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Title: Environmental evolution: Effects of the origin and evolution of life on Planet Earth

Book ·
OSTI ID:6453344

This book is a multiauthored textbook in planetary evolutionary biogeochemistry, emphasizing the major effects biota have had on the planetary environment and based on a long standing, one semister course at Boston University. A series of chapters described planetary atmospheres in the inner solar system, alternative views on the chemical origin of life, present-day microbial communities and the structures they build, the endosymbiotic origin of eukaryotic cells, and the fossil record of the late Precambrian. Four concluding chapters discuss the Phanerozoic, including the Gaia hypotheseis, plate tectonics, plant secondary compounds, and the role of chromosome fission in mammaliean evolution. A section on assignments, presentations, supplementary material, and background reading, and a comprehensive glossary are included.

OSTI ID:
6453344
Resource Relation:
Other Information: From review by David Jablonski, Univ. of Chicago, IL, in American Scientist, Vol. 81, No. 2 (March-April 1993)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English