Earth and Life: Global Biodiversity, Extinction Intervals and Biogeographic Perturbations Through Time (International Year of Planet Earth)

"This volume focuses on the broad pattern of increasing biodiversity through time, and recurrent events of minor and major ecosphere reorganization. Intense scrutiny is devoted to the pattern of physical (including isotropic), sedimentary and biotic circumstances through the time intervals during which life crises occurred. These events affected terrestrial, lacustrine and estuarine ecosystems, locally and globally, but have affected continental shelf ecosystems and even deep ocean ecosystems. The pattern of these events is the backdrop against which modelling the pattern of future environmental change needs to be evaluated." -- Back cover Front Matter....Pages i-xxvii Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Phanerozoic Marine Biodiversity: A Fresh Look at Data, Methods, Patterns and Processes....Pages 3-22 Coordinated Stasis Reconsidered: A Perspective at Fifteen Years....Pages 23-36 Whilst This Planet Has Gone Cycling On: What Role for Periodic Astronomical Phenomena in Large-Scale Patterns in the History of Life?....Pages 37-50 Climate Change Through Time....Pages 51-62 Development of Intertidal Biotas Through Phanerozoic Time....Pages 63-128 Marine Sclerobiofacies: Encrusting and Endolithic Communities on Shells Through Time and Space....Pages 129-157 Brachiopods and Their Auloporid Epibionts in the Devonian of Boulonnais (France): Comparison with Other Associations Globally....Pages 159-188 Fossil Fish Taphonomy and the Contribution of Microfossils in Documenting Devonian Vertebrate History....Pages 189-223 Messel Pit Fossil Site – The Legacy of the Environment and Life of the Eocene....Pages 225-236 Front Matter....Pages 237-237 Evolutionary Scenario of the Early History of the Animal Kingdom: Evidence from Precambrian (Ediacaran) Weng’an and Early Cambrian Maotianshan Biotas, China....Pages 239-379 The Ordovician Radiation: Macroevolutionary Crossroads of the Phanerozoic....Pages 381-394 Phylogeny of Palaeozoic Gastropods Inferred from Their Ontogeny....Pages 395-435 Palaeozoic Innovations in the Micro- and Megafossil Plant Record: From the Earliest Plant Spores to the Earliest Seeds....Pages 437-477 Tentaculitoids – An Enigmatic Group of Palaeozoic Fossils....Pages 479-490 Palaeozoic Ammonoids – Diversity and Development of Conch Morphology....Pages 491-534 Quantitative Approach to Diversity and Decline in Late Palaeozoic Trilobites....Pages 535-555 Devonian Cladid Crinoid Evolution, Diversity, and First and Last Occurrences: Summary Observations....Pages 557-584 Palaeoecology, Aerodynamics, and the Origin of Avian Flight....Pages 585-612 Front Matter....Pages 613-613 An Analysis of the Ireviken Event in the Boree Creek Formation, New South Wales, Australia....Pages 615-630 Isotope Geochemistry and Plankton Response to the Ireviken (Earliest Wenlock) and Cyrtograptus lundgreni Extinction Events, Cape Phillips Formation, Arctic Canada....Pages 631-652 Front Matter....Pages 613-613 Late Ludfordian Correlations and the Lau Event....Pages 653-675 The Late Middle Devonian (Givetian) Global Taghanic Biocrisis in Its Type Area (Northern Appalachian Basin): Geologically Rapid Faunal Transitions Driven by Global and Local Environmental Changes....Pages 677-703 The Permian—A Time of Major Evolutions and Revolutions in the History of Life....Pages 705-718 Millennial Physical Events and the End-Permian Mass Mortality in the Western Palaeotethys: Timing and Primary Causes....Pages 719-758 The Cretaceous–Tertiary Mass Extinction, Chicxulub Impact, and Deccan Volcanism....Pages 759-793 Survival, but...! New Tales of ‘Dead Clade Walking’ from Austral and Boreal Post-K–T Assemblages....Pages 795-810 Fungi, a Driving Force in Normalization of the Terrestrial Carbon Cycle Following the End-Cretaceous Extinction....Pages 811-817 Front Matter....Pages 819-819 Changes in the Pattern of Brachiopod Biogeography in Northern Asia Through Early and Middle Devonian Times....Pages 821-829 The Paleobiogeography of Pennsylvanian Crinoids and Blastoids....Pages 831-847 Jurassic and Early Cretaceous Ostracods from Western Australia: What They Reveal About Evolution of the Indian Ocean....Pages 849-882 Cretaceous Continental Bridges, Insularity, and Vicariance in the Southern Hemisphere: Which Route Did Dinosaurs Take?....Pages 883-911 Palaeobiogeography of Mesozoic Mammals – Revisited....Pages 913-934 Front Matter....Pages 935-935 Cenozoic Environmental Shifts and Foraminiferal Evolution....Pages 937-965 Miocene Asteroid Impacts: Proposed Effects on the Biogeography and Extinction Patterns of Eastern North American Gastropods....Pages 967-981 The Rise of Australian Marsupials: A Synopsis of Biostratigraphic, Phylogenetic, Palaeoecologic and Palaeobiogeographic Understanding....Pages 983-1078 Back Matter....Pages 1079-1100 Of Lieberman and Melott's (2007) AnalysisSummary of Lieberman and Melott's (2007) Results; Summary of Melott's (2008) Results; Possible Causal Mechanisms for 62-Ma Cyclicity; Conclusions; References; Climate Change Through Time; Introduction; Early Earth Atmosphere; Primitive Oceans; Iron-Banded Formations: Significance; The Story in Sedimentary Rocks: Limestones, Dolomites, Evaporates, Gypsum, Coal, Reef Limestones and Glacial Deposits; First Glaciations; Plate Tectonics; The Pattern of Glaciations and Warm Periods from the Ordovician Until the Late Tertiary; Quaternary Climates This volume focuses on the increasing of biodiversity through time and on recurrent events of minor and major ecosphere reorganization. Special attention paid to physical, sedimentary and biotic circumstances through time intervals when life crises occurred.