In paleontology there are certain encounters considered breakthroughs. Occasionally a unique event is discovered that permanently impacts our interpretation of an entire species. The Waco Mammoth Site represents one such landmark moment. At the edge of the city, mammoth skeletons were unearthed from twelve feet of overburden, a find that has since been called one of the most important ancient proboscidean sites in the world. The discovery was made in 1978 by Paul Barron and Eddie Bufkin with subsequent excavations by David Lintz, who along with volunteers from Baylor University's Strecker Museum conducted the initial investigations. George Naryshkin, in his senior thesis for Baylor University's Department of Geology, identified the five partial skeletons as Mammuthus columbi. Work was halted at the site from 1981 until Calvin Smith became the director of the Strecker Museum in 1983 and reopened the excavations in 1984. By the end of that year there were a total of sixteen specimens exposed in a cluster resembling a herd dying from a singular event. A news conference held by Baylor's Department of Public Relations received an enormous amount of interest that resulted in international coverage. Many colleagues contacted the museum wanting to see the site. Among them was Dr. Gary Haynes, who had done extensive research on both extinct and modern elephants through the National Geographic Society and the Smithsonian Institution. When he visited the site, he confirmed that it contained a nursery herd that succumbed to a single event, making it the largest such accumulation known to the scientific community. During the next few years, the site was expanded and new discoveries unearthed: a forty-five-year-old female trying to extricate a juvenile out of the mud flow, as well as the herd bull with a juvenile on top of his tusks, a first in prehistoric mammoth behavior. In 2015, after thirty-seven years of preservation and perseverance—and a whole lot of work and support from numerous individuals, especially volunteer Mr. Ralph Vinson, as well as many other organizations and entities—and at the proposal of the National Park Service, the site was federally recognized as the Waco Mammoth National Monument.

Beginner or expert, this is your guide to Lake Superior Agates. The book features four pages of photos and facts for every type of agate found in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and southern Ontario. The easy-to-use format means you'll quickly find what you need to know and where to look, while the authors' photographs depict the detail needed for identification - no need to guess from line drawings. Identify your finds quickly and easily with this all-in-one resource!

In 1872, a young graduate of Yale University named Thomas Russell unearthed the bones of an 83,000,000-year-old dinosaur in western Kansas. The rare fossil, an avian dinosaur with teeth and flightless wings, proved that birds evolved from reptiles. More than a century later, Russell's great-granddaughter set out to retrace her ancestor's forgotten expedition. Part detective history, part memoir, For Want of Wings is Jill Hunting's captivating account of her journey into prehistory, national history, and family history. In her quest to piece together fragments of her family's past, Hunting ends up crisscrossing the United States, from California to Connecticut. On her first trip across the Colorado Rockies to the fossil bed site near Russell Springs, Kansas, Hunting brings along her then twenty-six-year-old daughter. When the book opens, mother and daughter are both at crossroads, each seeking to understand the impact of personal decisions on the landscape of her life. As Hunting ventures forward, she encounters unexpected resources, such as ten-year-old triplets who converse with her about dinosaurs and a Connecticut museum where portraits of her ancestors hang on the walls. Through lively descriptions of these visits, Hunting advances a view of history as nonlinear and full of unlikely coincidences. For Want of Wings is also the carefully researched story of the least known of Yale's four expeditions into the American West, led by eminent paleontologist O. C. Marsh; the friendship between Russell's father and abolitionist John Brown; a portrait of a mother and daughter evolving in self-understanding; and an inquiry into matters of race in American history and the author's own family. In the end, all these pieces converge, like fragments of a fossil, to form an exquisitely patterned work of historical exploration.

Clays and clay minerals are the most abundant natural reactive solids on the Earth's surface. This comprehensive review considers clay science in the context of the Critical Zone - the Earth's permeable near-surface layer. Providing information on clays and clay minerals related to geological, biological and material sciences in the Critical Zone, it's well suited for graduate students and researchers interested in clay science, and environmental and soil mineralogy. The book starts with an introduction to clays and clay minerals, their historic background, and a review of how clay science impacts the Critical Zone. Examples and applications demonstrate how clays regulate habitats and determine the availability of other resources. These examples are supported by quantitative field data, including numerical and graphical depictions of clay and clay mineral occurrences. The book concludes by covering Critical Zone clay geochemistry and clay sequences, including the industrial, synthetic medical and extra-terrestrial world of clay science.

How do planetary scientists analyze and interpret data from laboratory, telescopic, and spacecraft observations of planetary surfaces? What elements, minerals, and volatiles are found on the surfaces of our Solar System's planets, moons, asteroids, and comets? This comprehensive volume answers these topical questions by providing an overview of the theory and techniques of remote compositional analysis of planetary surfaces. Bringing together eminent researchers in Solar System exploration, it describes state-of-the-art results from spectroscopic, mineralogical, and geochemical techniques used to analyze the surfaces of planets, moons, and small bodies. The book introduces the methodology and theoretical background of each technique, and presents the latest advances in space exploration, telescopic and laboratory instrumentation, and major new work in theoretical studies. This engaging volume provides a comprehensive reference on planetary surface composition and mineralogy for advanced students, researchers, and professional scientists.

With Trilobite, Richard Fortey, paleontologist and author of the acclaimed Life, offers a marvelously written, smart and compelling, accessible and witty scientific narrative of the most ubiquitous of fossil creatures.

Trilobites were shelled animals that lived in the oceans over five hundred million years ago. As bewilderingly diverse then as the beetle is today, they survived in the arctic or the tropics, were spiky or smooth, were large as lobsters or small as fleas. And because they flourished for three hundred million years, they can be used to glimpse a less evolved world of ancient continents and vanished oceans. Erudite and entertaining, this book is a uniquely exuberant homage to a fabulously singular species.

Elegant design combined with beautiful images to explore and explain Earth's natural riches. This is an informative, visually arresting introduction to planet Earth. The core of the book features large, detailed photographs of single objects, many of them small enough to be held in the hand, that each speak volumes about an aspect of Earth's environments and how they work. For example, bubbles of ancient air trapped inside an Antarctic ice core reveal how Earth's climate has changed over time. A piece of pumice thrown several miles into the air by a volcano helps to explain what happens when tectonic plates collide. The book is structured around an imaginary journey that takes the reader from the inner core to Earth's surface (including both land and oceans) and up to the top of the atmosphere. Taking in environments such as grasslands, forests, and reefs, the coverage includes both living and inanimate realms. Feature spreads each throw a spotlight on an iconic place, such as the Amazon Rainforest or the Dead Sea, or a particular process, such as glacial erosion. Many of the most fascinating parts of the natural world are beyond reach. This beautiful, informative book brings them up-close and within our grasp.

The Evolution of the Igneous Rocks, by N. L. Bowen, appeared in 1928 and had a profound influence on later generations of petrologists. Drawing on his series of lectures at Princeton University in the spring of 1927, Dr. Bowen identified, outlined, and applied the principles of physical chemistry relevant to petrological processes. Whereas the major petrochemical questions he discussed are still relevant today, the answers appear to change with time. The purpose of the present volume is to provide an updated view of those questions, in the light of almost fifty years of accumulated observations, using the principles Bowen set forth. Originally published in 1979. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In this attractively illustrated volume, eminent biologist Sir Richard Southwood offers a remarkable survey of life in all its forms, ranging from the earliest single-celled bacteria, to the evolution and extinction of animals such as the dinosaurs, to the variety of life today.
The book follows the major geological periods--such as the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, and Devonian--explaining how great planetary changes such as the movement of the continents, the rising and falling of sea level, and the periods of glaciation, affected the forms of life on Earth. Beginning with the earliest and simplest forms of life, Southwood discusses such amazing creatures as bacteria that live around geysers and thermal vents and can survive in boiling water. He explains how the development of skeletons triggered the Cambrian Explosion, when animals such as trilobites, sea scorpions, shellfish, cephalopods first spread around the earth. He also examines such landmarks of evolution as the appearance of eggs in shells and of insects in flight. We read about the great dinosaurs and the arrival of the mammals and the primates, and the great extinctions, including the Permian (the largest in fossil history, wiping out 95% of animals) and the Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) extinction (the one that wiped out the dinosaurs). Southwood concludes by examining the impact of humanity on Earth, considering if we ourselves might not unleash the next major extinction.
Southwood's love for his subject, for the life he describes so vividly, shines through this carefully crafted story. Generously illustrated with line drawings showing the fauna and flora of the Earth, both past and present, The Story of Life will enthrall anyone interested in nature and natural history.

Stories of creative people and how they inspired, influenced, challenged, and occasionally infuriated one another Readers who fell in love with The Eighth Lively Art will delight in the stories and profiles that the painter and paleontologist Wesley Wehr has collected in this follow-up to his earlier memoir of Pacific Northwest artistic and intellectual life in the 1950s and 1960s. Above all, these are Wehr's accounts, distilled by passionate recollection, of what some remarkable artists and thinkers brought out in him and in each other - stories of creative people and how they inspired, influenced, challenged, and occasionally infuriated one another.

"Seit den vierziger Jahren des 19. Jahrhunderts wird die geologische Fazieskunde wissenschaftlich im strengsten Sinne des Wortes betrie- ben, doch findet man auffallenderweise auch heutzutage die groesste Unklarheit und Unordnung in den Methoden und die groessten Lucken bei den bisherigen Ergebnissen dieser Wissenschaft . . . Es bestehen nebeneinander die verschiedensten Angaben uber die Bildungsweise gewisser Schichten und man bringt tagtaglich neue Meinungen hervor, ohne die anderen zu widerlegen . . . Es ist hoechste Zeit, dass die Prinzi- pien der Faziesforschung eindeutig bestimmt werden und dass die um- fangreiche Literatur, die solche Fragen behandelt, revidiert werde. " Diese der "Geologischen Fazieskunde" von Laszlo Strausz (1928) vorangestellten Satze haben auch heute Gultigkeit. Dies gilt auch fur die vom Schliffbereich ausgehende Mikrofazies-Analyse von Karbonat- gesteinen. Auch hier bestehen methodische Schwierigkeiten, sind die Interpretationsmoeglichkeiten, bedingt durch den raschen Fortschritt der Paloekologie und der Karbonatsedimentologie, einem steten Wech- sel unterworfen, und fehlen zusammenfassende UEbersichten uber die aus verschiedenen Gebieten der Geowissenschaften stammende um- fangreiche Literatur. Das vorliegende Buch soll keine Synthese darstellen, sondern die derzeitigen Moeglichkeiten mikrofazieller Untersuchungen zeigen und auf sinnvolle neue Entwicklungen aufmerksam machen. Dies gilt so- wohl fur die Prazisierung von Mikrofazies-Typen und fur die auf diesen Typen aufgebauten Fazies-Modelle als auch fur die wechselseitigen Beziehungen zwischen biogenen und abiogenen Faktoren der Karbo- natsedimentation. Wesentliche Entwicklungsmoeglichkeiten bestehen fur Untersuchungen uber die Zusammenhange zwischen physikalischen Parametern von Karbonatgesteinen und Faziestypen und zwischen geochemischen Kriterien und in der Mikrofazies zum Ausdruck kom- menden sedimentaren und diagenetischen Merkmalen.

This is the story of a single pebble. It is just a normal pebble, as you might pick up on holiday - on a beach in Wales, say. Its history, though, carries us into abyssal depths of time, and across the farthest reaches of space. This is a narrative of the Earth's long and dramatic history, as gleaned from a single pebble. It begins as the pebble-particles form amid unimaginable violence in distal realms of the Universe, in the Big Bang and in supernova explosions and continues amid the construction of the Solar System. Jan Zalasiewicz shows the almost incredible complexity present in such a small and apparently mundane object. Many events in the Earth's ancient past can be deciphered from a pebble: volcanic eruptions; the lives and deaths of extinct animals and plants; the alien nature of long-vanished oceans; and transformations deep underground, including the creations of fool's gold and of oil. Zalasiewicz demonstrates how geologists reach deep into the Earth's past by forensic analysis of even the tiniest amounts of mineral matter. Many stories are crammed into each and every pebble around us. It may be small, and ordinary, this pebble - but it is also an eloquent part of our Earth's extraordinary, never-ending story.

Minerals are the building blocks of rocks – they make up the solid Earth’s crust. Understanding Minerals & Crystals takes a close look at minerals, how they form, why they differ and how to go about identifying them.

It begins by examining the nature of atoms and the way they bind together to form minerals with distinctive crystal structures; and it discusses the nature and classification of these crystals, and includes a mineral identification key.

The second part of the book contains detailed descriptions of some 80 common and important minerals, including how they were named, their properties, ID pointers, uses and where in the world they are found. All are lavishly illustrated with full-colour photographs.

This book will be invaluable to those interested in any of the earth sciences, or in mineral/crystal collecting – from academics and students to general enthusiasts.

This is a richly illustrated reference book that provides a unique, comprehensive, and up-to-date survey of the rocks and structures of fault and shear zones. These zones are fundamental geologic structures in the Earth's crust. Their rigorous analysis is crucial to understanding the kinematics and dynamics of the continental and oceanic crust, the nature of earthquakes, and the formation of gold and hydrocarbon deposits. To document the variety of fault-related rocks, the book presents more than six hundred photographs of structures ranging in scale from outcrop to submicroscopic. These are accompanied by detailed explanations, often including geologic maps and cross sections, contributed by over 125 geoscientists from around the world. The book opens with an extensive introduction by Arthur W. Snoke and Jan Tullis that is itself a major contribution to the field. Fault-related rocks and their origins have long been controversial and subject to inconsistent terminology. Snoke and Tullis address these problems by presenting the currently accepted ideas in the field, focusing on deformation mechanisms and conceptual models for fault and shear zones. They define common terminology and classifications and present a list of important questions for future research. In the main, photographic part of the book, the editors divide the contributions into three broad categories, covering brittle behavior, semi-brittle behavior, and ductile behavior. Under these headings, there are contributions on dozens of subtopics with photographs from localities around the world, including several "type" areas. The book is an unrivaled source of information about fault-related rocks and will be important reading for a broad range of earth scientists, including structural geologists, petrologists, geophysicists, and environmental specialists. Originally published in 1998. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The two most fascinating questions about extraterrestrial life are where it is found and what it is like. In particular, from our Earth-based vantage point, we are keen to know where the closest life to us is, and how similar it might be to life on our home planet. This book deals with both of these key issues. It considers possible homes for life, with a focus on Earth-like exoplanets. And it examines the possibility that life elsewhere might be similar to life here, due to the existence of parallel environments, which may result in Darwinian selection producing parallel trees of life between one planet and another. Understanding Life in the Universe provides an engaging and myth-busting overview for any reader interested in the existence and nature of extraterrestrial life, and the realistic possibility of discovering credible evidence for it in the near future.

The Evolution of the Igneous Rocks, by N. L. Bowen, appeared in 1928 and had a profound influence on later generations of petrologists. Drawing on his series of lectures at Princeton University in the spring of 1927, Dr. Bowen identified, outlined, and applied the principles of physical chemistry relevant to petrological processes. Whereas the major petrochemical questions he discussed are still relevant today, the answers appear to change with time. The purpose of the present volume is to provide an updated view of those questions, in the light of almost fifty years of accumulated observations, using the principles Bowen set forth. Originally published in 1979. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Gulf of Mexico Basin is one of the most prolific hydrocarbon-producing basins in the world, with an estimated endowment of 200 billion barrels of oil equivalent. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the basin, spanning the US, Mexico and Cuba. Topics covered include conventional and unconventional reservoirs, source rocks and associated tectonics, basin evolution from the Mesozoic to Cenozoic Era, and different regions of the basin from mature onshore fields to deep-water subsalt plays. Cores, well logs and seismic lines are all discussed providing local, regional and basin-scale insights. The scientific implications of seminal events in the basin's history are also covered, including sedimentary effects of the Chicxulub Impact. Containing over 200 color illustrations and 50 stratigraphic cross-sections and paleogeographic maps, this is an invaluable resource for petroleum industry professionals, as well as graduate students and researchers interested in basin analysis, sedimentology, stratigraphy, tectonics and petroleum geology.