About this book
This volume in memory of Professor Martin Brasier, which has many of his unfinished works, summarizes recent progress in some of the hottest topics in palaeobiology including cellular preservation of early microbial life and early evolution of macroscopic animal life, encompassing the Ediacara biota. The papers focus on how to decipher evidence for early life, which requires exceptional preservation, employment of state-of-the-art techniques and also an understanding gleaned from Phanerozoic lagerstätte and modern analogues. The papers also apply Martin’s MOFAOTYOF principle (my oldest fossils are older than your oldest fossils), requiring an integrated approach to understanding fossils. The adoption of the null-hypothesis that all putative traces of life are abiotic until proven otherwise, and the consideration of putative fossils within their spatial context, characterized the work of Martin Brasier, as is well demonstrated by the papers in this volume.
Contents
Dedication
- Contributions of Professor Martin Brasier to the study of early life, stratigraphy and biogeochemistry / Brasier, A. T., McIlroy, D. & McLoughlin, N.
Deciphering the earliest evidence for life
- Understanding ancient life: how Martin Brasier changed the way we think about the fossil record / Antcliffe, J. B., Liu, A. G., Menon, L. R., McIlroy, D., McLoughlin, N. & Wacey, D.
- X-ray microtomography as a tool for investigating the petrological context of Precambrian cellular remains / Hickman-Lewis, K., Garwood, R. J., Withers, P. J. & Wacey, D.
- Earliest microbial trace fossils in Archaean pillow lavas under scrutiny: new micro-X-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy, metamorphic and morphological constraints / Grosch, E. G., Muñoz, M., Mathon, O. & McLoughlin, N
The preservation, origins and interactions of early multicellular organisms – the Torridonian Supergroup, NW Scotland
- Characterization of organic matter in the Torridonian using Raman spectroscopy / Muirhead, D. K., Parnell, J., Spinks, S. & Bowden, S. A.
- Advanced analytical techniques for studying the morphology and chemistry of Proterozoic microfossils / Wacey, D., Battison, L., Garwood, R. J., Hickman-Lewis, K. & Brasier, M. D.
- Contrasting microfossil preservation and lake chemistries within the 1200–1000 Ma Torridonian Supergroup of NW Scotland / Wacey, D., Brasier, M., Parnell, J., Culwick, T., Bowden, S., Spinks, S., Boyce, A. J., Davidheiser-Kroll, B., Jeon, H., Saunders, M. & Kilburn, M. R.
- Evaluating evidence from the Torridonian Supergroup (Scotland, UK) for eukaryotic life on land in the Proterozoic / Brasier, A. T., Culwick, T., Battison, L., Callow, R. H. T. & Brasier, M. D.
Progress on understanding the evolution of animal life and the biosphere during the Precambrian–Cambrian transition
- Measuring the ‘Great Unconformity’ on the North China Craton using new detrital zircon age data / He, T., Zhou, Y., Vermeesch, P., Rittner, M., Miao, L., Zhu, M., Carter, A., Pogge von Strandmann, P. A. E. & Shields, G. A.
- Earth system transition during the Tonian–Cambrian interval of biological innovation: nutrients, climate, oxygen and the marine organic carbon capacitor / Shields, G. A.
- Martin Brasier’s contribution to the palaeobiology of the Ediacaran–Cambrian transition / Liu, A. G., Menon, L. R., Shields, G. A., Callow, R. H. T. & McIlroy, D.
Wood, R. Palaeoecology of Ediacaran metazoan reefs
- Ediacaran pre-placozoan diploblasts in the Avalonian biota: the role of chemosynthesis in the evolution of early animal life / Dufour, S. C. & McIlroy, D.
- Rangeomorph classification schemes and intra-specific variation: are all characters created equal? / Kenchington, C. G. & Wilby, P. R.
- Post-fossilization processes and their implications for understanding Ediacaran macrofossil assemblages / Matthews, J. J., Liu, A. G. & McIlroy, D.
- ‘Intrites’ from the Ediacaran Longmyndian Supergroup, UK: a new form of microbially-induced sedimentary structure (MISS) / Menon, L. R., McIlroy, D. & Brasier, M. D.
- The origin and occurrence of subaqueous sedimentary cracks / McMahon, S., van Smeerdijk Hood, A. & McIlroy, D.
- The Precambrian–Phanerozoic and Ediacaran–Cambrian boundaries: a historical approach to a dilemma / Geyer, G. & Landing, E.
- Ichnological evidence for the Cambrian explosion in the Ediacaran to Cambrian succession of Tanafjord, Finnmark, northern Norway / McIlroy, D. & Brasier, M. D.
- Engineering the Cambrian explosion: the earliest bioturbators as ecosystem engineers / Herringshaw, L. G., Callow, R. H. T. & McIlroy, D.
Studies of exceptional preservation
- Remarkable preservation of brain tissues in an Early Cretaceous iguanodontian dinosaur / Brasier, M. D., Norman, D. B., Liu, A. G., Cotton, L. J., Hiscocks, J. E. H., Garwood, R. J., Antcliffe, J. B. & Wacey, D.
- Earliest Cretaceous cocoons or plant seed structures from the Wealden Group, Hastings, UK / Brasier, A. T., Cotton, L. J., Garwood, R. J., Baker-Brian, J., Howlett, E. & Brasier, M. D.
- Chemical relationships of ambers using attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy / Cotton, L. J., Vollrath, F., Brasier, M. D. & Dicko, C.
Index
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