Cambrian Ocean World: Ancient Sea Life of North America (Life of the Past)

The book is about the Cambrian period, a time some 500 million years ago, when there was an explosion of life forms. But before the Cambrian there was the ediacaran fauna explosion of sorts. The book covers this. In the Cambrian major taxonomic groups, like phyla, came into being, such as arthropods, worm groups, chordates (which is our own phylum, echinoderms, on and on. And these phyla endured, even to the present day. Our Cambrian ancestor, pikaia, evolved to produce numerous animals and us humans.The book is dry reading, in parts where it goes into too much textbook detail about stratigraphy. I skimmed through those pages. I was particularly interested in the discussion of the Burgess Shale in Canada, a site I have visited -- a long hike in and out on a narrow trail strewn with rocks and gnarly tree roots. The site at the time was being worked by a paleontologist and students. Lots of specimens were discovered in the shale over the years. At the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller there was a museum I visited. One of the exhibits was of life in the Cambrian ocean, with the animal mockups being shown larger than life. Animals like anomalocaris, reputed to be the great white shark of its time.I'm very much into paleontology, but the reader doesn't need that background to enjoy and learn from this book.

It pains me to give this book just four stars but it is more properly a study of the biostratigraphy of the Cambrian Era, mostly in the United States and although pelagic forms are discussed, the book more concentrates on benthic creatures. The stress is hardly oceanic: more like close inshore areas, alluvial fans, and shallow cratonic transgressions.It takes over 100 pages to get to the discussion of animals in some detail and then, again too much concentration on stratigraphy. Yes, that's important or even crucial, but the life forms themselves are shortchanged in favor of the rocks. Trilobites receive their due but the discussions seem interminable and, for example, too little is made of the incredible variety of eyes these creatures had. I was hoping for detail on such marvelous creatures like Wiwaxia, Marella, and the impossible-to-conceive Opabinia. They're all there but there isn't much new here.Not all is this way. Foster, in talking about the wide array of trilobites found in situ altogether, sensibly suggests that the array bespeaks a certainty that the trilobites had many ways of making a living. Another example: Foster casts doubt on the idea that Anomalocaris was probably not 'the terror of the Cambrian seas' as has been posited ever since the creature's various fossilized parts were determined to be from one animal. More likely, considering the mouth plates, the animal was a scavenger or preyed on softer animals. Indeed, bite marks on trilobite fossil could have come from predatory trilobites. I was also happily surprised that Anomalocaris was just one species of an anomalocaridid family.For me, unfortunately, there was little sense of wonder like that in books by Stephen Gould and Simon Conway Morris. That is a personal observation only, as others I am sure will hardly be able to put this book down. One major caveat: this is not a book for beginners but there is a great glossary and extensive suggestions for further reading. 3.5 stars, for me, but 3 stars are not warranted, hence the four star rating posted.

This is a nice book that goes a long way to explain the geological periods and the role that fossels play in figuring out the past. Specifically, it drills down into Cambrian fossels and explains that period and how life evolved. I wish it had better diagrams to show evolution of various animal groups, but you can get them by searching the Internet with queries like "Evolution of Trilobites" etc.

Very detailed. If you want a glossary heavy book with a dovetail into geology, this is for you. If you want to skip geology and just want descriptions of life in the past, you will struggle through some sections.

Excellent book on the Cambrian in North America. I am a long time invertebrate fossil collector and for me this book was pure gold. There is very little popular coverage of the Cambrian beyond accounts of the Cambrian explosion. This book did a great job integrating geology with biology while keeping things lively. In general the Indiana University Press, Life of the Past, series has been gift to the enthusiastic amateur.

More than anything, my fascination with paleontology is what led me to this book and it's what kept me reading for over a month when I could have been doing anything else. It's an interesting topic but the author's delivery is more fitting to a textbook.

I loved this book and recommend it to anyone who wants to see our planet 500+ million years ago. It's better to have some background in biology for better understanding but in any case this book will show another world we are unable to see now

Worth every penny of the cost! Having read Gould's Wonderful Life years ago, this was a reprise but much broader in scope and with newer findings/research. The mental image you develop of the Earth during those bygone eons is thrilling. Evolution is written big and wide, understandable and amazing. I will donate it to my local high school library. Hopefully some youngster will pick it up, be inspired and enlightened.I recommend The Trilobite Book recently out too. The photographs of the fossils are spectacular!

This would have been a marvellous book, were it not for American exceptionalism. The USA does not extend backwards in time to the Cambrian, and there are real difficulties in describing the ancient world from a parochial, if geologically well-endowed, isolation. The story is incomplete and distorted.

Wonderful book on the development of life on planet Earth

Unable to upload/download to my kindlewhite.

Yes it's got academic phrases buts it's deeper truth iscwell worth the occasional struggle. An epic story.

This book is very well written. I have just started it, and found it a great pleasure to read. I am transported to that time 542 million years ago.