Cambrian Ocean World

Cambrian Ocean World

Author: John Foster

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2014-06-06

Total Pages: 457

ISBN-13: 0253011884

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This volume, aimed at the general reader, presents life and times of the amazing animals that inhabited Earth more than 500 million years ago. The Cambrian Period was a critical time in Earth's history. During this immense span of time nearly every modern group of animals appeared. Although life had been around for more than 2 million millennia, Cambrian rocks preserve the record of the first appearance of complex animals with eyes, protective skeletons, antennae, and complex ecologies. Grazing, predation, and multi-tiered ecosystems with animals living in, on, or above the sea floor became common. The cascade of interaction led to an ever-increasing diversification of animal body types. By the end of the period, the ancestors of sponges, corals, jellyfish, worms, mollusks, brachiopods, arthropods, echinoderms, and vertebrates were all in place. The evidence of this Cambrian "explosion" is preserved in rocks all over the world, including North America, where the seemingly strange animals of the period are preserved in exquisite detail in deposits such as the Burgess Shale in British Columbia. Cambrian Ocean World tells the story of what is, for us, the most important period in our planet's long history.


Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History

Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History

Author: Stephen Jay Gould

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 1990-09-17

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 0393245209

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"[An] extraordinary book. . . . Mr. Gould is an exceptional combination of scientist and science writer. . . . He is thus exceptionally well placed to tell these stories, and he tells them with fervor and intelligence."—James Gleick, New York Times Book Review High in the Canadian Rockies is a small limestone quarry formed 530 million years ago called the Burgess Shale. It hold the remains of an ancient sea where dozens of strange creatures lived—a forgotten corner of evolution preserved in awesome detail. In this book Stephen Jay Gould explores what the Burgess Shale tells us about evolution and the nature of history.


Cambrian Intelligence

Cambrian Intelligence

Author: Rodney Allen Brooks

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 9780262522632

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Until the mid-1980s, AI researchers assumed that an intelligent system doing high-level reasoning was necessary for the coupling of perception and action. In this traditional model, cognition mediates between perception and plans of action. Realizing that this core AI, as it was known, was illusory, Rodney A. Brooks turned the field of AI on its head by introducing the behavior-based approach to robotics. The cornerstone of behavior-based robotics is the realization that the coupling of perception and action gives rise to all the power of intelligence and that cognition is only in the eye of an observer. Behavior-based robotics has been the basis of successful applications in entertainment, service industries, agriculture, mining, and the home. It has given rise to both autonomous mobile robots and more recent humanoid robots such as Brooks' Cog. This book represents Brooks' initial formulation of and contributions to the development of the behavior-based approach to robotics. It presents all of the key philosophical and technical ideas that put this "bottom-up" approach at the forefront of current research in not only AI but all of cognitive science.


CAMBRIAN EXPLOSION

CAMBRIAN EXPLOSION

Author: D Erwin

Publisher: Bedford

Published: 2013-01-18

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781936221035

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The Cambrian Period records one of the most extraordinary transitions in the history of life. Although animals may have first appeared nearly 700 million years ago, with the earliest sponges, their initial diversifications appear to have been modest until a richly diverse fossil fauna appeared abruptly about 170 million years later. In The Cambrian Explosion, Erwin and Valentine synthesize research from many fields to explain why there was such remarkable novelty of animal forms.


The Cambrian Way

The Cambrian Way

Author: George Tod

Publisher: Cicerone Press Limited

Published: 2022-03-17

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 1783627689

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Dubbed 'the mountain connoisseurs' walk', the Cambrian Way stretches 479km between the mighty castles of Cardiff in the south and Conwy on the north coast. Traversing the heartland of Wales, the challenging route crosses the Brecon Beacons, the Cambrian Mountains and Snowdonia, passing through two national parks and visiting many of the country's iconic summits, including Pen y Fan, Pumlumon, Cadair Idris and Snowdon itself. It can be walked in three weeks (or in shorter sections) and is suitable for experienced hillwalkers with sound navigational skills. The guide presents the route in 21 stages, offering comprehensive route description illustrated with OS 1:50,000 mapping and elevation profiles. Details of accommodation and facilities are provided, along with a helpful trek planner showing their distribution along the route: although the trail passes through remote areas, it is possible to stay under a roof every night - though camping is also a possibility, should you prefer. There are background notes on Wales's history and geology and local points of interest, and a glossary of Welsh place-names, useful contacts and accommodation listings can be found in the appendices. From the Black Mountains to the Rhinogau, Glyderau and Carneddau, the route takes in lofty ridges, striking peaks and picturesque lakes. There are also fascinating glimpses into the country's ancient and more recent past: Iron Age hillforts, Norman castles, a Cistercian abbey, the Chartist Cave and relics from the mining industry. Offering superlative scenery, the Cambrian Way is a celebration of some of the best mountain walking Wales has to offer and promises a unique opportunity to immerse yourself in these celebrated landscapes.


Darwin's Doubt

Darwin's Doubt

Author: Stephen C. Meyer

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2013-06-18

Total Pages: 605

ISBN-13: 0062071491

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When Charles Darwin finished The Origin of Species, he thought that he had explained every clue, but one. Though his theory could explain many facts, Darwin knew that there was a significant event in the history of life that his theory did not explain. During this event, the “Cambrian explosion,” many animals suddenly appeared in the fossil record without apparent ancestors in earlier layers of rock. In Darwin’s Doubt, Stephen C. Meyer tells the story of the mystery surrounding this explosion of animal life—a mystery that has intensified, not only because the expected ancestors of these animals have not been found, but because scientists have learned more about what it takes to construct an animal. During the last half century, biologists have come to appreciate the central importance of biological information—stored in DNA and elsewhere in cells—to building animal forms. Expanding on the compelling case he presented in his last book, Signature in the Cell, Meyer argues that the origin of this information, as well as other mysterious features of the Cambrian event, are best explained by intelligent design, rather than purely undirected evolutionary processes.


Earth History and Palaeogeography

Earth History and Palaeogeography

Author: Trond H. Torsvik

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 1107105323

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This book provides a complete Phanerozoic story of palaeogeography, using new and detailed full-colour maps, to link surface and deep-Earth processes.


The Crucible of Creation

The Crucible of Creation

Author: Simon Conway Morris

Publisher: Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13:

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Paleontologist Simon Conway Morris provides a guided tour of the world's richest treasure trove of fossils--a fantastically rich deposit of bizarre and bewildering Cambrain fossils, located in Western Canada. 4 plates. 90 linecuts.


Cambrian Railways Gallery

Cambrian Railways Gallery

Author: David Maidment

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2019-11-30

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 1526736047

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The historic trainline connecting Shropshire, England, to the West Coast of Wales is beautifully captured in this volume of photographs. One of the most scenic trainlines in the United Kingdom, the Cambrian Line carries passengers through mountains and market towns, offering views of castles, countryside, and World Heritage sites as it makes its way to the breathtaking Welsh coast. This volume offers a brief history of the Cambrian Railways’ early years, followed by a magnificent and comprehensive set of early photographs of Cambrian engines, Oswestry Works, and sumptuous Welsh scenery. The book is written by British Railways expert David Maidment together with Paul Carpenter, who brings the story of the Cambrian up to date. Carpenter also invites a number of former railwaymen who to share their memories of working on the Cambrian system. The book also covers the efforts of Cambrian Heritage Railways to restore part of the closed section of the line.