L. Robin M. Cocks - Böcker

The growth history of a brachiopod is entombed in its shell, but research on fossil and living brachiopods has generated unanswered questions about these marine invertebrates. Several contributors to Brachiopods Past and Present comment on their differing structures and morphological detail. They use these as examples of ontogenetic and evolutionary change, as indicators of taxonomic relationships, or to discuss micro-structural shell morphology. Population studies of various species and recent progress in molecular phylogeny are presented. This single compilation is a must for postgraduate students and researchers in evolution, zoology, geology, palaeontology and related fields.

Using full-colour palaeogeographical maps from the Cambrian to the present, this interdisciplinary volume explains how plate motions and surface volcanism are linked to processes in the Earth's mantle, and to climate change and the evolution of the Earth's biota. These new and very detailed maps provide a complete and integrated Phanerozoic story of palaeogeography. They illustrate the development of all the major mountain-building orogenies. Old lands, seas, ice caps, volcanic regions, reefs, and coal beds are highlighted on the maps, as well as faunal and floral provinces. Many other original diagrams show sections from the Earth's core, through the mantle, and up to the lithosphere, and how Large Igneous Provinces are generated, helping to understand how plates have appeared, moved, and vanished through time. Supplementary resources are available online, making this an invaluable reference for researchers, graduate students, professional geoscientists and anyone interested in the geological history of the Earth.

Although the Upper Ordovician shelly faunas of South Pembrokeshire (Avalonia at that time) have been studied for over 150 years, the brachiopods have never before been properly documented.  This monograph erects 16 new species and substantially revises the systematics of the rest of the brachiopod fauna (about 75 species in all).  The faunas are compared with other contemporaneous Avalonian brachiopod assemblages, and two major faunal turnovers are recognised.  Implications for understanding better the palaeogeography of Avalonia, Laurussia, Baltica, and north-western Gondwana are discussed.