Discovering Fossils
Author: Frank A. Garcia
Publisher: Stackpole Books
Published: 1998
Total Pages: 228
ISBN-13: 9780811728003
DOWNLOAD EBOOKComplete beginner's guide, with vertebrate and invertebrate fossil descriptions.
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Author: Frank A. Garcia
Publisher: Stackpole Books
Published: 1998
Total Pages: 228
ISBN-13: 9780811728003
DOWNLOAD EBOOKComplete beginner's guide, with vertebrate and invertebrate fossil descriptions.
Author: John Maisey
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2001-01-04
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9780813338071
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFishes have a unique evolutionary history that stretches back in time more than 450 million years. They are incredibly ancient-older than the dinosaurs-and include the ancestors of all limbed vertebrates living on land, even humans.In Discovering Fossil Fishes , John Maisey traces the evolution of fishes over the course of nearly half a billion years, describing the discovery of their extraordinary fossil remains and explaining what these ancient animals tell us about our own place in the history of life. Combining current scientific information with entertaining tales about historic and contemporary fieldwork, Maisey brings to life the development of armored fishes, monster sharks, and fishes with arms as he reveals the subtleties of evolution's greatest success story.More abundant and more diverse than their air-breathing cousins, fishes today dominate the seas and freshwaters of Earth. Through outstanding full-color photographs of their fossils and of fossil reconstructions by artists David Miller and Ivy Rutzky, along with informative photographs, charts, diagrams, and drawings, we discover a staggering half-billion-year history in which lies our own watery origins.
Author: Sally M. Walker
Publisher: Carolrhoda Books
Published: 2002
Total Pages: 76
ISBN-13: 1575055368
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDescribes the 1938 discovery of the coelacanth, a fish previously believed to be extinct, and subsequent research about it.
Author: Wendy Rydell
Publisher: Troll Communications
Published: 1984
Total Pages: 36
ISBN-13: 9780893759742
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAnswers questions about the frozen, petrified, molded, imprinted, or otherwise preserved remains of prehistoric life forms which guide scientists in their study of early plants and animals.
Author: J. William Schopf
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2021-10-12
Total Pages: 404
ISBN-13: 0691237573
DOWNLOAD EBOOKOne 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.
Author: Adrienne Mayor
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2023-04-11
Total Pages: 400
ISBN-13: 0691245606
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe fascinating story of how the fossils of dinosaurs, mammoths, and other extinct animals influenced some of the most spectacular creatures of classical mythology Griffins, Centaurs, Cyclopes, and Giants—these fabulous creatures of classical mythology continue to live in the modern imagination through the vivid accounts that have come down to us from the ancient Greeks and Romans. But what if these beings were more than merely fictions? What if monstrous creatures once roamed the earth in the very places where their legends first arose? This is the arresting and original thesis that Adrienne Mayor explores in The First Fossil Hunters. Through careful research and meticulous documentation, she convincingly shows that many of the giants and monsters of myth did have a basis in fact—in the enormous bones of long-extinct species that were once abundant in the lands of the Greeks and Romans. As Mayor shows, the Greeks and Romans were well aware that a different breed of creatures once inhabited their lands. They frequently encountered the fossilized bones of these primeval beings, and they developed sophisticated concepts to explain the fossil evidence, concepts that were expressed in mythological stories. The legend of the gold-guarding griffin, for example, sprang from tales first told by Scythian gold-miners, who, passing through the Gobi Desert at the foot of the Altai Mountains, encountered the skeletons of Protoceratops and other dinosaurs that littered the ground. Like their modern counterparts, the ancient fossil hunters collected and measured impressive petrified remains and displayed them in temples and museums; they attempted to reconstruct the appearance of these prehistoric creatures and to explain their extinction. Long thought to be fantasy, the remarkably detailed and perceptive Greek and Roman accounts of giant bone finds were actually based on solid paleontological facts. By reading these neglected narratives for the first time in the light of modern scientific discoveries, Adrienne Mayor illuminates a lost world of ancient paleontology.
Author: Karolyn Shindler
Publisher:
Published: 2017-07-06
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9780565094379
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn 1898, a 19-year-old girl marched into the Natural History Museum and demanded a job. At the time, no women were employed there as scientists, but for the determined Dorothea Bate this was the first step in an extraordinary career as a pioneering explorer and fossil-hunter and the beginning of an association with the Museum that was to last for more than 50 years. As a young woman she explored the islands of Cyprus, Crete and the little known Majorca and Menorca, braving parental opposition and considerable physical hardship and danger. In remote mountain caves and sea-battered cliffs, she discovered, against enormous odds, the fossil evidence of unique species of extinct fauna, previously unknown to science, including dwarf elephants and hippos, giant dormice and a strange small goat-like antelope. Internationally respected as an outstanding palaeontologist during her lifetime, Dorothea was largely forgotten after her death. Now, working from unpublished letters, papers and work diaries and re-tracing her steps, Karolyn Shindler has rediscovered Dorothea's life.
Author: Harry Moore
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
Published: 2004
Total Pages: 140
ISBN-13: 9781572333239
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"The Bone Hunters recounts the details of a remarkable chance discovery. In his engaging firsthand account, Moore writes of the people behind the excavation of the site and how their efforts helped save valuable artifacts for ongoing study. Numerous photographs capture the excitement of the site discovery, and close images of the individual bones highlight the excellent condition of fossils at Gray. Moore also describes the contours of what the ancient landscape may have looked like and details the governmental action that ultimately preserved this Tennessee treasure."--Jacket.
Author: Judith A. Williams
Publisher: Enslow Elementary
Published: 2004
Total Pages: 28
ISBN-13: 9780766022676
DOWNLOAD EBOOKHow do scientists learn about dinosaurs? They ask questions! How are fossils found? What do fossils tell us about dinosaurs? Did dinosaurs come from eggs? Join a world-famous dinosaur expert as he helps you answer these questions. You will soon start asking questions of your own! Book jacket.
Author: Sally M. Walker
Publisher: LernerClassroom
Published: 2013
Total Pages: 44
ISBN-13: 1467707910
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book describes the process through which fossils are created, and what we can learn from them.