Plants Invade the Land
Plants Invade the Land

Author: Patricia G. Gensel

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2001-02-14

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0231504969

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What do we now know about the origins of plants on land, from an evolutionary and an environmental perspective? The essays in this collection present a synthesis of our present state of knowledge, integrating current information in paleobotany with physical, chemical, and geological data.

Paleobotany
Paleobotany

Author: Edith L. Taylor

Publisher: Academic Press

Published: 2009-01-21

Total Pages: 1253

ISBN-13: 008055783X

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This book provides up-to-date coverage of fossil plants from Precambrian life to flowering plants, including fungi and algae. It begins with a discussion of geologic time, how organisms are preserved in the rock record, and how organisms are studied and interpreted and takes the student through all the relevant uses and interpretations of fossil plants. With new chapters on additional flowering plant families, paleoecology and the structure of ancient plant communities, fossil plants as proxy records for paleoclimate, new methodologies used in phylogenetic reconstruction and the addition of new fossil plant discoveries since 1993, this book provides the most comprehensive account of the geologic history and evolution of microbes, algae, fungi, and plants through time. Major revision of a 1993 classic reference Lavishly illustrated with 1,800 images and user friendly for use by paleobotanists, biologists, geologists and other related scientists Includes an expanded glossary with an extensive up-to-date bibliography and a comprehensive index Provides extensive coverage of fungi and other microbes, and major groups of land plants both living and extinct

The Terrestrialization Process
The Terrestrialization Process

Author: Marco Vecoli

Publisher: Geological Society of London

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 9781862393097

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The invasion of the land by plants (terrestrialization) was one of the most significant evolutionary events in the history of life on Earth, and correlates in time with periods of major palaeoenvironmental perturbations. The development of a vegetation cover on the previously barren land surfaces impacted on the global biogeochemical cycles and the geological processes of erosion and sediment transport. The terrestrialization of plants preceded the rise of major new groups of animals, such as insects and tetrapods, the latter numbering some 24 000 living species, including ourselves. Early land-plant evolution also correlates with the most spectacular decline of atmospheric CO2 concentration of Phanerozoic times and with the onset of a protracted period of glacial conditions on Earth. This book includes a selection of papers covering different aspects of the terrestrialization, from palaeobotany to vertebrate palaeontology and geochemistry, promoting a multidisciplinary approach to the understanding of the co-evolution of life and its environments during Early to Mid-Palaeozoic times.