Description

It greatly puzzled Darwin that the most ancient rocks, those dating before the Cambrian period, seemed to be barren of fossils when he would expect them to be teeming with life. Decades of work by modern paleontologists have indeed brought us amazing fossils from far beyond the Cambrian, from the depths of the Precambrian. Yet hidden in these depths is a great mystery--something happened around the Cambrian to dramatically speed up evolution and produce many of the early forms of animals we know today--and scientists don't really know what provided that spark.

In this vibrantly written book, Martin Brasier, a leading paleontologist working on early life, takes us into the deep, dark ages of the Precambrian to explore Darwin's Lost World. Brasier is a master storyteller. As he explains what we now know of the strange creatures of these truly ancient times--540 million years ago--he takes readers to many far flung places around the globe, interweaving an engaging account of cutting-edge science with colorful and amusing anecdotes from his expeditions to Siberia, Outer Mongolia, and other remote places. As he shows, decoding the evidence in these ancient rocks--piecing together the puzzle of the Cambrian Explosion--is very challenging work. What they have discovered is that, just at the beginning of the Cambrian period, animals (mostly worms) began burrowing into the mud. Why they suddenly began burrowing, and how this might have changed the atmosphere, may be important clues to the mystery. Brasier gives his own take on the emerging answers, as one of the leading players in the field.

A richly readable account of far-flung expeditions and leading-edge science, Darwin's Lost World is a must-have book for all natural history buffs.

Features

• The quest of scientists since Darwin to solve a case he found 'inexplicable' - the lack of fossils in rocks before the Cambrian, over 540 million years old
• An account of the earliest known animals - the enigmatic Ediacaran creatures, and the small shelly fossils - that have hardly ever been described before to a lay audience. (Books by Gould and Conway-Morris focus on the more famous, and much later animals of the Burgess Shale.)
• A personal account of the piecing together of clues about the lead up to the Cambrian from an Oxford scientist involved at the forefront of work on early life
• A richly readable and engaging account of the trials and tribulations of expeditions to remote places such as Siberia and Outer Mongolia
• Tackles deep and still unresolved questions of evolution: when and how did animals evolve and what drove the great evolutionary innovations of the 'Cambrian Explosion'? These are areas of intense and exciting current research and Brasier here gives his own take on the emerging answers, as one of the leading players in the field

Reviews

"A rollicking account of [Brasier's] adventures seeking an answer to a question that vexed Charles Darwin."
--Library Journal

Product Details

288 pages; 20 integrated B&W halftones, 8pp color plate section; 5-1/2 x 8-1/2; ISBN13: 978-0-19-954897-2ISBN10: 0-19-954897-8

About the Author(s)