Trilobite!: Eyewitness to Evolution - Couverture rigide

Fortey, Richard

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0002570122 ISBN 13 : 9780002570121

Editeur : HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2000

Synopsis

’Trilobites have all the glamour of the dinosaur and twice its endurance. What we need, instead of Walking with Dinosaurs is something like Swimming with Trilobites. Everyone must grasp the bigger story. You start with something tiny, like trilobites, and finish up looking at how the world was made.’ RICHARD FORTEY

Richard Fortey is one of Britain’s leading popular scientists. Life: An Unauthorised Biography, was short-listed for the Rhone Poulenc prize and has been reprinted five times. In all he writes, Fortey displays extraordinary range, delight and descriptive gifts which make complicated scientific facts and concepts not only easy to understand but a delight to absorb.

Trilobite is an unashamedly trilobito-centric view of the world unravelling the history of the exotic, crustacean-like animals which dominated the seas for three hundred million years. These arthropods witnessed continents move, mountain chains elevated and eroded; they survived ice ages and volcanic eruptions, evolving and adapting exquisitely to their environment. They watched through their crystal eyes whilst life evolved. Their own evolution calibrated geological time itself.

In Trilobite, Fortey ponders the great cycles of earth history, the durability of stone compared with the transience of human life, and the fecundity of evolution. With his expert guidance, we begin to understand how trilobites reveal the mechanism and pattern of evolution from their legacy in the rocks. Through the eyes of the trilobites, he allows us glimpses of former worlds as exotic in their geography as in their life forms. This is time travel with the guidance of master.

Structured like a detective story, this is a light, but highly informative account of the wonders of scientific discovery.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Richard Fortey retired from his position as senior palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in 2006. He is the author of several books, including ‘Fossils: A Key to the Past’, ‘The Hidden Landscape’ which won The Natural World Book of the Year in 1993, ‘Life: An Unauthorised Biography’, ‘Trilobite!’ and ‘The Earth: An Intimate History’. He has been elected to be President of the Geological Society of London for its bicentennial year of 2007, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
• Date d'édition: 2000
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0002570122
• ISBN 13: 9780002570121
• Reliure: Relié
• Numéro d'édition: 1
• Nombre de pages: 256
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: WordUnited GmbH; distribution@wordunited.com; ; Theodorstrasse 105; DUSSELDORF; 40472; Allemagne