef-building groups, the tabulate corals.

The transition from the Paleocene to the Eocene Epoch -- approximately 55 million years ago -- represents a critical moment in the earth's history, when the warmest climatic episode of the Cenozoic era occurred. This sudden global warming resulted in major turnovers among marine and terrestrial organisms. Although this episode has become one of the most popular areas of research in the geologic sciences in the past decade, there has not yet been a work that brings together the profusion of new results in one volume. This book offers by far the most comprehensive source of data on a critically important interval of the earth's history.

The editors have brought together the finest scholars working today on the Paleocene-Eocene transition. Covering mammals, reptiles, invertebrates, and plants, as well as the spectrum of marine biotas, the book documents both the well-established and the lesser-known turnovers, such as those of the calcareous nannoplankton and terrestrial mollusks. The volume is also notable for its integration of knowledge culled from a wide variety of disciplines, geographic settings, fossil groups, and paleoenvironments.

With 21 contributions and more than 180 illustrations, this book will be of great value as a reference source for a wide spectrum of scientists, from marine geologists and oceanographers to paleontologists, paleoclimatologists, and stratigraphers.

This book represents a detailed introduction to the geology, structure, and stratigraphy of Kutch Basin, known for its rich fossilized megafauna and the wide range of condensed sections exposing Bathonian to Pleistocene. With its vast assortment of geological features, geomorphology, and geoheritage, the Kutch Basin shows geology, stratigraphy, and paleontology almost as a textbook. Besides the beautiful illustrations given in the book, in the form of good field photographs depicting the landscape, and geological and geomorphological features, this guidebook serves as an inspiring reading reference. Furthermore, this guidebook will be a handy reference book for the tourists visiting Kutch Basin in planning their visit to explore the beautiful Kutch region. The guidebook is intended to interest scientists, researchers, students from schools and universities, tourists, and geoscience professionals of the mining and oil industry working in Kutch.

What light do fossils shed on the deep history of life's most diverse phylum, the Arthropoda? Are the interrelationships between major groups of arthropods -- crustaceans, chelicerates, and tracheates -- resolved the same way whether or not fossils are included? How should we combine evidence from extinct and extant taxa? These are the central questions of "Arthropod Fossils and Phylogeny."

Many recent controversies in arthropod evolution have been initiated by new fossil discoveries and new interpretations of early fossils. This book examines the role that these finds and ideas have played in understanding the deep evolutionary history of arthropods. The authors of the book's seven chapters have been at the forefront of this research.

Contributions include phylogeny based on DNA sequence data for living groups, cladistic analysis of the major lineages of arthropods, detailed case studies of crustaceans, chelicerates, and lobopodians, and the evolutionary significance of arthropods in Cambrian fossil sites with exceptional preservation. All contributors use cladistic methods, presenting copious new data to stimulate further research.

The book will be a vital resource for paleontologists, researchers on extant arthropods interested in fossil history, and evolutionists concerned with how different kinds of systematic data should be analyzed.

This detailed exposition gives background and context to how modern biogeography has got to where it is now. For biogeographers and other researchers interested in biodiversity and the evolution of life on islands, Biogeology: Evolution in a Changing Landscape provides an overview of a large swathe of the globe encompassing Wallacea and the western Pacific. The book contains the full text of the original article explored in each chapter, presented as it appeared on publication. Key features: Holistic treatment, collecting together a series of important biogeographical papers into a single volume Authored by an expert who has spent nearly three decades actively involved in biogeography Describes and interprets a region of exceptional biodiversity and extreme endemism The only book to provide an integrated treatment of Wallacea, Melanesia, New Zealand, the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands and Antarctica Offers a critique of fashionable neo-dispersalist arguments, showing how these still suffer from the same weaknesses of the original Darwinian formulation. The chapters also include analysis of many major theoretical and philosophical issues of modern biogeographic theory, so that those interested in a more philosophical approach will find the book stimulating and thought-provoking.

The first book to approach the Cretaceous extinction -- the period during which dinosaurs disappeared from Earth -- from the perspective of the fossil record.

Paleopalynology, second edition, provides profusely illustrated treatment of fossil palynomorphs, including spores, pollen, dinoflagellate cysts, acritarchs, chitinozoans, scolecodonts, and various microscopic fungal and algal dispersal bodies. The book serves both as a student text and general reference work. Palynomorphs yield information about age, geological and biological environment, climate during deposition, and other significant factors about the enclosing rocks.

Extant spores and pollen are treated first, preparing the student for more difficult work with fossil sporomorphs and other kinds of palynomorphs. Recognizing that palynomorphs occur together in rocks because of chemical robustness and stratigraphic distribution, not biological relationship, the central sections are organized stratigraphically. Among many other topics presented are the sedimentation and geothermal alteration of palynomorphs, and palynofacies analysis. An appendix describes laboratory methods. The glossary, bibliographies and index are useful tools for study of the literature.

Picture a world of dog-sized scorpions and millipedes as long as a car; tropical rainforests with trees towering over 150 feet into the sky and a giant polar continent five times larger than Antarctica. That world was not imaginary; it was the earth more than 300 million years ago in the Carboniferous period of the Paleozoic era. In Carboniferous Giants and Mass Extinction, George R. McGhee Jr. explores that ancient world, explaining its origins; its downfall in the end-Permian mass extinction, the greatest biodiversity crisis to occur since the evolution of animal life on Earth; and how its legacies still affect us today. McGhee investigates the consequences of the Late Paleozoic ice age in this comprehensive portrait of the effects of ancient climate change on global ecology. Carboniferous Giants and Mass Extinction examines the climatic conditions that allowed for the evolution of gigantic animals and the formation of the largest tropical rainforests ever to exist, which in time turned into the coal that made the industrial revolution possible-and fuels the engine of contemporary anthropogenic climate change. Exploring the strange and fascinating flora and fauna of the Late Paleozoic ice age world, McGhee focuses his analysis on the forces that brought this world to an abrupt and violent end. Synthesizing decades of research and new discoveries, this comprehensive book provides a wealth of insights into past and present extinction events and climate change.

-- "Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society"

""Special Papers in Palaeontology"," published by The Palaeontological Association, is a series of substantial separate works conforming to the style of the ""Palaeontology"" journal. Two issues are published each year and feature high standard illustrations.
This issue investigates the forty-two graptoloid graptolite species which are described from the upper Hirnantian persculptus Biozone, lower Rhuddanian ascensus-acuminatus and vesiculosus biozones and Aeronian of Jordan.
Studies the recent interest in modelling the deposition of the organic-rich shales of latest Ordovician and early Silurian age in Jordan which has led to the collection of a considerable number of graptolites.
Brings together researchers, geologists and enthusiasts who continue to find material of significance.
Includes 2 plates and 22 text-figures.

This book places into modern context the information by which North American mammalian paleontologists recognize, divide, calibrate, and discuss intervals of mammalian evolution known as North American Land Mammal Ages. It incorporates new information on the systematic biology of the fossil record and utilizes the many recent advances in geochronologic methods and their results.

The book describes the increasingly highly resolved stratigraphy into which all available temporally significant data and applications are integrated. Extensive temporal coverage includes the Lancian part of the Late Cretaceous, and geographical coverage includes information from Mexico, an integral part of the North American fauna, past and present.

Rift basins of Triassic-Jurassic age that are associated with the breakup of the Pangean supercontinent contain an extraordinary record of the physical and biological conditions during this important period of Earth history. Rather than studying the rift basins as local features, ongoing work reveals that the Triassic-Jurassic rifts should be considered in a broader context that spans the entire proto-Atlantic realm. The rift province, collectively called the central Atlantic margin system, spans more than 45 degrees of paleolatitude and records over 35 million years of Earth history. The central Atlantic margin basins are of broad appeal to researchers interested in topics as diverse as extensional tectonics, the global magnetostratigraphic timescale, the evolution of early mammals, the appearance and diversification of dinosaurs, rift to drift crustal dynamics, astronomical forcing of climate, and models for the formation and occurrence of economic minerals and fossil fuel deposits. This extensive two-volume work offers in-depth coverage of the North American components of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province rifts by experts in the field.

In volume 1, leading researchers give thoroughly reviews and highlight recent advances in our understanding of the structural geology, tectonics, and volcanism of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province.

The companion volume, "The Great Rift Valleys of Pangea in Eastern North America: Volume 2, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, and Paleontology," 0-231-12676-X, covers such topics as sedimentary rocks, stratigraphic architecture, early dinosaur and reptile footprints, and vertebrate fossils of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province. It is edited by Peter M. LeTourneau and Paul E. Olsen and is also available from Columbia University Press.

This book presents current knowledge of the early vertebrates--mainly fish, but including some terrestrial creatures--which lived about 250 to 470 million years ago. The work focuses on anatomical and phylogenetic questions, but includes information on fossil discovery and preparation, as well as the analysis of the characteristics from which their relationships may be reconstructed. The author addresses both new and old problems in the evolution of certain anatomical details and deals briefly with the animals' way of life, extinction, and former distribution. The book is the first in its field to use a cladistic approach. For each major vertebrate group, the reader will find a diagram of relationships, or cladogram, with a selection of characters at each node, and a succinct phylogenetic classification.

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."

Most nonscientists are usually aware of fossils, and it is commonly believed that they are extremely rare. In fact, fossils are exceptionally common in many sedimentary rocks and are used extensively in geology for age dating, interpretation of ancient environments, and the discovery of natural resources. However, there is another type of fossil deposit that is truly rare. These rare fossil deposits, called Lagerst?tten, preserve the remains of the soft tissues or the articulated skeletal remains of ancient creatures in truly astonishing fine detail. Some of these deposits are world-famous, such as the Burgess Shale, or Solnhofen but there are others dating from many different geological eras from the Paleozoic, up to the Eocene. Recently, a concerted effort has been made to understand the overall significance of these rare fossil deposits. Whereas in the past these deposits were considered novelties, modern researchers are trying to understand what they can tell us about ancient life and environments. New sophisticated techniques (including image and geochemical analyses) are providing enormous new contributions to our knowledge of Lagerst?tten sites and to paleobiology in general.

This volume describes many of the most famous Lagerst?tten locations worldwide and is complete with over 70 superb halftones showing some of these exotic fossils in all their glory. Paleontologists are beginning to understand why such deposits occur, how they have varied since the advent of marine metazoan life, and how their presence effects our understanding of the evolution of life in the Earth's oceans. In this way, the study of Lagerst?tten continues to move towards the mainstream of paleobiological, biological, and geological research, and away from its former status as the examination of mere curiosities.

All those interested in these beautiful and sometimes enigmatic deposits will want to own this book.

Most nonscientists are usually aware of fossils, and it is commonly believed that they are extremely rare. In fact, fossils are exceptionally common in many sedimentary rocks and are used extensively in geology for age dating, interpretation of ancient environments, and the discovery of natural resources. However, there is another type of fossil deposit that is truly rare. These rare fossil deposits, called Lagerst?tten, preserve the remains of the soft tissues or the articulated skeletal remains of ancient creatures in truly astonishing fine detail. Some of these deposits are world-famous, such as the Burgess Shale, or Solnhofen but there are others dating from many different geological eras from the Paleozoic, up to the Eocene. Recently, a concerted effort has been made to understand the overall significance of these rare fossil deposits. Whereas in the past these deposits were considered novelties, modern researchers are trying to understand what they can tell us about ancient life and environments. New sophisticated techniques (including image and geochemical analyses) are providing enormous new contributions to our knowledge of Lagerst?tten sites and to paleobiology in general.

This volume describes many of the most famous Lagerst?tten locations worldwide and is complete with over 70 superb halftones showing some of these exotic fossils in all their glory. Paleontologists are beginning to understand why such deposits occur, how they have varied since the advent of marine metazoan life, and how their presence effects our understanding of the evolution of life in the Earth's oceans. In this way, the study of Lagerst?tten continues to move towards the mainstream of paleobiological, biological, and geological research, and away from its former status as the examination of mere curiosities.

All those interested in these beautiful and sometimes enigmatic deposits will want to own this book.

Fossils have been vital to our understanding of the formation of the earth and the origins of all life on it. However, their impact has not been limited to debates about geology and evolution: attempts to explain their existence has shaken religion at its very roots, and they have remained a subject of ceaseless fascination for people of all ages and backgrounds. In this delightful book, Keith Thomson provides a remarkably all-encompassing explanation of fossils as a phenomenon. How did Darwin use fossils to support his theory of evolution? What are 'living fossils'? What fossils will we leave behind for future generations to examine? Building on the scientific aspects, he places fossils in a very human context, highlighting their impact on philosophy and mythology, our concept of time, and today's popular culture. What quickly becomes obvious is that the discovery of fossils and the ways in which they have been interpreted over time makes for fascinating reading. From the black market to the Piltdown Man, and from mythological dragons to living dinosaurs, fossils hold a permanent place in the popular imagination. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

One of the most important questions we can ask about life is "Does ecology matter?" Most biologists and paleontologists are trained to answer "yes," but the exact mechanisms by which ecology matters in the context of patterns that play out over millions of years have never been entirely clear. This book examines these mechanisms and looks at how ancient environments affected evolution, focusing on long-term macroevolutionary changes as seen in the fossil record.

Evolutionary paleoecology is not a new discipline. Beginning with Darwin, researchers have attempted to understand how the environment has affected evolutionary history. But as we learn more about these patterns, the search for a new synthetic view of the evolutionary process that integrates species evolution, ecology, and mass extinctions becomes ever more pressing. The present volume is a benchmark sampler of active research in this ever more active field.

One of the most important questions we can ask about life is "Does ecology matter?" Most biologists and paleontologists are trained to answer "yes," but the exact mechanisms by which ecology matters in the context of patterns that play out over millions of years have never been entirely clear. This book examines these mechanisms and looks at how ancient environments affected evolution, focusing on long-term macroevolutionary changes as seen in the fossil record.

Evolutionary paleoecology is not a new discipline. Beginning with Darwin, researchers have attempted to understand how the environment has affected evolutionary history. But as we learn more about these patterns, the search for a new synthetic view of the evolutionary process that integrates species evolution, ecology, and mass extinctions becomes ever more pressing. The present volume is a benchmark sampler of active research in this ever more active field.