Life on a young planet : the first three billion years of evolution on earth Cover Image

Book

Life on a young planet : the first three billion years of evolution on earth / Andrew H. Knoll.

Summary:

Australopithecines, dinosaurs, trilobites--such fossils conjure up images of lost worlds filled with vanished organisms. But in the full history of life, ancient animals, even the trilobites, form only the half-billion-year tip of a nearly four-billion-year iceberg. Andrew Knoll explores the deep history of life from its origins on a young planet to the incredible Cambrian explosion, presenting a compelling new explanation for the emergence of biological novelty. The very latest discoveries in paleontology are integrated with emerging insights from molecular biology and earth system science to forge a broad understanding of how the biological diversity that surrounds us came to be. In a new preface, Knoll describes how the field has broadened and deepened in the decade since the book's original publication.

Record details

ISBN: 9780691165530
ISBN: 069116553X
Physical Description: xv, 277 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 22 cm.
Publisher: Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2015.

Content descriptions

General Note:	"With a new preface by the author."
Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	ch. 1 In the Beginning? -- ch. 2 The Tree of Life -- ch. 3 Life's Signature in Ancient Rocks -- ch. 4 The Earliest Glimmers of Life -- ch. 5 The Emergence of Life -- ch. 6 The Oxygen Revolution -- ch. 7 The Cyanobacteria, Life's Microbial Heroes -- ch. 8 The Origins of Eukaryotic Cells -- ch. 9 Fossils of Early Eukaryotes -- ch. 10 Animals Take the Stage -- ch. 11 Cambrian Redux -- ch. 12 Dynamic Earth, Permissive Ecology -- ch. 13 Paleontology ad Astra.