Earth and Life

Series foreword.-
Series preface.-
Dedication.-
Preface.-
Introduction.-
Authors, their addresses and contributions.-
Articles of a general nature.-
-Phanerozoic marine biodiversity: a fresh look at data, methods, patterns and processes.-
-Coordinated stasis reconsidered: a perspective after fifteen years.-
-Whilst this planet has gone cycling on: what role for periodic astronomical phenomena in large-scale patterns in the history of life?.-
-Climate change through time.-
-Development of intertidal biotas through Phanerozoic time.-
-Marine sclerobiofacies: encrusting and endolithic communities on shells through time and space.-
-Brachiopods and their auloporid epibionts in the Devonian of Boulonnais (France).-
-Fossil fish taphonomy and the contribution of microfossils to documenting Devonian vertebrate history.-
-The Messel Pit fossil site - the legacy of the environment and life of the Eocene.-
Evolution exemplified by specific phyla or classes.-
-Evolutionary scenario of the early history of the Animal Kingdom: evidence from Precambrian (Ediacaran) Weng'an and Early Cambrian Maotianshan biotas, China.-
-The Ordovician Radiation: macroevolutionary crossroads of the Phanerozoic.-
-Phylogeny of Palaeozoic gastropods inferred from their ontogeny.-
-Palaeozoic innovations in the micro- and megafossil plant record: from the earliest plant spores to the earliest seeds.-
-Tentaculitids - an enigmatic group of Palaeozoic fossils.-
-Palaeozoic ammonoids - diversity and development of conch morphology.-
-Quantitative approach to diversity and decline in Late Palaeozoic trilobites.-
-Devonian cladid crinoid evolution, diversity, and first and last occurrences: summary observations.-
-Palaeoecology, aerodynamics and the origins of avian flight.-
Global extinction events and biocrises.-
-The Ireviken Event in the Boree Creek Formation, New South Wales, Australia.-
-Isotope geochemistry and plankton response to the Ireviken (earliest Wenlock) and

John Talent's degrees are from the University of Melbourne. After brief periods as UNESCO Professor at the University of Dhaka, and Caltech he taught at Macquarie University, Sydney, where he is now Emeritus Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences. His fieldwork has been undertaken in many parts of southern and central Asia and Australia. He was President of the International Paleontological Association and is now a member of Geological Society of Australia and India.

From the reviews:

"This huge volume was published as part of the UNESCO International Year of Planet Earth (IYPE) scientific programme, a joint initiative of UNESCO and the International Union of Geosciences. ... The present volume is said to be aimed at Earth Science professionals and students. ... There is a huge wealth of important material in the volume, which is a must for Earth Science libraries." (Tony Wright, Geological Magazine, 2012)

"Seventy-four authors contributed to its thirty-six chapters, each a major figure in their own field. The result is a book with much to attract those with a general interest in palaeontology, those who are more specialized, and those who are concerned with biodiversity conservation. ... The chapters in this extensively illustrated book provide an excellent opportunity for readers to compare extinction events." (Geology Today, Vol. 28 (5), September-October, 2012)