A Sea without Fish : Life in the Ordovician Sea of the Cincinnati Region (Life of the Past)

Davis, Richard Arnold/ Meyer, David L.

Indiana University Press（2009/03発売）

• 製本 Hardcover:ハードカバー版／ページ数 368 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9780253351982
• DDC分類 560.17310977178

Full Description

The region around Cincinnati, Ohio, is known throughout the world for the abundant and beautiful fossils found in limestones and shales that were deposited as sediments on the sea floor during the Ordovician Period, about 450 million years ago—some 250 million years before the dinosaurs lived. In Ordovician time, the shallow sea that covered much of what is now the North American continent teemed with marine life. The Cincinnati area has yielded some of the world's most abundant and best-preserved fossils of invertebrate animals such as trilobites, bryozoans, brachiopods, molluscs, echinoderms, and graptolites. So famous are the Ordovician fossils and rocks of the Cincinnati region that geologists use the term "Cincinnatian" for strata of the same age all over North America. This book synthesizes more than 150 years of research on this fossil treasure-trove, describing and illustrating the fossils, the life habits of the animals represented, their communities, and living relatives, as well as the nature of the rock strata in which they are found and the environmental conditions of the ancient sea.

Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
List of Repositories of Fossils Illustrated in This Book
1. Introduction
2. Science in the Hinterland: The Cincinnati School of Paleontology
3. Naming and Classifying Organisms
4. Rocks, Fossils, and Time
5. Algae: The Base of the Food Chain
6. Poriferans and Cnidarians: Sponges, Corals, and Jellyfish
7. Bryozoans: "Twigs and Bones"
8. Brachiopods: The Other Bivalves
9. Molluscs: Hard but with a Soft Center
10. Annelids and Wormlike Fossils
11. Arthropods: Trilobites and Other legged Creatures
12. Echinoderms: A World Unto Themselves
13. Graptolites and Conodonts: Our Closest Relatives?
14. Trace Fossils: Tracks, Trails, and Burrows
15. Paleoeography and Paleoenvironment, by Steven M. Holland
16. Life in The Cincinnatian Sea
Appendix 1: Resources
Appendix 2: Individuals and Institutions Associated with the Cincinnati Region
Glossary
References Cited
Index