American Megafaunal Extinctions at the End of the Pleistocene
American Megafaunal Extinctions at the End of the Pleistocene

Author: Gary Haynes

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2008-12-23

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1402087934

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The volume contains summaries of facts, theories, and unsolved problems pertaining to the unexplained extinction of dozens of genera of mostly large terrestrial mammals, which occurred ca. 13,000 calendar years ago in North America and about 1,000 years later in South America. Another equally mysterious wave of extinctions affected large Caribbean islands around 5,000 years ago. The coupling of these extinctions with the earliest appearance of human beings has led to the suggestion that foraging humans are to blame, although major climatic shifts were also taking place in the Americas during some of the extinctions. The last published volume with similar (but not identical) themes -- Extinctions in Near Time -- appeared in 1999; since then a great deal of innovative, exciting new research has been done but has not yet been compiled and summarized. Different chapters in this volume provide in-depth resumés of the chronology of the extinctions in North and South America, the possible insights into animal ecology provided by studies of stable isotopes and anatomical/physiological characteristics such as growth increments in mammoth and mastodont tusks, the clues from taphonomic research about large-mammal biology, the applications of dating methods to the extinctions debate, and archeological controversies concerning human hunting of large mammals.

Data Mining for Global Trends in Mountain Biodiversity
Data Mining for Global Trends in Mountain Biodiversity

Author: Eva M. Spehn

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2009-09-28

Total Pages: 181

ISBN-13: 1420083708

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Thanks to advances in electronic archiving of biodiversity data and the digitization of climate and other geophysical data, a new era in biogeography, functional ecology, and evolutionary ecology has begun. In Data Mining for Global Trends in Mountain Biodiversity, Christian Korner, Eva M. Spehn, and a team of experts from the Global Mountain Biodi

Comparing the Geological and Fossil Records
Comparing the Geological and Fossil Records

Author: Alistair McGowan

Publisher: Geological Society of London

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 9781862393363

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The past decade has witnessed a major revival in attempts to separate biodiversity signals from biases imposed by sampling and the architecture of the rock record. How large a problem this poses to our understanding of biodiversity patterns remains debatable, and new approaches are being developed to investigate this question. Here palaeobiologists with widely differing approaches and interests explore the problems of extracting reliable information on biodiversity change from an imperfect geological record. Topics covered range from the application of information-theoretic approaches that identify directional causal relationships to an in-depth study of how geological biases could influence our understanding of dinosaur evolution.

Mammalian Paleoecology
Mammalian Paleoecology

Author: Felisa A. Smith

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2021-09-28

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 1421441403

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It will profoundly affect the way paleontologists and climatologists view the lives of ancient mammals.

Ice Age Cave Faunas of North America
Ice Age Cave Faunas of North America

Author: Blaine W. Schubert

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2003-11-10

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 9780253342683

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This book gathers the findings of a number of studies on North American cave paleontology. Although not intended to be all-inclusive, Ice Age Cave Faunas of North America contains contributions that range from overviews of the significance of cave fossils to reports about new localities and studies of specific vertebrate groups. These essays describe how cave remains record the evolutionary patterns of organisms and their biogeography, how they can help reconstruct past ecosystems and climatic fluctuations, how they provide an important record of the evolution of modern ecosystems, and even how some of these caves contain traces of human activity. The book's eclectic nature should appeal to students, professional and amateur paleontologists, biologists, geologists, speleologists, and cavers. The contributors are Ticul Alvarez, Joaquin Arroyo-Cabrales, Christopher J. Bell, Larry L. Coats, Jennifer Glennon, Wulf Gose, Frederick Grady, Russell Wm. Graham, Timothy H. Heaton, Carmen J. Jans-Langel, Ernest L. Lundelius, Jr., H. Gregory McDonald, Jim I. Mead, Oscar J. Polaco, Blaine W. Schubert, Holmes A. Semken, Jr., and Alisa J. Winkler.

The Quaternary Period in the United States
The Quaternary Period in the United States

Author: A.R. Gillespie

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2003-12-17

Total Pages: 595

ISBN-13: 0080474098

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This book reviews advances in understanding of the past ca. two million years of Earth history - the Quaternary Period - in the United States. It begins with sections on ice and water - as glaciers, permafrost, oceans, rivers, lakes, and aquifers. Six chapters are devoted to the high-latitude Pleistocene ice sheets, to mountain glaciations of the western United States, and to permafrost studies. Other chapters discuss ice-age lakes, caves, sea-level fluctuations, and riverine landscapes. With a chapter on landscape evolution models, the book turns to essays on geologic processes. Two chapters discuss soils and their responses to climate, and wind-blown sediments. Two more describe volcanoes and earthquakes, and the use of Quaternary geology to understand the hazards they pose. The next part of the book is on plants and animals. Five chapters consider the Quaternary history of vegetation in the United States. Other chapters treat forcing functions and vegetation response at different spatial and temporal scales, the role of fire as a catalyst of vegetation change during rapid climate shifts, and the use of tree rings in inferring age and past hydroclimatic conditions. Three chapters address vertebrate paleontology and the extinctions of large mammals at the end of the last glaciation, beetle assemblages and the inferences they permit about past conditions, and the peopling of North America. A final chapter addresses the numerical modeling of Quaternary climates, and the role paleoclimatic studies and climatic modeling has in predicting future response of the Earth's climate system to the changes we have wrought.

Foraging in the Tennessee River Valley
Foraging in the Tennessee River Valley

Author: Kandace D. Hollenbach

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

Published: 2009-04-19

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 0817355227

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In Foraging the Tennessee River Valley, 12,500 to 8,000 Years Ago, Hollenbach analyzes and compares botanical remains from archaeological excavations in four rockshelters in the Middle Tennessee River Valley.

Annotated Bibliography of Quaternary Vertebrates of Northern North America
Annotated Bibliography of Quaternary Vertebrates of Northern North America

Author: Donna Naughton

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2003-01-01

Total Pages: 580

ISBN-13: 9780802048172

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This book focuses on highlights (species mentioned, locality, geological age, stratigraphic positions, etc.) of nearly 1000 items published between 1821 and 2000, dealing with the remains of vertebrates that lived from about 2 million to 5000 years ago.