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.

Humans are the only mammals to walk on two, rather than four, legs. From an evolutionary perspective, this is an illogical development, as it slows us down. But here we are, suggesting there must have been something tremendous to gain from bipedalism. First Steps takes our ordinary, everyday walking experience and reveals how unusual and extraordinary it truly is. The seven-million-year-long journey through the origins of upright walking shows how it was in fact a gateway to many of the other attributes that make us human-from our technological skills and sociality to our thirst for exploration. DeSilva uses early human evolution to explain the instinct that propels a crawling infant to toddle onto two feet, differences between how men and women tend to walk, physical costs of upright walking, including hernias, varicose veins and backache, and the challenges of childbirth imposed by a bipedal pelvis. And he theorises that upright walking may have laid the foundation for the traits of compassion, empathy and altruism that characterise our species today and helped us become the dominant species on this planet.

The chapters in this book will cover the paleontology and geology of some important rock formations (Paleozoic and Paleogene) in the northeastern United States. The emphasis will be on brachiopod paleontology, specifically taxonomy, but will also include comments on morphologic variation and community analysis. The Martinsburg formation in the lower mid-Hudson Valley has been studied for many years but recently yielded numerous marine fossils that shed new light on the community ecology of the formation in the region. The Middle Silurian Shawangunk Formation near New Paltz, New York, is an important ridge-maker that extends toward the southwest into Pennsylvania. Recently discovered rare trace fossils in the Shawangunk will be discussed along with the depositional environment of the conglomerate. The Onondaga Limestone is a well-known formation that crops out from Port Jervis, northeast toward Albany and the westward to Buffalo. The brachiopods and community structure of the formation will be covered in some detail. The paleoecology of the Paleogene Hornerstown Formation of New Jersey will also be discussed, including a biostrome of large terebratulid brachiopods.

This volume presents a suite of detailed stratigraphic and sedimentologic investigations of the Eocene Green River Formation of Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, one of the world's foremost terrestrial archives of lacustrine and alluvial deposition during the warmest portion of the early Cenozoic. Its twelve chapters encompass the rich and varied record of lacustrine stratigraphy, sedimentology, geochronology, geochemistry and paleontology. Chapters 2-9 provide detailed member-scale synthesis of Green River Formation strata within the Greater Green River, Fossil, Piceance Creek and Uinta Basins, while its final two chapters address its enigmatic evaporite deposits and ichnofossils at broad, interbasinal scale.

South American ecosystems suffered one of the greatest biogeographical events, after the establishment of the Panamian land bridge, called the "Great American Biotic Interchange" (GABI). This refers to the exchange, in several phases, of land mammals between the Americas; this event started during the late Miocene with the appearance of the Holartic Procyonidae (Huayquerian Age) in South America and continues today. The major phases of mammalian dispersal occurred from the Latest Pliocene (Marplatan Age) to the Late Pleistocene (Lujanian Age). The most important and richest localities of Late Miocene-Holocene fossil vertebrates of South America are those of the Pampean region of Argentina. There are also several Late Miocene and Pliocene localities in western Argentina and Bolivia. Other important fossils have been collected in localities of Pleistocene age outside Argentina: Tarija (Bolivia), karstic caves of Lagoa Santa and the recently explored caves of Tocantins (Brasil), Talara (Peru), La Carolina (Ecuador), Muaco (Venezuela), and Cueva del Milodon (Chile), among others. The book discusses basic information for interpreting the GABI such as taxonomic composition (incorporating the latest revisions) at classical and new localities for each stage addressing climate, environments, and time boundaries for each stage. It includes the chronology and dynamics of the GABI, the integration of South American mammalian faunas through time, the Quaternary mammalian extinctions and the composition of recent mammalian fauna of the continent.

This book gathers and updates the most significant advances of the last two centuries and presents an unprecedented micro paleontological study covering more than 20 stratigraphic sections. This information is supplemented by numerous sedimentological observations and analyses, on the basis of which a new lithostratigraphic framework for the Neogene of the Chacoparanense Basin is proposed. The book is structured in an easy-to-read format: Its main section offers a comprehensive review of the current state of knowledge on transgressions in Argentina and similar transgressions in other South American countries, taking into account various key aspects (age, paleoenvironment, micropaleontology, etc.). Secondly, the book presents the main results on the TLP and TEP of the Chacoparanense Basin and the TEP of the Peninsula de Valdes. Lastly, it provides readers with complete stratigraphic profiles (Appendix A), mineralogical analyses (Appendix B), distribution charts (Appendix C), systematics (Appendix D) and plates (Appendix E).

Xiaoming Wang and Richard H. Tedford have spent the past 20 years studying the evolutionary history of the family Canidae. Both are well known for having established the modern framework for the evolutionary relationship of canids. Combining their research with Mauricio Ant?n's impeccable reconstructions of both extinct and extant species, Wang and Tedford present a remarkably detailed and nuanced portrait of the origin and evolution of canids over the past 40 million years.

The authors cull their history from the most recent scientific research conducted on the vast collections of the American Museum of Natural History and other leading institutions. The fossil record of the Canidae, particularly those from their birth place in North America, are the strongest of their kind among known groups of carnivorans. Such a wonderfully detailed evolutionary history provides access to a natural history that is not possible with many other groups of carnivorans.

With their rich fossil record, diverse adaptations to various environments, and different predatory specializations, canids are an ideal model organism for the mapping of predator behavior and morphological specializations. They also offer an excellent contrast to felids, which remain entrenched in extreme predatory specializations. The innovative illustrated approach in this book is the perfect accompaniment to an extremely important branch of animal and fossil study. It transforms the science of paleontology into a thrilling visual experience and provides an unprecedented reference for anyone fascinated by dogs.

The invasion of land by ocean-dwelling plants and animals was one of the most revolutionary events in the evolution of life on Earth, yet the animal invasion almost failed-twice-because of the twin mass extinctions of the Late Devonian Epoch. Some 359 to 375 million years ago, these catastrophic events dealt our ancestors a blow that almost drove them back into the sea. If those extinctions had been just a bit more severe, spiders and insects-instead of vertebrates-might have become the ecologically dominant forms of animal life on land. This book examines the profound evolutionary consequences of the Late Devonian extinctions and the various theories proposed to explain their occurrence. Only one group of four-limbed vertebrates exists on Earth, while other tetrapod-like fishes are extinct. This gap is why the idea of "fish with feet" seems so peculiar to us, yet such animals were once a vital part of our world, and if the Devonian extinctions had not happened, members of these species, like the famous Acanthostega and Ichthyostega, might have continued to live in our rivers and lakes. Synthesizing decades of research and including a wealth of new discoveries, this accessible, comprehensive text explores the causes of the Devonian extinctions, the reasons vertebrates were so severely affected, and the potential evolution of the modern world if the extinctions had never taken place.

Quaternary of the Levant presents up-to-date research achievements from a region that displays unique interactions between the climate, the environment and human evolution. Focusing on southeast Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel, it brings together over eighty contributions from leading researchers to review 2.5 million years of environmental change and human cultural evolution. Information from prehistoric sites and palaeoanthropological studies contributing to our understanding of 'out of Africa' migrations, Neanderthals, cultures of modern humans, and the origins of agriculture are assessed within the context of glacial-interglacial cycles, marine isotope cycles, plate tectonics, geochronology, geomorphology, palaeoecology and genetics. Complemented by overview summaries that draw together the findings of each chapter, the resulting coverage is wide-ranging and cohesive. The cross-disciplinary nature of the volume makes it an invaluable resource for academics and advanced students of Quaternary science and human prehistory, as well as being an important reference for archaeologists working in the region.

This book provides a wealth of geomathematical case history studies performed by the author during his career at the Ministry of Natural Resources Canada, Geological Survey of Canada (NRCan-GSC). Several of the techniques newly developed by the author and colleagues that are described in this book have become widely adopted, not only for further research by geomathematical colleagues, but by government organizations and industry worldwide. These include Weights-of-Evidence modelling, mineral resource estimation technology, trend surface analysis, automatic stratigraphic correlation and nonlinear geochemical exploration methods. The author has developed maximum likelihood methodology and spline-fitting techniques for the construction of the international numerical geologic timescale. He has introduced the application of new theory of fractals and multi fractals in the geostatistical evaluation of regional mineral resources and ore reserves and to study the spatial distribution of metals in rocks. The book also contains sections deemed important by the author but that have not been widely adopted because they require further research. These include the geometry of preferred orientations of contours and edge effects on maps, time series analysis of Quaternary retreating ice sheet related sedimentary data, estimation of first and last appearances of fossil taxa from frequency distributions of their observed first and last occurrences, tectonic reactivation along pre-existing schistosity planes in fold belts, use of the grouped jackknife method for bias reduction in geometrical extrapolations and new applications of the theory of permanent, volume-independent frequency distributions.

Relying on the latest analytical techniques, this all-embracing new reference offers comprehensive coverage of the development, evolution, and morphology of both fossil and living cephalopods. In 34 in-depth chapters a group of 51 international neontologists and peleontologists offer and opverview of current methods, data, analyses, and interpretations, and posit suggestions for future research. With its unparalleled combination of first-rate contributions on living and fossil cephalopods, this book provides researchers and advanced students in paleontology, invertebrate zoology, evolutionary biology, and allied disciplines with a trove of recent data and authoritative interpretations that will immeasurably benefit their own studies.

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."

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.

Knowledge of the evolutionary history of birds has much improved in recent decades. Fossils from critical time periods are being described at unprecedented rates and modern phylogenetic analyses have provided a framework for the interrelationships of the extant groups. This book gives an overview of the avian fossil record and its paleobiological significance, and it is the only up-to-date textbook that covers both Mesozoic and more modern-type Cenozoic birds in some detail. The reader is introduced to key features of basal avians and the morphological transformations that have occurred in the evolution towards modern birds. An account of the Cenozoic fossil record sheds light on the biogeographic history of the extant avian groups and discusses fossils in the context of current phylogenetic hypotheses. This review of the evolutionary history of birds not only addresses students and established researchers, but it may also be a useful source of information for anyone else with an interest in the evolution of birds and a moderate background in biology and geology.

The field of paleoclimatology relies on physical, chemical, and biological proxies of past climate changes that have been preserved in natural archives such as glacial ice, tree rings, sediments, corals, and speleothems. Paleoclimate archives obtained through field investigations, ocean sediment coring expeditions, ice sheet coring programs, and other projects allow scientists to reconstruct climate change over much of earth's history.

When combined with computer model simulations, paleoclimatic reconstructions are used to test hypotheses about the causes of climatic change, such as greenhouse gases, solar variability, earth's orbital variations, and hydrological, oceanic, and tectonic processes. This book is a comprehensive, state-of-the art synthesis of paleoclimate research covering all geological timescales, emphasizing topics that shed light on modern trends in the earth's climate. Thomas M. Cronin discusses recent discoveries about past periods of global warmth, changes in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, abrupt climate and sea-level change, natural temperature variability, and other topics directly relevant to controversies over the causes and impacts of climate change. This text is geared toward advanced undergraduate and graduate students and researchers in geology, geography, biology, glaciology, oceanography, atmospheric sciences, and climate modeling, fields that contribute to paleoclimatology. This volume can also serve as a reference for those requiring a general background on natural climate variability.

Today, we know that a mammoth is an extinct type of elephant that was covered with long fur and lived in the north country during the ice ages. But how do you figure out what a mammoth is if you have no concept of extinction, ice ages, or fossils? Long after the last mammoth died and was no longer part of the human diet, it still played a role in human life. Cultures around the world interpreted the remains of mammoths through the lens of their own worldview and mythology. When the ancient Greeks saw deposits of giant fossils, they knew they had discovered the battle fields where the gods had vanquished the Titans. When the Chinese discovered buried ivory, they knew they had found dragons' teeth. But as the Age of Reason dawned, monsters and giants gave way to the scientific method. Yet the mystery of these mighty bones remained. How did Enlightenment thinkers overcome centuries of myth and misunderstanding to reconstruct an unknown animal? The journey to unravel that puzzle begins in the 1690s with the arrival of new type of ivory on the European market bearing the exotic name "mammoth." It ends during the Napoleonic Wars with the first recovery of a frozen mammoth. The path to figuring out the mammoth was traveled by merchants, diplomats, missionaries, cranky doctors, collectors of natural wonders, Swedish POWs, Peter the Great, Ben Franklin, the inventor of hot chocolate, and even one pirate. McKay brings together dozens of original documents and illustrations, some ignored for centuries, to show how this odd assortment of characters solved the mystery of the mammoth and, in doing so, created the science of paleontology.

"PaleoBase" represents a unique combination of up-to-date systematic information on an extensive collection of fossil genera, state-of-the-art color digital photographs of representative specimens from The Natural History Museum's unrivalled paleontological collections, and modern relational database technology.

"PaleoBase" provides an important new tool for the teaching of life history in a wide variety of advanced secondary, undergraduate, and graduate courses (e.g., paleontology, historical geology, stratigraphy, paleoceanography, paleobiogeography). Instructors will find the database a rich resource for lecture presentations, discussions, and laboratory exercises. Students will find "PaleoBase" an invaluable addition to traditional textbooks, and a key reference source for basic systematic paleontology.

High-quality zoomable digital images
Complete systematic, life-habit and paleoecological descriptions by taxonomic specialists from The Natural History Museum, London
Chronostratigraphic and paleogeographic distribution
Glossary of terms and bibliography
Full search either by name, age, chronostratigraphy, or morphology
Morphological keys and labelled images

PaleoBase Macrofossils Part 3 contains over 350 records of Cnidaria, Echinoderms (incl. asteroids, blastoids, carpoids, crinoids, cyclocystoids, cystoids, echinoids, edrioasteroids, edrioblastoids, eocrinoids, helicoplacoids, holothurians, and ophiuroids), Sponges, and 'Problematica' (incl. early metazoans) fossil groups. These fossil genera are illustrated with over 1,500 color digital images of specimens. This fully relational database includes full genus descriptions, chronostratigraphy, paleoecology, of bibliography of over 500 references to the primary research literature, a glossary of over 600 morphological terms, and an interactive identification key.

For an online demonstration and guided tour of "PaleoBase: Macrofossils" please visit: www.paleobase.com/

For an information brochure, or for any queries, please e-mail [email protected]

Jean Octave Edmond Perrier was a French zoologist who lived through the tumult of British Darwinism and Lyellism, and reminds us in this revealing account that French scientists had much to contribute to such perennial topics as evolution, catastrophism and creationism. While very much a product of the Third Republic, Perrier's account also aimed to outline timeless issues and permanent advances in taxonomic and developmental biology since classical Greece and Rome. In this aim he succeeds with surprisingly modern perspectives for a book first published in 1884. Perrier was born May 9, 1844 at Tulle, the son of the principal of a school which now bears his name, Lycee Edmond Perrier. In 1864 he was accepted to the Ecole Normale Superieure, where he was strongly influenced by Louis Pasteur and Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers. After working for three years at a high school in Agen, he obtained a post of naturalist-aid at the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle (1868), advancing in that institution to Chair of Natural History of Molluscs, Worms and Corals (1876-1903) and then Director of the museum (1900-1919) and Chair of Comparative Anatomy (1903-1921). Previous directors of the museum included many of the scientists he discusses in this book: George Cuvier (1822-1823, 1826-1827, 1830-1831), Isidore Geoffrey St Hilaire (1860- 1861), and Alphonse Milne-Edwards (1891-1900). Perrier's own research on echinoderms and earthworms took him on several expeditions in 1880-1885, mostly to Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts, but also to the Caribbean."

Paleomagnetic field analysis occupies a separate place in the variety of studied physical parameters, since it assists us in obtaining specific stamps' of past geomagnetic field configurations. It is well-known that life on Earth and all geological-environmental processes occur in the changing geomagnetic field (the Earth's magnetic field intensity is now decreasing). Geological-geophysical records indicate that hundreds and hundreds of Earth's magnetic field reversals have occurred. Paleomagnetic research has revealed information about ancient (from hundreds to billions years ago) magnetic field changes, which reflects definite geological, archaeological, cosmological and environmental events of that time. Some geodynamic and tectonic information derived from paleomagnetic field analysis cannot be obtained by any other geophysical or geological methods. This book reveals the current understanding of leading scientists studying paleomagnetic on new approaches and results in different regions of the world. Three main issues are presented in the book: a comparison of the Earth's geomagnetic field and the Earth's biota evolution processes over the last 2.5 billion years (Chapter 1); combined paleomagnetic mapping examples of some areas of the Eastern Mediterranean (Chapter 2); various aspects of archaeomagnetic artifact examination, including advanced mathematical approach applications (Chapters 3 and 4); and utilisation of geomagnetic data from the past for historical reconstruction of China and Mesoamerica (Chapter 5). The five chapters present results of investigations of scientists from different scientific schools and demonstrate the application of various methods and approaches to analyse ancient and comparatively recent geomagnetic fields. Undoubtedly, these results are interesting both from theoretical and practical points of view. This book is intended for students of corresponding specialties, geologists, geophysicists, archaeologists and environmental scientists. This book can also be of interest to the general public interested in paleomagnetism, archaeology, geology and geophysics.

The vertebrate fossil record extends back more than 500 million years, and bonebeds--localized concentrations of the skeletal remains of vertebrate animals--help unlock the secrets of this long history. Often spectacularly preserved, bonebeds--both modern and ancient--can reveal more about life histories, ecological associations, and preservation patterns than any single skeleton or bone. For this reason, bonebeds are frequently studied by paleobiologists, geologists, and archeologists seeking to piece together the vertebrate record.
Thirteen respected researchers combine their experiences in "Bonebeds," providing readers with workable definitions, theoretical frameworks, and a compendium of modern techniques in bonebed data collection and analysis. By addressing the historical, theoretical, and practical aspects of bonebed research, this edited volume--the first of its kind--provides the background and methods that students and professionals need to explore and understand these fantastic records of ancient life and death.

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.

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.

'Full of wonder and forensic intelligence' Isabella Tree, author of Wilding A moving account of Madagascar told by a researcher who has spent over fifty years investigating the mysteries of this remarkable island. Madagascar is a place of change. A biodiversity hotspot and the fourth largest island on the planet, it has been home to a spectacular parade of animals, from giant flightless birds and giant tortoises on the ground, to agile lemurs leaping through the treetops. Some species live on; many have vanished in the distant or recent past. Over vast stretches of time, Madagascar's forests have expanded and contracted in response to shifting climates, and the hand of people is clear in changes during the last thousand years or so. Today, Madagascar is a microcosm of global trends. What happens there in the decades ahead can, perhaps, suggest ways to help turn the tide on the environmental crisis now sweeping the world. The Sloth Lemur's Song is a far-reaching account of Madagascar's past and present, led by an expert guide who has immersed herself in research and conservation activities with village communities on the island for nearly fifty years. Alison Richard accompanies the reader on a journey through space and time-from Madagascar's ancient origins as a landlocked region of Gondwana and its emergence as an island to the modern-day developments that make the survival of its array of plants and animals increasingly uncertain. Weaving together scientific evidence with Richard's own experiences and exploring the power of stories to shape our understanding of events, this book captures the magic as well as the tensions that swirl around this island nation.