Prehistoric Past Revealed: The Four Billion Year History of Life on Earth

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Overview

"Prehistoric Past Revealed gives an overview history of life on Earth, including the most up-to-date research and discoveries from around the world, as it covers a wide range of fascinating topics - the fossil record, dinosaurs, extinction events, our earliest human anceslors, global environments, climate change - in a highly accessible format." Using timelines, diagrams, sidebar discussion, and breaking down complex ideas into digestible topics, Palmer shows how it has been possible to recover the story of life from the petrified remains of
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More About This Book

Overview

"Prehistoric Past Revealed gives an overview history of life on Earth, including the most up-to-date research and discoveries from around the world, as it covers a wide range of fascinating topics - the fossil record, dinosaurs, extinction events, our earliest human anceslors, global environments, climate change - in a highly accessible format." Using timelines, diagrams, sidebar discussion, and breaking down complex ideas into digestible topics, Palmer shows how it has been possible to recover the story of life from the petrified remains of shells and bones scattered through rock strata. He takes us from the present day gradually back into the "terra incognita" of the deep past with its extinct life forms, tracing human ancestry back by centering his discussion around internationally famous fossil sites. Each site reveals another episode in the history of life, as Palmer tells how the environment and life of the time have been reconstructed from its rocks and fossil remains. As it reveals the inner secrets of the Earth, Prehistoric Past Revealed also shows how these discoveries have irrevocably changed our world view.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780520248274
  • Publisher: University of California Press
  • Publication date: 3/6/2006
  • Edition description: New Edition
  • Edition number: 1
  • Pages: 176
  • Sales rank: 943,839
  • Product dimensions: 8.25 (w) x 10.75 (h) x 0.63 (d)

Meet the Author

Douglas Palmer is Lecturer at the University of Cambridge
Institute of Continuing Education and Supervisor in Natural Sciences (Geology) for Robinson College. He is the author of several books, including Fossil Revolution (2003); Neanderthal (2000), which accompanied the television series Neanderthal; Atlas of the Prehistoric World (1999); and The Marshall Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals (1999); and Life Before Man (1997).

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Table of Contents

Introduction 6
1 How the Present Reveals the Past 8
2 The Ice Age (0-1.8 Million Years Ago) 28
3 Life's Third Age (1.8-65 Million Years Ago) 48
4 Life's Middle Age (65-205 Million Years Ago) 66
5 Life's Extinction Events 86
6 Life's Early Age (205-545 Million Years Ago) 104
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