1. Images for lectures
2. Substantial comments or mini-essays, often with links of their own. They are laid out in the order I deal with them in the Chapter.
3. Pages that consist almost entirely of Web links on a particular topic.
4. Small comments and asides ("footnotes", if you like), including useless information, again arranged in order. I have listed them under page number as well as topic.

Chapter 2: images for lectures

Mini-Essays and Comments.

• What is paleobiology?
• Biases of the fossil record.
• Geological Time for biologists.
• Why have I not answered the obvious question: what was the first living organism?
• Earth's oldest cells
• The Superiority of Slime. Lovers of previous editions will note that I omitted this little section from the 5th edition. So it's placed here instead. Remember:
  

  Glycocalyx, the slime on bacteria
  Helps them live in a bovine interior
  Powerful drugs
  Can't get at the bugs:
  It's clearly a substance superior.
  

• Stromatolites as Evolutionary Forcing Houses. Lovers of previous editions will note that I have omitted this thought from the 5th edition: not because it's wrong, but because of space. So it's placed here instead.

Web Links

• Lagerstätten are rock formations with wonderful preservation. There are sections here on Amber; Solnhofen Limestone; Messel, and so on...
• Trace Fossils
• Collecting and Preparing Fossils
• The Fossil Trade
• Dinosaur Graveyards
• Paleontologist Profiles
• Geologic time scale, and dating fossils
• Stromatolites and cyanobacteria
• BIF and the Oxygen Revolution

Footnotes

• Page 19 Fossils can be lost in museums: here is an example. BBC News OnLine, 6 January 2004.
• Page 21 The Archaean.
• Page 22 Earth's oldest crystal.
• Page 22-25. When did life begin on Earth? It's around 3.8 billion years however you slice it: but the devil is in the details. National Geographic News, May 2002.

References for Chapter 2

Page last revised April 7, 2013

All links checked September 10, 2012

[For Chapter 1, click here ]

[For Chapter 3, click here ]

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