One of the greatest mysteries in reconstructing the history of life on Earth has been the apparent absence of fossils dating back more than 500 million years. We have long known that fossils of sophisticated marine life-forms existed at the dawn of the Cambrian Period, but until recently scientists had found no traces of Precambrian fossils. The quest to find such traces began in earnest in the mid-1960s and culminated in one dramatic moment in 1993 when William Schopf identified fossilized micro-organisms three and a half billion years old. This find opened up a vast period of time - some 85 per cent of Earth's history - to new research and new ideas about life's beginnings. In this book, William Schopf, a pioneer of modern paleobiology, tells the story of the origins and earliest evolution of life and how that story has been unearthed.
- ISBN10 0691002304
- ISBN13 9780691002309
- Publish Date 12 April 1999
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 18 January 2011
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Princeton University Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 336
- Language English
- URL https://press.princeton.edu/titles/6542.html