What if U.S.

history began in 1963, and everything that happened before that year was shrouded in mystery? There would be plenty of events to study, but we wouldn't have a complete picture of the country's past.

This is the analogy that paleomicrobiologist J.

William Schopf uses to describe the long-missing 85 percent of earth's early fossil record (the puzzle of the missing fossils was known as Darwin's Dilemma).

Not until the 1960s did paleobiologists using pickaxes and microscopes find evidence that life began much earlier than previously theorized and that microorganisms were the planet's only inhabitants for most of its existence.

And Schopf himself discovered the oldest Precambrian fossils known to science in 1993.

Why did it take so long to find these critters? Though the puzzle of the "missing" early fossil record lived on for more than a hundred years, its solution is now so obvious as to be mundane.

For more information about the title Cradle of Life: The Discovery of Earth's Earliest Fossils, read the full description at Amazon.com, or see the following related books:

Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters — Over the past twenty years, paleontologists have made tremendous fossil discoveries, including fossils that mark the growth of whales, manatees, and ...  > read more

Discovering Fossils: How to Find and Identify Remains of the Prehistoric Past (Fossils & Dinosaurs) — 160 drawings 6 x 9 Complete beginners guide to fossil collecting Includes lesser-studied vertebrate fossils Detailed illustrations for ...  > read more

Simon & Schuster'S Guide To Fossils (Nature Guide Series) — Practical, concise, and easy to use, Simon & Schuster's Guide to FossilsSimon & Schuster's Guide to Fossils contains everything the fossil ...  > read more

From Lucy to Language: Revised, Updated, and Expanded — In 1974 in a remote region of Ethiopia, Donald Johanson, then one of America's most promising young paleoanthropologists, discovered "Lucy", the ...  > read more

Author: J. William Schopf

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Date: Mar. 20, 2001

List Price:

$26.95

Discount Price:

$18.87

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