One of the newest scientific specialties has as its subject the
oldest living things: the unbelievably ancient fossils of the
Pre-Cambrian period. Until very recently, the record of fossil life
began with the Cambrian period, roughly 550 million years ago. But
the fossils of that era were already complex, the remains of
organisms far more advanced than the simple cells that scientists
believed must have been the earliest living things. Were the more
ancient forms too fragile to survive the fossilization process or
had they simply gone unrecognized? As Darwin already recognized,
the apparent absence of truly primitive forms in the fossil record
might be counted an argument against evolution. One pioneer, J.T.
Dawson of Canada, did use his claimed discover)' of a "dawn animal"
over 1.1 billion years old to raise questions about the missing
links in the long stretch between it and the first Cambrian
fossils. Dawson's claims were refuted, but other scientists took up
the search. The strongest candidates were stromatolites,
cabbage-like structures first identified in upstate New York in the
1870s. But their biological origin was controversial until the
1950s, when microscopic examination of fossil stromatolites, and
the discovery of living stromatolites near Australia, clinched the
case. Schopf, who as a graduate student contributed to the
breakthrough, goes on to describe more recent research in the field
- almost all of which has been done in the last 35 years. Now a
professor of paleobiology at UCLA, he was part of the team that
identified the oldest fossils thus far known: the
3,465-million-year-old Apex Chert microbes of Western Australia.
Schopf combines his often entertaining personal story with an
introduction to the discipline of paleobiology, with asides on the
chemical makeup of life, questions still to be answered, and a
skeptical look at the purported "fossils" from Mars. A good
introduction to the history of a science on the cutting edge.
(Kirkus Reviews)
One of the greatest mysteries in reconstructing the history of
life on Earth has been the apparent absence of fossils dating back
more than 550 million years. We have long known that fossils of
sophisticated marine life-forms existed at the dawn of the Cambrian
Period, but until recently scientists had found no traces of
Precambrian fossils. The quest to find such traces began in earnest
in the mid-1960s and culminated in one dramatic moment in 1993 when
William Schopf identified fossilized microorganisms three and a
half "billion" years old. This startling find opened up a vast
period of time--some eighty-five percent of Earth's history--to new
research and new ideas about life's beginnings. In this book,
William Schopf, a pioneer of modern paleobiology, tells for the
first time the exciting and fascinating story of the origins and
earliest evolution of life and how that story has been
unearthed.
Gracefully blending his personal story of discovery with the
basics needed to understand the astonishing science he describes,
Schopf has produced an introduction to paleobiology for the
interested reader as well as a primer for beginning students in the
field. He considers such questions as how did primitive bacteria,
pond scum, evolve into the complex life-forms found at the
beginning of the Cambrian Period? How do scientists identify
ancient microbes and what do these tiny creatures tell us about the
environment of the early Earth? (And, in a related chapter, Schopf
discusses his role in the controversy that swirls around recent
claims of fossils in the famed meteorite from Mars.) Like all great
teachers, Schopf teaches the non-specialist enough about his
subject along the way that we can easily follow his descriptions of
the geology, biology, and chemistry behind these discoveries.
Anyone interested in the intriguing questions of the origins of
life on Earth and how those origins have been discovered will find
this story the best place to start.
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