Life on a Young Planet : The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth - Updated Edition / Andrew H. Knoll.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Knoll, Andrew H., author.

Contributor:

Knoll, Andrew H.

Series:

Princeton science library.

Princeton Science Library ; 35

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Life--Origin.

Life.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (302 p.)

Edition:

Updated edition with a New preface by the author

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2015]

Language Note:

English

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--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 four billion years in the making.In a new preface, Knoll describes how the field has broadened and deepened in the decade since the book's original publication.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface to the New Paperback Edition

Prologue

Chapter 1. In the Beginning?

Chapter 2. The Tree of Life

Chapter 3. Life's Signature in Ancient Rocks

Chapter 4. The Earliest Glimmers of Life

Chapter 5. The Emergence of Life

Chapter 6. The Oxygen Revolution

Chapter 7. The Cyanobacteria, Life's Microbial Heroes

Chapter 8. The Origins of Eukaryotic Cells

Chapter 9. Fossils of Early Eukaryotes

Chapter 10. Animals Take the Stage

Chapter 11. Cambrian Redux

Chapter 12. Dynamic Earth, Permissive Ecology

Chapter 13. Paleontology ad Astra

Epilogue

Further Reading

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Phi Beta Kappa Book Award in Science, 2003

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Mai 2019)

ISBN:

0-691-00978-3

1-4008-6604-9

OCLC:

903962752