Historical geology : the science of a dynamic earth /
Leigh W. Mintz.
- 2d ed.
- Columbus, Ohio : Merrill, �1977.
- xii, 588 pages : illustrations ; 27 cm
Includes bibliographical references (pages 575-576) and index.
Sections include -- The present is the key to the past -- uniformitarianism; The time element -- superposition, cross-cutting relationships, and faunal succession; The perversity of sedimentation and organisms -- facies and biogeography; The key to faunal succession and biofacies -- evolution; The dichotomy between rocks and time -- formations versus stages; "No trace of a beginnning -- no prospect of an end"; The array of past life -- paleontology; Stability versus instability -- sedimentation patterns; The maelstrom -- correlation; Footloose continents -- continental drift and treadmill ocean basins; "In the beginning" -- the origin of the earth and life; The first four billion years -- the Precambrian; The great enigma -- Precambrian versus Cambrian life; The transition mountains (Ubergangsgebirge) -- Cambrian, Ordovician, and Silurian; Abundance in the sea -- early Paleozoic life; Limestone, coal, and redbeds -- Devonian, Carboniferous, and Permian; Invasion of the land -- life of the late Paleozoic; The fountainhead of stratigraphy -- the Mesozoic erahem; The age of reptiles and ammonoids -- Mesozoic life; Just yesterday -- the Cenozoic era; The rise of the modern biota -- Cenozoic life -- and The psychozoic "era" -- the rise of man