The Crucible of Creation
The Burgess Shale and the Rise of Animals
Published on 7. October 1999
Book
Paperback/Softback
272 pages
978-0-19-286202-0 (ISBN)
Description
'tells a great story and manages to be informative at all levels. Conway Morris has a collector's eye for the sort of entertaining yet informative snippets that keep readers on their toes.'
New Scientist
Located in the west of Canada, the Burgess Shale contains a unique collection of fossil remains, and has become an icon for those studying the history of life. This remarkable book takes us on a fresh journey back in time through the Burgess Shale and its astonishing collection of pre-Cambrian creatures. In an entertaining and readable style, Simon Conway Morris paints a vivid picture of the critical period which saw the diversification of all the major animal groups, and takes a controversial stance on current evolutionary theories that is sure to provoke much interest and debate.
'It is less bleak in its assessment of life on earth and it is spiritually uplifting, rather than dry and mechanistic as some would have us believe'
THES
'The centerpiece of The Crucible of Creation is a description, authoritative and readable, of the animals themselves.
New York Times Book Review
New Scientist
Located in the west of Canada, the Burgess Shale contains a unique collection of fossil remains, and has become an icon for those studying the history of life. This remarkable book takes us on a fresh journey back in time through the Burgess Shale and its astonishing collection of pre-Cambrian creatures. In an entertaining and readable style, Simon Conway Morris paints a vivid picture of the critical period which saw the diversification of all the major animal groups, and takes a controversial stance on current evolutionary theories that is sure to provoke much interest and debate.
'It is less bleak in its assessment of life on earth and it is spiritually uplifting, rather than dry and mechanistic as some would have us believe'
THES
'The centerpiece of The Crucible of Creation is a description, authoritative and readable, of the animals themselves.
New York Times Book Review
Reviews / Votes
'tells a great story and manages to be informative at all levels. * New Scientist* spiritually uplifting * THES * The centerpiece of The Crucible of Creation is a descripion, authoritative and readable, of the animals themselves * New York Times Book Review *
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Illustrations
4 colour plates, halftones, line drawings
Dimensions
Height: 197 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 16 mm
Weight
293 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-286202-0 (9780192862020)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Simon Conway Morris is Professor of Palaeontology in the Department of Earth Sciences at Cambridge. He was one of the team of three scientists who uncovered many of the fossils and worked on the interpretation of the Burgess Shale in the 1970s, for which work Stephen Jay Gould said "Palaeontology has no Nobel prizes though I would unhesitatingly award the first to Whittington, Briggs, and Conway Morris. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1990, and presented the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in 1996. His search for fossils has taken him all over the world, including China, Mongolia, Australia, and Greenland.
Content
INTRODUCTION; 1. SETTING THE SCENE; 2. THE DISCOVERY OF THE BURGESS SHALE; 3. JOURNEY TO THE BURGESS SHALE; 4. THE SEARCH FOR NEW BURGESS SHALES; 5. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BURGESS SHALE; 6. THE ORIGIN OF PHYLA; 7. OTHER WORLDS; 8. THE LAST WORD; ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS; APPENDIX 1: FURTHER READING; APPENDIX 2: EXHIBITIONS; APPENDIX 3: LOCALITIES; GLOSSARY; INDEX.