Geochemistry in Mineral Exploration is a pioneering text and reference book dealing with the newer phases of an ancient and important subject that has intrigued man ever since the days he began to use metals rather than stones for his weapons and implements.

Thomas Henry Huxley proclaimed the Origin of Species to be “the most potent instrument for the extension of the realm of knowledge which has come into man’s hands since Newton’s Principia.” Ernst Mayr, arguably the greatest evolutionary theorist since Darwin, asserted that the Origin of Species triggered the greatest paradigm shift in the history of science. The late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, who inherited Huxley’s mantle as public intellectual, called the theory of evolution one of the half dozen most important ideas in the entire history of Western thought. The philosopher of science Daniel Dennett called evolution the most dangerous idea in the history of science.<...>

On a recent afternoon spent in London’s Natural History Museum (NHM), I noticed that a life-size animatronic Velociraptor had finally sprouted feathers. They might have been a touch sparse compared to the plumage of counterparts in museums elsewhere, but it was encouraging to see them there. A few years earlier, the Tyrannosaurs: Meet the Family exhibition at the Australian Museum in Sydney had featured not only wonderful feathered fossils from China, but also models of shaggy carnivores that could have been swiped from Jim Henson’s workshop yet were still creepy enough to strike fear into the hearts of gobsmacked kids. <...>

For centuries, people had picked up huge bones in the ground and puzzled over their origins. In some parts of the world, they were thought to be the remains of legendary dragons, sea monsters, or Cyclopes. On the Greek island of Samos, the numerous large bones were thought to be the remains of Amazon warrior women who had died in battle. (We now know they are the remains of elephants, giraffes, antelopes, cattle, hyenas, and other mammals that were abundantly fossilized there.)

The dinosaurs never expected it. Nor did any of the other organisms, from the tiniest bacteria to the great flying reptiles of the air that were thriving on a perfectly normal Cretaceous day 66 million years ago. One moment life, death, and renewal proceeded just as they had the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that, stretching back through millions upon millions of years. The next, our planet suffered the worst single day in the entire history of life on Earth <...>

It all started very suddenly, in the spring of 1955. I was reading magazines in my grandfather's house in New Jersey, and I found that magical Life cover story—"Dinosaurs." Fold-out, full-color pictures of heroic creatures. Allosaurus, Brontosaurus, Stegosaurus, Tyrannosaurus rex. I discovered an entire world, far, far away in time, that I could visit, whenever I wanted, via the creative labors
of the paleontologists. And I made up my mind then and there that I would devote my life to the dinosaurs. Since I was in the fourth grade, my parents weren't alarmed at my vow.

This book got its start about seven years ago when Robert Bakker-the progressive dinosaurologist I studied with for many years-suggested that I draw up illustrations of some predatory dinosaur skeletons. About the same time, I started looking into the problem of bird origins, which I believed was tied to dinosaurs. One thing led to another and after a while I realized I had enough material available to put together a book on the dinosaurian meat eaters.

T o m Whiteley, an accomplished amateur paleontologist, has taken the lead in compiling a much-needed popular account of the trilobites of New York. Sumptuously illustrated with generous photographs of complete specimens of New York trilobites, this book is more than a regional field guide. It also testifies to Gerry Kloc's expertise in preparation and Carlton Brett's keen insight about the rocks and complex facies of the state. In essence, the book reprises the work of Charles Walcott, another accomplished amateur paleontologist of a century and a quarter ago.

Most palaeontologists will tell you they arrived in their job because, as a child, they loved prehistoric creatures, particularly dinosaurs. They just never grew up – or at least they never stopped seeing a world filled with wonder and excitement. In that sense, I never grew up either. I never stopped being the little kid staring up in awe at the 32-metre-long fossil of ‘Dippy’ the Diplodocus that fills the vaulted Central Hall of London’s Natural History Museum.

Fossils are our planet's memory, and they stick hard in our memories. Those people who are lucky enough to have found fossils often remember their first fossil for life. Leaving dinosaurs aside for the moment, two types of fossils seem to appeal more than others: ammonites and trilobites. Both are extinct, diverse, and beautiful; both are poster children for extinction; and both have fans who devote their lives to collecting them.