Palæontologi

While much attention has been given to animal life in amber, the remains of a variety of plants, including angiosperm flowers, also exist in fossilized resin.  Presented here is a pictorial synopsis of 94 flowers that occur in four major amber deposits around the world.  These deposits are from Burma (Myanmar), the Baltic area, the Dominican Republic and Mexico, and range in age from the mid-Cretaceous to the mid-Tertiary.  The basic features of these flowers are presented and their relationship with existing plant lineages discussed.  This work will be of interest to amber enthusiasts, plant taxonomists, plant morphologists, plant ecologists, plant evolutionists and plant paleontologists. 

This volume presents an array of different case studies which take as primary material data sourced from the NOW (¿New and Old Worlds¿) database of fossil mammals. The NOW database was one of the very first large paleobiological databases, and since 1996 it has been expanded from including mainly Neogene European land mammals to cover the entire Cenozoic at a global scale. In the last two decades the number of works that are based in the use of huge databases to explore ecological and evolutionary questions has increased exponentially, and even though the importance of big data in paleobiological research has been outlined in selected chapters of general works, no volume has appeared before this one which solely focuses on the databases as a primary source in reconstructing the past. The purpose of this book is to provide an illustrative volume showing the importance of big data in paleobiological research, and presenting a broad array of unpublished examples and case studies. The book is mainly aimed to professional palaeobiologists working with Cenozoic land mammals, but the scope of the book is broad enough to fit the interest for evolutionary biologists, paleoclimatologists and paleoecologists.The volume is divided in four parts. The first part includes two chapters on the development of large paleobiological databases, providing a first-hand account on the logic and the functioning of these databases. This is a much-needed perspective which is ignored by most researchers and users of such databases and, even if centered in the NOW database, the lessons that can be learned from this part can be extended to other examples. After this introductory part, the body of the book follows and is divided into three parts: patterns in regional faunas; large scale patterns and processes; and ecological, biogeographical and evolutionary patterns of key taxa. Each chapter is written by well-known specialists in the field, withsome participation of members of the NOW advisory board. The array of selected mammal taxa ranges from carnivores, equids, ruminants and rodents to the genus Homo. The topics studied also include the diversification and radiation of major clades, large-scale paleobiogeographical patterns, the evolution of ecomorphological patterns and paleobiological problems such as evolution of body size or species longevity. In most cases the results are discussed in relation to protracted environmental or paleogeographic changes.

This book describes Hungarian karst areas and Hungarian karst research results. The chapters present the general characteristics of karst areas, their geology, their paleokarst, their hydrology, their surface and subsurface morphology (more significant caves are classified according to karst areas and their morphology and development is described), ecology and flora and fauna.This book also includes a separate chapter which deals with the history of Hungarian karst and cave research. Another chapter deals with theories that were made during Hungarian karst researches.

Early Continent Evolution of the North China Craton discusses the tectono-thermal regimes of the early continental crust in the North China Craton (NCC), from the Hadean to the early Paleoproterozoic, reconstructing the evolutional framework and facilitating comprehensive understanding of the early continent evolution of the NCC. The book systematically summarizes the Neoarchean metamorphism of the NCC and discusses the implications for the tectonic models of the NCC through compiling evolutional information of the Hadean to the early Paleoproterozoic sequences in the NCC. Researchers, academics, and students in geology (especially Precambrian Geology), geomorphology, geophysics, and geological engineering will benefit from using this book in applying tectonic models to other cratonic blocks globally, and will understand evolutional information of the largest and oldest cratonic block in China.

"Despite their fame and reputation, dinosaurs represent only half the story of the Mesozoic Era. In Beast Companions: The Unsung Animals of the Dinosaurs' World, paleontologist John Foster explores the often-overlooked animals that coexisted with them. These ancient species, often equally remarkable as their dinosaur neighbors, can provide valuable insights into the biotic history of our planet. In some cases, these animals reveal just as much, if not more, about the extinct ecosystems of the time as the dinosaurs themselves.By drawing on a wealth of current and past discoveries, Foster embarks on a sweeping journey across 164 million years to visit the beast companions of the dinosaurs. Along the way, he examines fish, insects, the first frogs and salamanders, turtles, snakes and lizards, marine reptiles, crocodiles, pterosaurs, birds, mammals, and other animals of the Mesozoic Era.Beast Companions is a groundbreaking exploration of the story of these contemporaries of the dinosaurs that set the modern world in motion more than 200 million years ago"--

This book provides an overview of lakes in Mongolia from scientific, economic and scenic points of view, presenting lake area changes, their sedimentological and geochemical characteristics, valuable economic and geoheritage resources and paleoclimate change reconstruction. The book emphasizes internationally well-known lakes of Mongolia, but it also describes far less popular lakes which have remained unrecognized for scientific importance. The book offers modern, qualitative, process-oriented approaches and quantitative analytic results-based implications to understand the geomorphological, sedimentological and geochemical evolution of lake basins in Mongolia, and past and present climate changes in Mongolia and Eurasia. Insights into the interpretation of data obtained from the lake basins in the fields of geomorphology, sedimentology, geochemistry, geochronology and paleoclimatology are developed from theoretical principles, empirical observations, correlative illustrations, analytic measurements and conscious hypotheses. Based on the application of a combined compilation of recent Landsat 8 images of the lakes and topographic maps of them in 1970, this book presents enriched results and implications derived from remote sensing together with field measurements and laboratory analyses. This data compilation belongs to a research team at the Laboratory of Geochemistry and Geomorphology (LGG), National University of Mongolia (NUM).

This book offers insight into the relationship between prehistoric and protohistoric human populations and the world around them. It reconstructs key aspects of the palaeoenvironment ¿ from large-scale drivers of environmental conditions, such as climate, to more regional variables such as vegetation cover and faunal communities. The volume underscores how computational archaeology is leading the way in the study of past human-environment interactions across spatial and chronological scales. With the increased availability of high-resolution climate models, agent-based modelling, palaeoecological proxies and the mature use of Geographic Information System in ecological modelling, archaeologists working in interdisciplinary settings are well-positioned to explore the intersection of human systems and environmental affordances and constraints. These methodological advancements provide a better understanding of the role humans played in past ecosystems ¿ both in terms of their impact upon the environment and, in return, the impact of environmental conditions on human systems. They may also allow us to infer past ecological knowledge and land-use patterns that are historically contingent, rather than environmentally determined. This volume gathers contributions that combine reconstructions of past environments and archeological data with a view to exploring their complex interactions at different scales and invites scholars from varying disciplines and backgrounds to present and compare different modelling approaches.

This book is a condensed summary of a broad spectrum of the geological heritage of the Middle Atlas. It has the particularity of proposing an in-depth synthesis and a critical review of the geoheritage of the region. The book addresses the issues related to geoheritage and methodologies for the selection, inventory, assessment and preservation of geosites. It reviews the state of the art of geoheritage in Morocco, particularly in the Middle Atlas, in order to identify geosites with rare and unique geological features. The book presents a detailed study of lithostratigraphic and sedimentological heritage as geosites witnessing at different spatial and temporal scales the evolution and the stratigraphic, sedimentological and paleogeographic history of the Middle Atlas range. It also presents the paleontological heritage of vertebrates by reviewing the discoveries of paleontological sites and their risks in order to present its conservation plans. It also addresses the hydricand fluvial heritage by presenting the potential of water resources and the impact of climate change on the latter. Furthermore, it highlights the karst heritage by exposing an inventory of exo- and endokarst geosites in order to emphasize some unique sites on a national and African scale as well as revealing the underground biodiversity related to this heritage. Finally, it proposes a presentation of the volcanic heritage in order to assess the volcanic geosites that testify to the strombolian, phreatomagmatic and Hawaiian dynamism of the region. The book is mainly intended for researchers, geologists and specialists of the Moroccan Middle Atlas region wishing to acquire a broad multidisciplinary or even transdisciplinary knowledge. It will also be accessible to a non-initiated public, interested in the richness of the Moroccan geoheritage, as well as to Moroccan territorial authorities (High Commission for Water and Forests, Ministry of Tourism, National Institute of Archaeology and Heritage Sciences, etc.) who can benefit from it in the perspective of their strategies of preservation of the national geological heritage. This work will be an example for geoscientists, on an African scale, of a valorization of territorial geological heritage.

This monograph presents the results of over 10 years of paleontological and geological survey in the Baynunah Formation of the United Arab Emirates. Exposed widely in western Abu Dhabi Emirate, the Baynunah Formation and its fossils provide the only record of terrestrial environments and evolution in the Arabian Peninsula during the late Miocene epoch (12-5 Ma).This volume describes new fossils collected since 2002, presented systematically by taxon, and including mammals, reptiles, and invertebrates, as well as fossil trackways. The discoveries are framed within the results of new geological, geochemical, and geochrononological analyses, providing an updated and synthetic view of the age, environments, and biogeographic relationships of this important fossil assemblage.

The Phanerozoic Geology and Natural Resources of Egypt includes a series of chapters written by highly qualified group of researchers whose expertise is recognized and appreciated not only in Egypt, but also in the world over. The chapters span a wide range of geological subdisciplines including tectonics, paleogeography, stratigraphy, sedimentology, paleontology, groundwater, and energy resources, just to name a few. In this regard, the book provides the reader with ample knowledge about the different facets of the fascinating and always intriguing geology of Egypt since the Precambrian time. For a junior researcher or a geoscience student, the book is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary one-stop resource that they will continue to reference and rely on for years to come. For a more experienced scientist, the book summarizes the current state of knowledge, highlights the magnitude of complexity of the geology of Egypt and northeast Africa, and reveals potential areas where future research should be directed. The book is written in simple, easy to understand English language and contains very useful high-quality illustrations. Last but not least, The Phanerozoic Geology and Natural Resources of Egypt has been reviewed and edited by world class, highly ranked geoscientists from Egypt, Europe, and USA.

Sauropodomorpha Huene 1932 is one of the most successful groups of dinosaurs, including the most abundant and diverse herbivorous forms with a worldwide record, extending from the late Triassic to the late Cretaceous. Sauropodomorphs comprise a diverse assemblage of early forms (traditionally called "e;prosauropods"e;) and the well-established clade Sauropoda Marsh 1878. Early sauropodomorphs were small to medium sized forms, with long necks and reduced skulls, mostly bipeds and omnivores and were abundant in continental environments in the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic. With more than 150 valid species and a worldwide distribution, Sauropoda includes the dominant herbivorous dinosaurs, from the Middle Jurassic to the Late Cretaceous. Its unique body plan, characterized by gigantic size, graviportal locomotion, long necks and tails, and reduced skulls, made this group an undisputed icon in popular culture since the 19th century. In South America, the sauropodomorph record is particularly rich and abundant, and many species have shed light to understand important milestones in the evolutionary history of this group of dinosaurs. The origin of Sauropodomorpha, the transition to Sauropoda, and the diversification of its most successful evolutionary lineages are largely exemplified by the South American fossil record. In this contribution, we synthetize the diversity of sauropodomorphs from South America, including data on their geographic and stratigraphic provenance, phylogenetics, paleobiology, taphonomy and behaviour, underscoring their significance within the context of sauropodomorph evolution.

"From trilobites near the Idaho border and primitive horses on the Columbia Plateau to giant bird tracks near Bellingham and curious bear-like beasts on the Olympic Peninsula, fossils across Washington State are filled with clues of past life on Earth. With abundant and well-exposed rock layers, the state has fossils dating from Ice Age mammals only 12,000 years old back to marine invertebrates more than 500 million years old. In Spirit Whales and Sloth Tales, paleontologist Elizabeth A. Nesbitt teams up with popular science writer David B. Williams to offer a tour through more than a half billion years of natural history. Following an introduction to key concepts, twenty-four profiles-each featuring a unique plant, animal, or environment-tell stories of individual fossils, many of which are on display in Washington museums. The paleontology of Washington is brought to life with details of the fossils' discovery and extraction, their place in geological time, and the insights they provide into contemporary issues like climate change and species extinction"--

Radiogenic Isotopes Applied to Mineral Exploration: A Practical Guide assists mineral exploration geologists, students and professors in the field of metallogeny and ore deposits. This book provides information on radiogenic isotopes and their application to solve problems associated with mineral exploration surveys. It presents the basics to exploration geologists using radiogenic isotopes on establishing models for prospecting and creating new criteria for defining more favorable areas, reducing the exploration risk and saving financial investments. The discovery of new mineral deposits is becoming increasingly difficult, and the use of new techniques is required to find deep and covered deposits. Radiogenic isotopes have the potential to act as ore index, helping to define the most favorable zones for finding certain types of mineral deposits, hence minimizing exploration risks.

Through the original writings and photography of renowned geologist Harold Rollin Wanless, this book paints a thorough and engaging picture of the White River Badlands¿ landscape, geology, biology, pioneer settlers, and how life was lived 100 years ago in a harsh, challenging, remote setting. In the summer of 1920, Harold Rollin Wanless, fresh from an undergraduate geology degree at Princeton, spent the first of three summers in the Badlands of South Dakota camping, hiking, and collecting fossil vertebrate skulls. Harold produced a fascinating and thorough diary and report, illustrated with over 100 image plates, in which he explains the geology, biology, and climate of this famous area. Wanless became deeply involved with and vividly records the life, hopes, trials and character of the new homesteading pioneers of the area, and the people and livelihoods he encountered are reflected in the diary as well. This is an engaging lookat the history, environment, people and geological character of a unique portion of the American West. Combining a first-hand look at the White River Badlands and its people a century ago with the fossil history contained in its Cenozoic sediments gives a well-rounded historical presentation. This diary was found, compiled, and edited by Drs. Harold Rogers Wanless (the diarist¿s son and an accomplished geologist himself) and Emmett Evanoff. In the introductory and concluding chapters of this book, they provide a broader perspective of Harold Rollin Wanless¿s life and his significant achievements beyond the Badlands venture described here. In addition, this narrative - written ¿only¿ a century ago - provides a stark contrast with how we travel, communicate, conduct research and survive today, yet shows that human curiosity and kindnesses have not changed.

One of today¿s major geoscientific controversies centres on the origin of the Archean granite¿greenstone terranes. Is the geology of these scattered remnants of our planet¿s early crust consistent with the theory that modern-style plate-tectonic processes operated from the early Archean, or does it indicate that tectonic and magmatic processes were different in the Archean? Earth has clearly evolved since its initial formation, so at what stage did its processes of crustal growth first resemble those of today? The logical place to seek answers to these intriguing and important questions is within the best-preserved early Archean crust. The Pilbara region of northwest Australia is internationally famous for its abundant and exceptionally well-preserved fossil evidence of early life. However, until recently the area has received much less recognition for the key evidence it provides on early Archean crustal evolution. This book presents and interprets this evidence through a new stage-by-stage account of the development of the Pilbaräs geological record between 3.53 and 2.63 Ga. The Archean Pilbara crust represents one fragment of Earth¿s oldest known supercontinent Vaalbara, which also included the Kaapvaal Craton of southern Africa. Recognition of Vaalbara expands the background database for both these areas, allowing us to more fully understand each of them.

2nd Grade scholars from Henry Johnson Charter School try their hand at Paleoart. By only looking at fossils, these young artists make predictions- in both pictures and words- about what they think these prehistoric creatures looked like, ate, or lived in.

The health status and future of tropical coral reefs, as tourist destinations, are regularly subjected to media coverage. Many documentaries recognize the natural beauty and biological richness of the Australian Great Barrier Reef and French Polynesian lagoons, but point to the equally significant risk that would result from current global warming and human-made hazards. The future of coral reefs is usually a matter of death foretold, real or purely imaginary. In this context, it has become necessary to differentiate between what is falling within reality of scientific facts or fantasy. To this end, the present general review, in the expert translation of Charlotte Fontan aims at: (1) defining the conditions and life requirements of reefbuilding corals; (2) the history of corals along with that of a number of associated, skeletal organisms involved in reef building since the very beginning, i.e. the last 540 million years, including the ups and downs they have experienced; (3) giving special reference to the development patterns of recent and modern reefs; (4) projecting corals and reefs into a still unknown future. Understanding how corals and reefs have originated, how they have been able to face the major biological crises which have punctuated the Earth¿s history, how they have survived is a prerequisite to better gain a significant picture of their future.

In the present book the Paleogene fossil record of birds is detailed for the first time on a worldwide scale. I have developed the idea for such a project for several years, and think that it is an appropriate moment to present a summary of our c- rent knowledge of the early evolution of modern birds. Meanwhile not only is there a confusing diversity of fossil taxa, but also significant progress has been made concerning an understanding of the higher-level phylogeny of extant birds. Hypotheses which were not considered even a decade ago are now well supported by independent analyses of different data. In several cases these group together morphologically very different avian groups and allow a better understanding of the mosaic character distribution found in Paleogene fossil birds. The book aims at bringing some of this information together, and many of the following data are based on first-hand examination of fossil specimens.

The Jurassic period is regarded as a fascinating time slice due to its well-known terrestrial systems and its diverse marine ecosystems. Within the invertebrates, several new groups appeared and a massive evolutionary radiation of the existing ones took place. The Jurassic succession of Gebel Maghara offers the best and most comprehensive succession of Jurassic strata in Egypt. Gebel Maghara is a dome-like structure covering an area of approximately 400 km2 and lies in northern Sinai, 50 km south of the Mediterranean coast. It represents a wide variety of continental, deltaic, and marine environments, which contain a rich invertebrate fossils characterized above all by echinoderms, brachiopods, bivalves, gastropods, and corals. By the Triassic and Early Jurassic, extensive rifting associated with breakup of Pangaea took place, while spreading began in the Middle Jurassic. From the Early to Late Jurassic, Gondwanaland drifted southwestward, but the study area (and the Middle East) remained at an equatorial position. In this book, more than 10,000 fossils, sediments samples and field data were used to delineate the Jurassic climatic changes in Gebel Maghara.

This book highlights the knowledge about landscapes and characteristics of the earliest hunter-gatherer lifeway in Southern Patagonia. It presents an analysis of the archaeological investigations carried out during three decades by an interdisciplinary team that involved archaeologists, anthropologists, paleontologists, geologists and specialists in pollen and diatoms. The database yielded was recovered from systematic survey and excavations from the Pleistocene and Holocene stratigraphic layers of the rockshelter known as AEP-1, Piedra Museo Locality, situated in the central plateau of Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. Piedra Museo is a unique place in the world of high academic interest with some of the earliest archaeological remains in the Americas. Researchers defined  two strata and several Stratigraphic units in the site based on the sedimentological and pedological characteristics. The depositional zones contain archaeological remains that are interpreted as hunting events corresponding to two main different occasions in the human colonization of the region, and a third human occupation during the Middle Holocene. Last one occurred then of the massive rockshelter roof colapse. The faunal remains led to a new approach to the palaeoenvironmental evolution of this enclosed basin. This volume describes the management of lithic raw materials and social networks from first human occupation of the Patagonian region to territorial consolidation of hunter-gatherer societies.

This book tells us that the first people appeared in Africa, Yakutia, Altai, Siberia and not only. A review of modern concepts of the origin of life and man on Earth is presented. It is shown that new anthropological and paleontological discoveries have significantly changed the prevailing ideas about anthropogenesis and showed the fallacy of our ideas about the human race. It is shown that the ancestors of modern man were not only Neanderthals, but also other recently discovered human species: "Floresian" and "Denisian", who lived simultaneously with Homo Sapiens in space and in time.The book was written thanks to my friend Sir Prof.Richard Peter Wade. He is a talented scientist and a wonderful friend. Writing the book was conceived a long time ago, even when I lived in the Krasnogorsk city district in the village of Gavrilkovo. The book will be interesting for a wide range of readers.

This essential gives an overview of current methods of analysis of stone artefacts ranging from attribute analysis of entire inventories to microscopic analyses of traces of use of individual artefacts. The presented approaches show the range of analysis of prehistoric stone artefacts in the German-speaking area. Simple examples of application illustrate the possibilities and limitations of each method. The content and structure of the essentials is identical to teaching units for learning methods of stone artefact analysis at the University of Tübingen in the Department of Early Prehistory.

This book is the second volume of an edited work aiming to help novice geologists to explore terrains independently. Geoscience fieldwork with focus on structural geology and tectonics has become more important in the last few years from both academic and industrial perspectives. This book also works as a resource material for batches of students or geological survey professionals undergoing training as parts of their course curriculum/training. Industry persons, on the other hand, can get a first-hand idea about what to expect in the field, in case no academic persons are available with the team. This book focuses on structural geology and tectonics and compiles terrains from several regions of the globe. This book also includes field guide chapters for primary sedimentary structures.