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

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Knoll, Andrew H.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Life--Origin.

Life.

Physical Description:

x, 277 pages, 8 pages of plates : illustrations (some color), map ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, [2003]

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 4-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 -- many of them made by the author and his students -- 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. Moving from Siberia to Namibia to the Bahamas. Knoll shows how life and environment have evolved together through Earth's history. Innovations in biology have helped shape our air and oceans, and, just as surely, environmental change has influenced the course of evolution, repeatedly closing off opportunities for some species while opening avenues for others.

Readers go into the field to confront fossils, enter the lab to discern the inner workings of cells, and alight on Mars to ask how our terrestrial experience can guide exploration for life beyond our planet. Along the way, Knoll brings us up-to-date on some of science's hottest questions, from the oldest fossils and claims of life beyond the Earth to the hypothesis of global glaciation and Knoll's own unifying concept of "permissive ecology." In laying bare Earth's deepest biological roots, Life on a Young Planet helps us understand our own place in the universe -- and our responsibility as stewards of a world 4 billion years in the making.

Contents:

Chapter 1 In the Beginning? 6

Chapter 2 The Tree of Life 16

Chapter 3 Life's Signature in Ancient Rocks 32

Chapter 4 The Earliest Glimmers of Life 50

Chapter 5 The Emergence of Life 72

Chapter 6 The Oxygen Revolution 89

Chapter 7 The Cyanobacteria, Life's Microbial Heroes 108

Chapter 8 The Origins of Eukaryotic Cells 122

Chapter 9 Fossils of Early Eukaryotes 139

Chapter 10 Animals Take the Stage 161

Chapter 11 Cambrian Redux 179

Chapter 12 Dynamic Earth, Permissive Ecology 206

Chapter 13 Paleontology ad Astra 225.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [247]-267) and index.

ISBN:

0691009783

OCLC:

50604948

Online:

Publisher description