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Donald R. Prothero - Fantastic Fossils: A Guide to Finding and Identifying Prehistoric Life

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Book:
Fantastic Fossils: A Guide to Finding and Identifying Prehistoric Life
Author:
Donald R Prothero / Mary Persis Williams
Publisher:
Columbia University Press
Genre:
Books / Children
Year:
2020
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Nothing fills us with a sense of wonder like fossils. What looks at first like a simple rock is in fact a clue that reveals the staggering diversity of ancient environments, the winding pathways of evolution, and the majesty of a vanished earth. But as much as one might daydream of digging a hole in the backyard and finding a Tyrannosaurus, only a few places contain these buried treasures, and when a scientist comes across a remnant of prehistoric life, great care must be taken. What do budding paleontologists need to know before starting their search?
In Fantastic Fossils, Donald R. Prothero offers an accessible, entertaining, and richly illustrated guide to the paleontologists journey. He details the best places to look for fossils, the art of how to find them, and how to classify the major types. Prothero provides expert wisdom about typical fossils that an average person can hope to collect and how to hunt fossils responsibly and ethically. He also explores the lessons that common and rarer discoveries offer about paleontology and its history, as well as what fossils tell us about past climates and present climate change. Captivating illustrations by the paleoartist Mary Persis Williams bring to life hundreds of important specimens. Offering valuable lessons for armchair enthusiasts and paleontology students alike, Fantastic Fossils is an essential companion for all readers who have ever dreamed of going in search of traces of a lost world.

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Table of Contents

FANTASTIC FOSSILS

A GUIDE TO FINDING AND IDENTIFYING PREHISTORIC LIFE

DONALD R. PROTHERO

ILLUSTRATED BY

MARY PERSIS WILLIAMS

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESSNEW YORK

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

Publishers Since 1893

New York Chichester, West Sussex

cup.columbia.edu

E-ISBN 978-0-231-55148-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Prothero, Donald R., author. | Williams, Mary Persis, illustrator.

Title: Fantastic fossils: a guide to finding and identifying prehistoric life / Donald R. Prothero; illustrated by Mary Persis Williams.

Description: New York: Columbia University Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019024030 (print) | LCCN 2019024031 (e-book) | ISBN 9780231195782 (cloth) | ISBN 9780231551489 (e-book)

Subjects: LCSH: Paleontology. | Fossils.

Classification: LCC QE711.3 .P76 2020 (print) | LCC QE711.3 (e-book) | DDC 560.75dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019024030

LC e-book record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019024031

A Columbia University Press E-book.

CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at .

Cover design: Milenda Nan Ok Lee

Cover photo: Courtesy of Donald R. Prothero

Frontispiece: Courtesy of Ray Troll

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO MY FELLOW FOSSIL COLLECTORS AND FOSSIL LOVERS.

CONTENTS

Fossils are cool. Fossils are amazing. This book is about the incredible stories fossils tell us, and the staggering insights they give us into the history of the earth and the evolution of life. I hope you find this quick tour through the world of fossils both informative and enjoyable.

The idea for this book was originally suggested by my former editor at Johns Hopkins University Press, Dr. Vincent J. Burke. Working with talented illustrator Mary Persis Williams, Vince envisioned a book that would illustrate and explain fossils and paleontology to the broadest possible audience, from young adults to fossil enthusiasts of every age. But we didnt want it to be a simple field guide with a lot of illustrations of common fossils. There are plenty of those books, and many of them are badly out of date. Instead, I explain the fundamentals of paleontology and how to collect and identify fossils, providing practical information for any interested student or collector. Much more detailed information is presented here than you will find in picture guides to fossils. I hope this book provides enjoyable reading not just for rock hounds and hobby collectors but also for those who want to learn a bit more about fossils and how paleontologists study and understand them. It is suitable for introductory college classes in which students are learning a bit about paleontology but dont need an advanced college-level textbook. I have chosen a mix of stories and illustrations of important and commonly collected fossils along with some of the more interesting and extreme fossils that are only seen in museums.

I thank Dr. Vincent J. Burke for originally suggesting this project and for recruiting Mary Persis Williams to work on it; I especially appreciated his patience as the project suffered many delays. I thank my current Columbia University Press editor Miranda Martin for her patience as the book was finally completed. I thank two anonymous reviewers for reviewing the book for scientific accuracy. I thank Kathryn Jorge at Columbia University Press and Ben Kolstad at Cenveo for their work in producing the book.

I thank my wonderful teachers in grades K12 for giving me a sound foundation in science, especially Mrs. Helene in sixth grade, who took me on my first fossil-collecting trip to Red Rock Canyon. I also thank the great paleontologists who taught and inspired me, from my early career contacts with Dave Whistler and J. Reid Macdonald to my formal education in paleontology with Michael Woodburne, Michael Murphy, Malcolm McKenna, Gene Gaffney, and Bobb Schaeffer. Without their guidance, I would not have had the career in paleontology that I sought since I first learned about paleontology at age 4. From that age until today (over 60 years now), I never gave up, despite the difficult challenges of finding a career in this crowded profession.

Finally, I thank my amazing family: my incredible wife, Teresa LeVelle, and my sons Erik, Zachary, and especially Gabriel, who also wants to become a paleontologist someday. They put up with my long months at the computer writing this book and all the extra trips to the museums and the field to get photographs for it.

Fossils are cool. Thanks to a huge amount of cultural exposure and the six Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies, everyone loves dinosaurs (). Lots of people enjoy collecting fossils for fun as well, whether they are fossil shells or amazing extinct creatures such as trilobites. Today you can buy all sorts of amazing fossils online and in rock shops around the world.

Figure 1.1

Skeleton of Black Beauty, a complete, articulated Tyrannosaurus rex specimen from Montana, now in the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Drumheller, Alberta. Paleontologist Ashley Fragomeni Hall for scale. (Courtesy of A. Hall)

Fossils are cool by themselves, but they also provide a window into the prehistoric past. We can now visualize immense dinosaurs, larger than any land animal alive today; fantastic sea creatures such as the terrifying sea reptiles known as ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs, and plesiosaurs; and sea floors populated by gigantic shelled squids, huge sea scorpions, and incredible predatory fish.

But its not just these extinct creatures that are important. Fossils are the best clues we have to understanding the environments of the ancient past. They tell us whether a pile of rocks represents an ancient floodplain, an ancient sea bottom, or a long-gone swamp or lagoon. We can now reconstruct ancient environments at a level unimaginable just a few decades ago. This, in turn, lets us look at issues like past climate changes: episodes of warming, when greenhouse gases warmed the planet and oceans drowned the continents, and times when the world was frozen from the poles almost to the equator. We can reconstruct ancient ocean currents and ancient weather patterns as well. Finally, fossils are the primary means used by geologists to date rocks. Without fossils we could not tell geologic time.

Fossils are really important for our civilization for other reasons too. Not only do they tell us about ancient climates, but fossils (and the life they represent) controlled our climate in the geologic past. Ancient bacteria were responsible for giving our planet the oxygen we breatheand algae in the oceans remain the major providers of oxygen. Without these organisms, this planet would have been as lifeless as Mars or any other body in space. The next time you see some pond scum, thank them for your ability to breathe!

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