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    2) Preface

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    Beatriz Mogollon
    The study of fossils is essential for understanding life's mysteries and reconstructing changes to Earth's surface over time. Early thinkers noticed marine fossils inland and proposed that oceans had retreated, though this was ignored for centuries. In the 16th century, the first fossil collectors emerged and scholars began tentative classification. Interest and classification progressed over the following centuries, allowing dating of rock layers by their fossil content by the late 18th century. Modern paleontology is only two centuries old but has enriched museums with discoveries and furthered understanding of evolutionary relationships among fossil groups. This book displays fossils classified as in museums to teach readers how to interpret life's marks in stone.

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    2) Preface

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    Beatriz Mogollon
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    The study of fossils is essential for understanding life's mysteries and reconstructing changes to Earth's surface over time. Early thinkers noticed marine fossils inland and proposed that oceans had retreated, though this was ignored for centuries. In the 16th century, the first fossil collectors emerged and scholars began tentative classification. Interest and classification progressed over the following centuries, allowing dating of rock layers by their fossil content by the late 18th century. Modern paleontology is only two centuries old but has enriched museums with discoveries and furthered understanding of evolutionary relationships among fossil groups. This book displays fossils classified as in museums to teach readers how to interpret life's marks in stone.

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    The study of fossils is essential for understanding life's mysteries and reconstructing changes to Earth's surface over time. Early thinkers noticed marine fossils inland and proposed that oceans had retreated, though this was ignored for centuries. In the 16th century, the first fossil collectors emerged and scholars began tentative classification. Interest and classification progressed over the following centuries, allowing dating of rock layers by their fossil content by the late 18th century. Modern paleontology is only two centuries old but has enriched museums with discoveries and furthered understanding of evolutionary relationships among fossil groups. This book displays fossils classified as in museums to teach readers how to interpret life's marks in stone.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    12 views1 page

    2) Preface

    Uploaded by

    Beatriz Mogollon
    The study of fossils is essential for understanding life's mysteries and reconstructing changes to Earth's surface over time. Early thinkers noticed marine fossils inland and proposed that oceans had retreated, though this was ignored for centuries. In the 16th century, the first fossil collectors emerged and scholars began tentative classification. Interest and classification progressed over the following centuries, allowing dating of rock layers by their fossil content by the late 18th century. Modern paleontology is only two centuries old but has enriched museums with discoveries and furthered understanding of evolutionary relationships among fossil groups. This book displays fossils classified as in museums to teach readers how to interpret life's marks in stone.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 1

    PREFACE

    The study of fossils is essential for understanding the mysteries of life and for reconstructing the
    history of the earths surface, which is in a state of perpetual and constant change. Indeed, early in
    this century the German geologist Alfred Wegener based his famous theory of continental drift
    (Iater revived, updated and amplified in the theory of seafloor spreading) on insights drawn from
    his study of paleontology. The presence of marine fossils on dry land intrigued even the ancients
    and led Aristotle to believe that the oceans had not covered the same land areas throughout the
    earth's history-and prompted Tertullian to say, "AlI the earth was once covered by sea, and
    seashells can be found on the mountains."
    Such intuitions, however, were virtually ignored for many centuries, people preferring to believe
    that the above-water areas of the earth had always been the same and considering fossils, at most,
    as freaks of nature (/usus naturae). An alterna te theory explained that seashells were present on
    areas of dry land as a result of the Great Flood.
    Around the end of the Middle Ages, various people began to oppose the dominant opinions.
    Boccaccio gave credit to these revolutionary ideas and, in his prose romance Filocolo (ca. 1340),
    spoke of fossil seashells. Leonardo da Vinci also questioned the standard view of fossils. In 1517,the
    Italian physician and poet Girolamo Fracastoro, describing fossil seashells found in the course of
    excavations in quarries near Verona, identified them as remains of marine animals that had once
    lived in the very place where they were found.
    It was during the 16th century that the first fossil collectors appeared, as well as scholars who
    began to make tentative classifications. Interest in fossils grew over the centuries, and in addition
    to private collections, paleontological departments were established in museums of natural history.
    Meanwhile, the classification of fossils proceeded at an equal pace, and around the end of the 18th
    century, thanks to the work of the Frenchman Alexandre Brongniart, the Englishman William
    Smith and the Italian Gian Battista Brocchi, stratigraphic geology made such substantial progress
    that layers of sedimentary rocks could be dated according to paleontological criteria.
    Thus one can say that the modern science of paleontology is only two centuries old. In that brief
    period the earth's surface has been studied by scholars who have enriched the world's museums
    with their discoveries and also further identified affinities and relationships among the various
    groups of fossils, greatly contributing to the basis of the study of evolution.
    The reader will find that the fossils on display in this book are arranged according to the same
    criteria by which fossils are organized in a museum. The major aim of this concise but complete
    illustrated encyclopedia is to teach the reader how to "read" the marks indelibly left in stone by
    ancient lives. This world of stone comes to life through a text that runs parallel to the illustrations,
    underlining the importance fossils have had in the study of the evolution of the living world and in
    the reconstruction of landscapes of the past.

    -The Editor

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