Pop-sci paleontology/natural history

The people here are amazingly ignorant of the fossil record. What book would you recommend for them? I am considering translating and publishing a book on natural history/paleontology/fossils, but I am clueless about which title I should pick.

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Originally posted by Andya Primanda:
The people here are amazingly ignorant of the fossil record. What book would you recommend for them? I am considering translating and publishing a book on natural history/paleontology/fossils, but I am clueless about which title I should pick.

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By "here", do you mean Indonesia? They're probably not any more ignorant that people here in the US, despite us having a much better choice of fossil exposures than you do over there.
I would like to find a good general book like that, too: a couple I have read recently specialize too much in a particular field. (Trilobite! (author??) and Gaining Ground by Jennifer Clack.)

Coragyps/Andya,Trilobite! was by Richard Fortey.I'm on chapter 3 of Gaining Ground, what did you think? Personally I find the monograph stuff heavy going & dry (why this should surprise me I'll never know), but the discussion is fascinating. Being just published it's obviously bang up to date, & I was surprised to learn that the words "crossopterygian" & "rhipidistan" have fallen into disuse because newer evidence shows the groups to be paraphyletic. Early days, but this is looking like a seminal work, IMO. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone new to palaeontology or evolution, though, it's very jargonny, despite Clacks best efforts. I suspect this the sort of thing Andya is looking for, though, basically everything there is to know about fish to tetrapod evolution, all bang up to date, it's main detraction for the casual reader would be the advanced nature of the material.To answer Andya's question, I would go for something simpler. The problem with the books written on the subject, is that they assume a high level of biological knowledge in the first place, even the basic ones. When I get into a subject I kick off with a "basic" introduction into the subject, then build up, I sense you want something that starts simple & builds up to the edge of human knowledge, a "one stop answer", I fear no such thing exists. People interested will have to read several books on the subject to become au fait.I would recommend to Andya, Basic Palaeontology, by Michael Benton & David Harper. ISBN 0-582-22857-3 (342). I'm not sure it's what you need, but it would be a good introduction for yourself. A more advanced text (in terms of assumed knowledge), but in many ways more readable (simply by virtue of identifying with vertebrates rather than some squidgy extinct marine thingy!), is Vertebrate Palaeontology By Michael J Benton ISBN 0-632-05614-2 (450 pages).If anyone has any other good palaeontology books, I'm always on the lookout, so don't be shy .Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

Agreed, Mark. Gaining Ground was pretty rough sledding for this non-paleontologist, but, as you said, very interesting. I may well try the ones you mention next - thanks!

Yes Mark. Benton's Vertebrate Paleontology is very good although the reader is left to piece together the methodology themselves. And, yes, it is easy going compared to invertebrate paleontology. It's so hard to follow stuff on all these extinct 'marine thingys' as you put it.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 01-12-2003]

TB,Just a quick heads up. Not sure if you're interested, but Benton has a new book out in the very near future, When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time.http://www.amazon.co.uk/...ef=cm_mp_wli_/026-5675873-8210859

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Benton's Vertebrate Paleontology is very good although the reader is left to piece together the methodology themselves. And, yes, it is easy going compared to invertebrate paleontology.

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I agree, most palaeontology texts seem to assume you know all there is to know about cladistics for some reason. Basic Palaeontology was better for this, but was inadequate for something that was introducing you to the field. Could you recommend any good cladistics/taphonomy texts?Cheers,Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.[This message has been edited by mark24, 01-12-2003]

MarkI teach molecular phylogeny (incredibly!) so I have been able to readily understand how anatomical cladistics work (character states matches instead of sequence alignement scores). I can't say I know of a good book. There are some good websites. I have used some over the last year but couldn't cite them.I think I have heard about Benton's new book but thanks for the reminder. So what is his verdict concerning the Permien extinction? Volcanism? Of coure we think it was a Flood stage and the associated tectonic upheaval of that Flood stage.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 01-12-2003]