Blue Frontier: Dispatches from America's Ocean Wilderness

Book Description

In this compelling book, which Bill McKibben calls "the most comprehensive account available of the state of our nation's oceans, and the best reporting on how they got that way," veteran journalist David Helvarg fuses his passion for the sea and his reportorial savvy into a panoramic chronicle of America's maritime history and the challenges that our coastal and marine environments face today. He dives deep into the cultures of those who know the sea in myriad ways--fisherfolk, oil-rig roughnecks, hurricane forecasters, coastal developers, navy personnel, scientists, and surfers--and profiles the growing efforts by coastal citizens and local governments to restore and protect the health of our oceans in the face of wide-open development along our coasts and offshore. Demonstrating how national policymaking on the oceans is enmeshed in a welter of competing jurisdictions, he argues for strong omnibus legislation and the creation of truly protected marine wilderness reserves.
Superbly researched, urgently written, and thoroughly updated, Blue Frontier is engrossing and essential reading for anyone concerned about saving America's ocean wilderness.

Customer Reviews:

Extremely Important Work, .......2007-01-03

There is so much solid, worthwhile information in this book, including valuable insights in why Western political interests are undermining proper representation of our national oceans, coasts, and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in Congress, that I would urge those interested in the oceans (hugely more important to our future than the Amazon or globla forestry, just to make the point), to buy this book, suffer its limitations, and ultimately benefit from the wisdom and experience of the author, for whom my respect is unqualified and whole-hearted. In passing, it would probably be helpful if the first thing we all demanded was that EEZ stand for Exclusive Environmental Zone, rather than treating the oceans as a for-profit target area.

There is one other information-related observation I would make that emerged from reading this book: both the United Nations and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are clearly doing heroic and deeply important work vital to the future of the oceans--and they are doing a terrible job of communicating the basic information about the oceans and their work to the larger world of voters and concerned citizens. What really came home to me as I reflected on what to emphasize in this review is that there is a very wide, almost impenetratable, barrier between what the UN and NOAA know, and what is being communicated to the citizens who have the right to know (they paid for that information with their tax dollars) and the need to know and the desire to know. From this I would say that the next big step for those who would seek to save the oceans, is to demand that all UN and US Government information paid for by the taxpayer be put online henceforth, available at no further cost to the public. It is this information, the bullets and beans of the information war between corporate and citizen interests, that will decide the future of the oceans.

Great Book On The Plight Of The Oceans surrounding North America!.......2006-11-05

David Helvarg has done a great service for all who cherish the ocean, by showing the devastation mankind has done, is doing, and unfortunately will continue doing (in less the masses become educated on just what is happening) to all the life forms in this realm. It's not all "downer" reading, but also David gives us glimmers of "hope", and some practical solutions for positive change. This book couldn't have been revised at a better time, as of this week (!0/29 thru 11/4) a major study published in the November 3 issue of the journal Science, published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society, warns that the world's wild-caught seafood fisheries could collapse by 2048 if current commercial fishing patterns continue. This is no surprise to anyone who's read David's work. Thanks again David Helvarg for writing such an important book, and also for your tireless conservation mission for the world's oceans.

Prehistoric Journey: A History of Life on Earth

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Intriguing for newcomers to the subject.

Prehistoric Journey: A History of Life on Earth
Kirk R. Johnson , and Richard Stucky
Manufacturer: Fulcrum Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 1555915531

Customer Reviews:

Intriguing for newcomers to the subject........2006-09-24

PREHISTORIC JOURNEY: A HISTORY OF LIFE ON EARTH blends photos of fine fossils with a written introduction to the history of life on earth, arranged chronologically for easy access and logical progression. The color photos and drawings come from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science's eight prehistoric habitat dioramas, and hold eye-catching, colorful displays especially intriguing for newcomers to the subject.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Panbiogeography: Tracking the History of Life (Oxford Biogeography Series)

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Panbiogeography: Not a recipe for Biogeography
Panbiogeography: contribution or confusion?
Panbiogeography: confusion or contribution?
Panbiogeography revisited: tracing old tracks

Panbiogeography: Tracking the History of Life (Oxford Biogeography Series)
Robin C. Craw , and John R. Grehan
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

Microscopes & Microsocopy | Experiments, Instruments & Measurement | Science | Subjects | Books

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Natural History | Nature & Ecology | Science | Subjects | Books

Book Description

Biogeography is a diverse subject, traditionally focusing on the distribution of plants and animals at different taxonomic levels, past and present. Modern biogeography also puts emphasis on the ecological character of the world vegetation types, and on the evolving relationship between humans and their environment. Panbiogeography describes a new synthesis of sciences of plant and animal distribution. The book emphasizes that the geographical patterns of animal and plant distribution contribute directly to the understanding and interpretation of evolutionary history. Geographic location is reintroduced as a critical element of both biogeography and evolutionary biology. The authors present chapters exploring the roles of geology, ecology, evolution in panbiogeographic theory, and introduce new methods, modes of classification, and ways of measuring biodiversity.

Customer Reviews:

Panbiogeography: Not a recipe for Biogeography.......2000-01-04

Books: Biogeography

Panbiogeography : Tracking the History of Life (Oxford Biogeography Series No 11) by John R. Grehan, Michael J. Heads, Robin C. Craw

Long after the Middle Ages a certain Equivalence of knighthood and a Doctor's degree was generally Acknowledged...For the history of Civilization the perennial dream of a Sublime life has the value of a very Important reality.

Huizinga, J. - The Waning of the Middle Ages, 1924 - quoted on the front page of Space, Time, Form: The Biological Synthesis, by Leon Croizat, 1962.

Like righteous knights, the authors of Panbiogeography are on a quest to save the discipline of panbiogeography: to bring it out from relative obscurity into the modern world of biogeography. Christened by Leon Croizat in the 1958, panbiogeography uses the geographic distribution of all biota, from plants to insects to vertebrates, to create hypotheses for historical biogeographic patterns. By a system of "tracks", "nodes", "main massings", and "baselines", Croizat and his followers mapped disjunct distributions and used correlations to define historical ranges. Largely due to his abject rejection of dispersal as a mechanism for vicariant patterns of biota, Croizat's theories were discounted as extreme (Cox, 1999). The main tool of panbiogeographers is the "track", a line drawn on a map that links localities of a taxa. The "track" represents a hypothesis of previous geographic connection. Although Panbiogeography is full of many examples of tracks drawn on maps, some issues are left unclear. For instance, what taxonomic level should tracks connect? The taxa selected in this book appear arbitrary; they use both taxa with similar generic and familiar relations in order to draw tracks. Furthermore, how discrete is the geographic region described by the points at the end of a track? The scale of tracks vary from continental to discrete local scales. On the other hand, the authors illustrate that the track may function well as a heuristic device, simply drawing a line on a map may represent the possible relationship between biota between two geographic areas. Grehan and Craw, as proponents of this concept appear to believe that these tracks and especially those tracks of many taxa over-layed, called "generalized tracts", represent vicariant events, rather than simply dispersal of individuals and subsequent speciation. Although this issue was contentious in the 1970's (Dipersalists vs. Vicariants), this book fails to bridge the gap between these two views. Instead, while claiming to recognize the importance of both forces, it simply reiterates the vicariant viewpoint.

Grehan and Craw attempt to revitalize the discipline of panbiogeography by incorporating cladistical analysis. The book is full of case studies of suggestive corroboration of phylogenetic systematics with previous hypotheses postulated by Croizat and earlier vicariant biogeographers. Although these examples span various phyla, they generally emphasize morphological systematics. In order to support the claims of vicariant biogeographic patterns, the book would benefit from additional examples of recent molecular systematic findings.

Throughout the book, many examples of faunal and floral disjunctions are correlated with geological (i.e. tectonic) patterns. It is postulated that geological events have caused vicariant distributions. Although compelling in the sense that this represents a mechanism for the patterns of disjunct biota, inferring that this is the only mechanism is nonsensical. Dispersal may function as an equally important factor in distribution. Even so, the emphasis on locality, on where an animal is found, is one of the main strengths of this book: on some level, systematics should take geography in to account in order to determine phylogeny.

Panbiogeography is written purportedly to assist in the understanding of this discipline. Even so, the language is opaque and appears purposefully inaccessible. Furthermore, the authors could improve understanding by clearly defining and illustrating the concepts and methodology in the beginning of the book; it is in the 5th chapter that the authors approach the methodology of this approach.

True to the very nature of panbiogeography, Panbiogeography gives examples of disjunct distributions for varied species from cotton, to starlings, to weevils. While this a data appears to be well researched, the conclusions drawn are not evident. Conclusions are made from correlations. While hypotheses are clearly stated, they are not tested, only corroborated. Comparative evidence alone is insufficient to evaluate a hypothesis. While this style often broaches upon a rant, these case studies are not uninteresting. Demonstrating that dissimilar fauna and flora have similar vicariant distributions, is inherently interesting. Unfortunately, it is difficult to disentangle any bias from selection of fauna and flora.

Finally, while Grehan and Craw imply that they encourage others to use panbiogeography, they have not made this easy. The greatest disappointment in this book is that the authors do not explicitly present their methodology. The maps, adorned with crossing lines and circled regions, appear arbitrary constructions instead of the well-honed result of careful and discerning research. One is left with the impression that one needs faith in order to use this method - much like the mythic knights of the middle ages on a religious quest to obtain the holy grail.

Cox,B. 1998. From generalized tracks to ocean basins - how useful is Panbiogeography? J. Biogeog., 25:813-828.

Panbiogeography: contribution or confusion?.......1999-12-14

Do you know a genius when you see one? Of course: geniuses are disheveled, eccentric men who shun the world while quietly hatching ideas of global consequence, or so most of us believe. Hence the reverence for the scraggly, hoary image of Einstein, even though it was the younger, attractive man who sat in the patent office and hashed out relativity. Consider Leon Croizat, polyglot recluse biogeographer, who spent most of his life in self-imposed academic exile in Venezuela, turning piles of often erroneous distribution maps into frightful tomes with titles like Space, Time, Form: The Biological Synthesis (1). Croizat was one of a handful of scientists in the 1970's who helped to turn the tide in biogeography, away from anecdotal natural history, to quantitative and reproducible methods (2). However, for the past two decades, most biogeographers have been content to give him that much credit and have not looked much further into his work. The authors of Panbiogeography do go further, and make a case for the revival of Croizat's peculiar methods. Croizat's major innovation was to compare the distributions of a variety of species, regardless of their individual ages or dispersal abilities. He connected species occurrences on a map with lines that he called tracks, and then overlaid the tracks from multiple species. When enough overlaid tracks lined up, Croizat called the resulting pattern a generalized track, and deduced from it information about the ancient distribution of the biota that is now seen in fragments. When Croizat found fragments to be separated widely geographically, he placed a "baseline" in the intervening space, which identified a major event in Earth history that caused the disjunction of the groups. If, for example, large areas of diversity (called "main massings") of a particular organism are found in Western Africa and South America, we can place a baseline in the South Atlantic, and conclude that it was that ocean that split the groups. Grehan et. al use Croizat's methodology to examine a number of problems in biogeography, and they choose some intriguing case studies. For example, they perform an in-depth treatment of the current and ancient biota of Africa, showing that many current communities spread across the globe are actually the remains of an ancient unified community that was altered by changing climate and geology. The effect of the shifting environment is nicely visualized with tracks drawn between the far-ranging communities. However, the authors consistently fail to let us in on the specific methods that they use to create their maps and tracks. Why are some tracks laid one way and not another? At times it seems that all points of occurrence should be connected with so-called "minimum spanning trees," while, at other times, tracks seem to be drawn solely in accord with a hypothesis of vicariance. Mysterious references are made to graph theory, but the use of sophisticated mathematics is never made clear. A lack of explicit methodology gets to the heart of the book's main flaw. The authors claim that panbiogeography is a rigorous and quantifiable approach to understanding the distributions of organisms, yet we are never shown that panbiogeography, as a research program, is able to produce a testable hypotheses. One of the main features of this new science is the baseline, which identifies an important, vicariant geographical feature. That feature is identified a priori as important, so we then have a baseline and some evidence of distribution on either side of the baseline. Should we then test the validity of that baseline assumption? Should we look at individual occurrences to see if they support the baseline? If so, the authors of Panbiogeography give us no clue as to how that would be done. A lack of rigor in explaining their methodology might be more forgivable if the authors came to some conclusions that we might imagine were unique products of panbiogeography. They claim that the use of baselines should force us to reorganize our view of the world's biogeographic realms into a map of ocean basins, since those basins represent the most significant geographic events in the history of speciation on Earth. They also use tracks and baselines to make a case for the Western United States being the product of a myriad of tectonic rafts that smashed into the west coast, possibly introducing new organisms with each raft. The west coast idea is not new, and the ocean basin idea could have been conceived using a knowledge of Earth's history, with no tracks or baselines in sight. One reason that Croizats' work was revolutionary was that it was independent of natural history, and all the ambiguities that it can contain. A knowledge of peculiar species biology is not needed to draw tracks. For better or worse, natural history no longer dominates the biological sciences, so it is hard to imagine that Grehan et al. see their primary contribution to their field as being one of precision. However, it is equally hard to imagine exactly what they might suppose their greatest contribution to be. If they have something in mind, they do not make it obvious in Panbiogeography.

References 1. Croizat, L. 1894. Space, Time, Form: The Biological Synthesis. Caracas, Venezuela. 2. Brown, J. H. & Lomolino, M. V. 1998. Biogeography. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, Inc.

Panbiogeography: confusion or contribution?.......1999-12-14

References 1. Croizat, L. 1894. Space, Time, Form: The Biological Synthesis. Caracas, Venezuela. 2. Brown, J. H. & Lomolino, M. V. 1998. Biogeography. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, Inc.

Panbiogeography revisited: tracing old tracks.......1999-12-12

As in most fields in the natural sciences, prevailing approaches and the dominant paradigms in the field of biogeography have shifted radically, and back again, in the century or more of its existence. Judging by the material presented in recent biogeography textbooks, for example, Cox and Moore's (1993) Biogeography, An Ecological and Evolutionary Approach, and Brown and Lomolino's (1998) Biogeography, biogeographers generally recognize the value and strengths of using several different approaches to forming biogeographical hypotheses and evaluating them. The panbiogeography approach, although never widely accepted as a primary approach, is always addressed and given fair credence. Craw, Grehan and Heads, in their new book Panbiogeography: Tracking the History of Life (1999), uniquely attempt to postulate the panbiogeographical approach as the only real "correct" approach to biographical analysis, and in doing so, take a stand that is contrary to biogeography's pattern heretofore. Panbiogeography was originally proposed by Croizat in the 1950s as a method that emphasizes the primacy of spatial analysis of the distribution of taxa, in preference to historical or systematic hypotheses or understanding of taxonomic relationships. Due in part to the timing of Croizat's treatises which came out prior to the proposal and general acceptance of plate tectonic theory, the approach generated great controversy among biogeographers. Essentially Croizat was proposing a method that could generate hypotheses that no known mechanism could explain. The approach fell further out of favor after plate tectonics was accepted because of Croizat's singular unwillingness to accept it as a viable mechanism. Panbiogeography takes the following basic approach. Using databases containing distributions of taxa, panbiogeographers identify tracks (lines that connect related taxa), nodes (points of intersection of tracks), generalized tracks (locations where many tracks overlap spatially), and baselines (locations where tracks cross major geological or geomorphic features, usually oceans). Using these devices as heuristics, hypotheses are then generated regarding the historical, phylogenetic, ecological or other relationships among the taxa examined. Cox and Moore criticize the approach by saying that the technique stops there and does not go back and incorporate known taxonomic history, geology, or other information that is not exclusively spatial. However, it is not clear that this was the initial intent of the approach. Craw et al. do not propose an essentially different definition for panbiogeography, and their basic premise is perhaps useful and insightful. However, they have chosen to take a rather defensive position in presumed anticipation of an attack against the approach based on historic biases. For this reason, readers are forced to wade through a rather dense display of repetitively overstated points in order to glean the useful messages in the book. The authors explain the concepts initiated by Croizat, those described above, with sufficient detail to allow the uninitiated to attempt the approach. They provide a number of detailed case examples to which they apply these methods that result in a large number of images and graphical representations of the kinds of heuristic devices the methods may produce. In addition, they rightfully point out some weaknesses in the extensive dependency of some biogeographical approaches on other unproven data compilations, such as geomorphological, systematic, and historical hypotheses, in that using these hypotheses as "data" necessarily compound any error in data analysis. The fundamental message of their treatise is that spatial data alone are sufficient, and can be used operationally, to generate biogeographical hypotheses separate from any other kind of pattern analysis. Furthermore, the generation of biogeographical hypotheses by this method can then inform other pattern analysis approaches, such as phylogenetics, in an unbiased and uncircular fashion. These notions are valuable statements to be made about approaches to biogeography. This reviewer feels that these points could have been made in a short article, without the attempts that seem to have been made to discredit other biogeographical approaches. In including extensive statement of how this approach improves on other methods, the authors often seem to contradict themselves and generally state that the methods of panbiogeography can achieve what it is not clear that it can. For example, the authors initially name what they describe as the three main schools of biogeographical thought: faunal regions or centers of origin, vicariance and cladistics, and island biogeography. However, they never revisit these categories per se. They proceed to explicitly compare only dispersalist and vicariance approaches to biogeography. Further, the description of dispersalist hypotheses concludes with a rather heavy handed dismissal of the mechanism altogether. They propose that panbiogeography can resolve the "vicariance/dispersalist dilemma" with a proper understanding of what they term "mobilist" and "immobilist" phases, which seem to amount to the proposal that dispersal is never a significant mechanism in biogeography but that it all comes down to vicariance. In a later chapter, they explain the details of using a cladistic approach to understand vicariance in biogeographical distributions, which is a method that is well accepted and not novel in biogeography today. The claim that this approach is a subset of panbiogeography, and one of many unbiased advantages of the school of thought in general. However, they fail to offer other examples of approaches. Similarly, authors emphasize that the panbiogeographical approach is a hypotheses testing approach, which is unique among biogeographical approaches. This point is labored in many chapters under many headings, and yet they fail to offer an operational approach to testing a single hypothesis generated by the methods they describe. Overall, the thesis of this book is potentially useful to biographers in general. Additionally, many of the details of the panbiographical method are explained in such a way that new users may derive some utility from them. But overall, the excessive verbiage, defensive tone, and contradictory statements make the book less than "required reading" for biogeographers.

History of the Earth: Geology, Ecology, and Biology

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History of the Earth: Geology, Ecology, and Biology
Yuri Castelfranchi , and Nico Pitrelli
Manufacturer: Barron's Educational Series
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | History & Historical Fiction | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

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History of Technology | Technology | Science | Subjects | Books

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Earth Science | Science & Technology | Teens | Subjects | Books

Ecology | Science & Technology | Teens | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0764156802

Book Description

Attractively illustrated with color illustrations, diagrams, and photos, this volume presents clear, concise, short-entry descriptions and explanations of hundreds of topics relating to the earth sciences. Subjects are described under five major headings: 1. The young Earth, which describes the Earth as part of the solar system, its origins, mineral composition and the development of its atmosphere, oceans, land formations, and earliest simple life forms. 2. The explosion of life, which describes the evolution of plants, life in the oceans, amphibians, and insects. 3. The age of dinosaurs, which presents descriptions of various species from the Mesozoic through the Triassic eras. 4. The age of mammals, which describes animals we see on earth today, as well as birds, marsupials, and other animals. 5. Human beings, which describes our place among the EarthÂ's other life forms, and our development of technology and cultures within the greater ecological system. History of the Earth is a valuable reference volume for young readers, and is sure to find a place in school and public libraries, as well as in the home.

A Short History of Planet Earth: Mountains, Mammals, Fire, and Ice (Wiley Popular Science)

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Not what I expected
Natural History in a Nutshell
A Good Popular Book on Earth History and Geology
clear, comprehensive and concise
Well organized, well written! Heir to Carl Sagan?

A Short History of Planet Earth: Mountains, Mammals, Fire, and Ice (Wiley Popular Science)
J. D. MacDougall
Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Earth Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0471148059

Book Description

"A splendid introduction to geology and paleontology for the lay reader. To compress Earth's history into a single, lucidly written volume is a major achievement."--Publishers Weekly, starred review.

"Few people have both the knowledge and the writing ability to capture such a long and varied history in a compelling manner. In A Short History of Planet Earth, J.D. Macdougal demonstrates that he is one of the few."--Earth.

This exhilarating survey of the four and half billion years of Earth's history charts both the geological and biological history of the planet. It moves from the origin of the earth's iron core to the formation of today's seven continents, and from the primordial building blocks of life to the evolution of the human form.

J.D. MACDOUGALL (San Diego, California) is a professor of earth science at the Scripps Oceanographic Institute of the University of California, San Diego, the premier center for earth science research in the U.S. His work has appeared in Scientific American and the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology.

Customer Reviews:

Not what I expected.......2006-03-10

I expected this book to be about its title, but it was only half that. The other half was explaining geological techniques- something I couldn't have cared less about while I was reading this book. I was and am still interested in the geologic and evolutionary history of earth. When I bought this book that's what I thought I was getting. Instead, about half the pages were taken up with geologic tools, such as carbon dating. I wasn't interested in how you determined the age of a rock, but only the age of the rock and what that implied.

Also, at the end (the last chapter) he talked about the disasters that are about to occur, unless all of our money is funnelled into geologists pockets, so they can tell us what to be afraid of.

Overall, the book was okay because it delivered on at least part of what I wanted to know, but spent too much time on saying "look at all the cool things I can do". Just tell me about earth's history, not how you determined it.

Natural History in a Nutshell.......2006-01-17

The general reader can hardly do better than J.D. Macdougall's concise history of our planet. Helpfully organized in chronological order, this work synthesizes the best current thinking by scientists in an easily understood fashion regarding our geological past. The time charts at the beginning of each eon discription keep the reader oriented to the events relationships. The use and choice of charts & graphs prove helpful without being overdone. The author's detour into the techincal aspects of dating rocks and plate techtonics could be a bit boring to the general reader, but are situated in the text so that they can be skipped easily.The author brings you right up to the present day and delivers some thoughts as to how the cycles of the past may effect our future. I feel the author is very impartial when addressing "hotbutton" issues such as global warming, etc. There is also a helpful glossary in the back and suggestions for further reading for those whose appetite on this subject is wetted.

A Good Popular Book on Earth History and Geology.......2005-12-23

Ok - as a geologist myself, I love to read books on geology even if they cover a lot of material I already know. But this book surprised me in being very thorough on earth history including many very recent scientific discoveries and developments that I have only seen in scientific journals. He does a very nice job of covering the breath of earth history without being overly technical for the lay person, but yet engrossing enough for the professional geologist. Hey even we cannot know everything in the geology world - thus the reason I read this.

MacDougall does a good job of providing the reader with both the rock history but also the history of life on earth, from the earliest bacterial forms through the amazing trilobites, dinosaurs and trees and grasses and such. He also does a good job of relating many of the geologic features around the US and the world to plate tectonics and the interplay of the environment that produces the rocks and features we see today

For those budding young rock hounds or the adult wanting to brush up on an area that you could use more info on, or perhaps a geologist who wants to brush up on their earth history, I whole-heartedly recommend this book.

clear, comprehensive and concise.......2005-06-13

This book is not only a great way for the layman to get an understanding of the history of our planet, it's also a testament to the way science works. MacDougall writes clearly, avoids jargon, and doesn't hesitate to explain the reasoning behind statements about events in geological history. He doesn't leave loose ends nor does he make unsupported statements. He draws together different threads of evidence, allowing the reader to see how ideas come together to reinforce a statement about what happened millions or billions of years ago. He seems to anticipate questions a reader might ask and answers them. Far from a boring account, you could get excited not only about geology but about science in general from this book. I've read it twice and keep it on the shelf for future reference. Many drawings give clarity to the written account. There is no attempt to entertain the reader with gratuitous humor, so common in explanatory books these days. This isn't "for dummies" or "an idiot's guide." Instead, your intelligence, curiosity and scepticism are assumed. It isn't easy for creatures who live less than 100 years to grasp events that occur over millions of years but I found this book allowed me to conceptualize the earth's 4.5 billion year story in a very satisfying way.

Well organized, well written! Heir to Carl Sagan?.......1999-01-30

My title above pretty much says it all! There is a good flow to the way one paragraph flows into another. I am a layman with an interest in the integrated "big systems" of science--how processes studied by several disciplines come together and attempt to explain how our planet works. This book does that to the point I may want to go on to more specialized, in-depth works. Chapter Ten, "Global Catastrophes" is the clearest account I have ever read of mass extinction theories. I had not realized that the now very famous K-T boundary event of 65 million years ago (the dinosaur killer) is the only extinction event uncovered in the last 600 million years where the "smoking gun" of extraterrestrial iridium can be found in enough abundence to point to a comet or asteroid impact. I had thought that there was evidence to show that there were incoming impactors every 26 million years or so and that this had caused other mass extinctions including the biggest one at the Permian-Triassic boundary some 250 million years ago. These other mass extinctions may very well have come about because of purely earth-bound processes such as plate tectonics and rising and falling sea levels. Fascinating stuff to say the least! Drawings and diagrams are well done and to the point also. I recommend MacDougall as heir apparent to the Late, Great Carl Sagan as a popularizer of the great realm of science! Enjoy!

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Armageddon: Der Einschlag
Ralf Blasius , Nadja Podbregar , H. Frater , and S. Schneider
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Astronomy | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

Comets, Meteors & Asteroids | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Nature & Ecology | Science | Subjects | Books

Reference | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books

German | Foreign Language Nonfiction | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Nonfiction | German | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books

Professional & Technical | German | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books

All German Books | German | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 3540376569

Book Description

Das Begleitbuch zur gleichnamigen ZDF-Dokumentation "Armageddon â€“ Der Einschlag" schildert die HintergrÃ¼nde einer globalen Katastrophe: Vor 65 Millionen Jahren setzte ein Asteroideneinschlag der Herrschaft der Dinosaurier ein Ende. Was aber wÃ¤re, wenn ein solcher "Dinokiller" heute auf der Erde einschlagen wÃ¼rde?

Das Buch folgt den Auswirkungen eines solchen Impakts â€“ von den unmittelbaren Folgen des Einschlags bis zu den langfristigen VerÃ¤nderungen der Tier- und Pflanzenwelt, aber auch der menschlichen Gesellschaft.

FÃ¼r Laien verstÃ¤ndlich und anschaulich, aber dennoch wissenschaftlich fundiert, gibt das Buch einen Einblick in die Erkenntnisse Ã¼ber die Folgen eines Meteoriteneinschlags. Zehn hochrangige internationale Wissenschaftler unterschiedlicher Fachgebiete sind an der Entstehung von Buch und Film beteiligt und kommen in Interviews und Kommentaren zu Wort.

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Coral Reef (Images Ser)
Michael George
Manufacturer: Child's World
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Biology | Science, Nature & How It Works | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

Zoology | Science, Nature & How It Works | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

History of Technology | Technology | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0886824303

Early Evolutionary History of Planktonic Foraminifera

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Early Evolutionary History of Planktonic Foraminifera
M.K. BouDagher-Fadel , F.T. Banner , and J.E. Whittaker
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0412758202

Book Description

The planktonic foraminifera have, for over forty years, been recognised to be the most valuable stratigraphic indices for marine sediments of Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic age. However, their evolutionary origins in the Jurassic and their development, morphological evolution and systematics in the Early Cretaceous have, until now, been poorly understood.
This book illustrates for the first time all the published taxa known from the Jurassic, and clarifies and corrects their taxonomy.
The taxonomy and stratigraphic distribution of the Early Cretaceous planktonic foraminifera are also revised, and all of the published species are illustrated, using the type specimens. The systematics of the Early Cretaceous forms are clearly set out, both for species and for genera: their evolution is explained as well as the ecological importance of the morphological changes they have undergone. Moreover, by analogy with the Recent Globigerinacea the palaeoenvironmental significance of these Early Cretaceous taxa is discussed.
The book deals with 136 species belonging to 26 genera, five of which - Compactogerina, Haeuslerina (of the Jurassic), Lilliputianelloides; Claviblowiella and Planohedbergella (of the Cretaceous) - are new. Range charts are provided, as are extensive keys for the more important genera.
Superbly illustrated, with 65 high-quality plates, this work will be an invaluable reference for all micropalaeontolists and biostratigraphers worldwide, with many species illustrated by SEM for the first time. This is the first book to collate all known information on the early evolutionary origins of the planktonic foraminifera.

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hawaii's reefs

Hawaiian Reefs: A Natural History Guide
Ron Russo
Manufacturer: Wavecrest Pubns
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Natural History | Nature & Ecology | Science | Subjects | Books

Reference | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0963569600

Customer Reviews:

hawaii's reefs.......2000-09-06

This book is very informative on general species a snorkeler or diver might encounter. The book gives pictures, names, and general information about the animals. This book covers coral, invertebrates, and fish. It also shows some rare species that are rarely encountered. This book is a definite buy if you're looking for good knowledge. ENJOY!

The Late Devonian Mass Extinction (The Critical Moments and Perspectives in Paleobiology and Earth History Series)

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The facts don't support his theory

The Late Devonian Mass Extinction (The Critical Moments and Perspectives in Paleobiology and Earth History Series)
George R. McGhee
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Genetics | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

Organic | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

Reference | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0231075049

Book Description

-- Choice

Customer Reviews:

The facts don't support his theory.......2001-07-11

As with the rest of the books in the Critical Moments series this one goes into exhaustive detail of the timeline of the event in question, the effect on each different Phyla, global evidence and local ramifications. This part of the book is up to the exceptional standards of the rest of the series.

Where the author goes wrong is in his belief in that this extinction event was the result of a meteor impact. Just taking the data presented in this book shows that the theory doesn't hold up. The timing doesn't work (the event took over a million years). Isotopic (iridium) data doesn't support it. The impact craters are too small and at the wrong points in time. The pattern of extinction does not match what would be expected from a major impact event. The list goes on and on. The author tries gamely to explain away the irregularities but by the end of the book I found it clear that the extinction was almost without question not the result of an impact.

That said this is a good book. The author covers the time period and the event in exceptional detail and does cover many of the other competing theories very well. It's just unfortunate that the author could not set aside his cherished preconceptions. But perhaps that is a tough thing to ask for any of us.

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