Reviews (1)

A "must" for dinosaur enthusiasts of all ages.
Ideal for readers of all ages and examining scientific history and wonders with a set of commonly asked facts and figures, Dinosaur Answer Book uses fifteen subject-oriented chapters to reveal dinosaur facts, from theaccuracy of them movie Jurassic Park to how scientists discover andclassify dinosaurs. ... Read more

Book Description

The study of fossils, minerals, and gems has played crucial roles in increasing our knowledge about the Earth, the changes the planet has gone through, and the species that have inhabited it. This volume introduces the fascinating disciplines of geology, paleontology, and mineralogy, and how they reveal secrets of the Earth's history.

Coverage includes:
a systematic treatment of Earth history, rock types, marine fossils, terrestrial fossils, crystals, gems, and precious metals that provide insights into Earth's character; the most current data available on such topics as global tectonics and faunal extinctions, including a wealth of information about the demise of dinosaurs; new technologies in detecting and preserving rocks and minerals; and the effects of erosion and climate changes. ... Read more

Book Description

The ancient Chinese thought they were magical dragons. Some old-time scientists thought that because they were so big, all they could do was float in water. Boy, were they wrong! Even today, once-common notions about dinosaurs are being revised as new discoveries are made. This lively book about the perennially popular subject of dinosaurs offers fascinating insight into how certain theories were formed, and then how those theories were proved or disproved. It demonstrates that scientific thought is as creative as it is logical and invites budding scientists to come up with their own ideas. ... Read more

Book Description

Full-color photos. "A fine addition to the series, combining stunning photos

and a brief, lucid, logically organized text filled with fascinating details.

Discussions of fossilization, moving continents, and fossils of the future will

be particularly helpful for young scientists. Brief biographical sketches of

prominent scientists, as well as information on plant and animal fossils

(including early man), are also included."--Kirkus.




... Read more

Reviews (2)

Excellent Educationl Text
I'm a teacher and I find the Eyewitness books highly educational. I like the way the concepts are presented in a form without backgrounds. This gives clear facts to the reader without over taxing the attention span. The books are highly informative, presenting difficult concepts in comprehendable chunks that stimulate interest. I have almost the whole collection for my own children and they LOVE them!

Excellent Pictures and Descriptions
As with the other "Eyewitness" books published by DK Publishing, this one is right on the mark for a beginner and seasoned fossil collector with pictures and descriptions that correllate very well with each other. Includes information of most all common fossils and a few of harder to find fossils. Not for researching significant hard-to-find or rare fossils. Worth the price and is also available in paperback binding. ... Read more

Book Description

In the last couple of decades the study of dinosaur eggs and babies has proved to be one of the most exciting and profitable areas of dinosaur research. This is the first book solely devoted to this topic and reviews, in scientific detail, our present state of knowledge about this exciting area of palaeontology. Chapters in the book discuss all aspects of the science including the occurrence of eggs, nests and baby skeletons, descriptive osteology of juvenile skeletons, comparative histology of juvenile bone, analyses of eggs and egg shells, palaeoenvironments of nesting sites, nesting behaviour and developmental growth of baby dinosaurs. The volume will be an invaluable addition to the book collections of vertebrate palaeontologists and their graduate students. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Wonderful
My friend, Karen Alf, participated in the 1st chapter. Anything, she has touched with her intelligence and charm is wonderful. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park introduced readers to the once improbable notion that, thanks to advances in genetic science, dinosaurs could be brought back from the grave. Richard Stone's Mammoth offers a kindred scenario: the establishment of a "Pleistocene Park," in which long-extinct creatures like the mammoth, saber-toothed tiger, and woolly rhino could be resurrected and given sanctuary.

This is not a science-fiction vision, we learn from science journalist Stone's absorbing journey into recent prehistory. Already, scientists from Russia, Canada, the United States, and other nations are studying the possibility of restoring a stretch of northern Siberia to its Pleistocene condition, thereby creating what they call a "mammoth steppe" populated by bison, Yakutian horses, and elephants--and one day, perhaps, creatures such as the woolly mammoth, genetically "summoned from the world of the dead." The materials are readily available, Stone writes, in the form of DNA-bearing "muscles and ligaments and fat" found in mammoths now buried in arctic permafrost. Whether those remnants can be made to bring back to life what Siberians call the "rat beneath the ice" is another question, but it's one that many scholars are busily exploring.

While looking into what he calls a "watershed in efforts to study lost ecosystems," Stone provides a lively natural history of the mammoth and evaluates conflicting theories on its extinction. His book makes for a memorable journey into unknown scientific territory--and a glimpse at a possible future that is surpassing strange. --Gregory McNamee ... Read more

Reviews (6)

A Shaggy Elephant Story
This fascinating little book is about a large and extinct creature, the mammoth. Evidence of this creature, which last walked the earth 37 centuries ago, seems to be scattered all over the place in North America and in Siberia. This book describes the work of a mixed band of mammoth enthusiasts as they search for mammoths frozen in the tundra of Russia's Far North.

There is an international cast in this story-a French arctic travel guide, Russian academics, Japanese experts in reproductive science, a Dutch amateur with a house stuffed with mammoth bones and, of course, the folks at the Discovery Channel trying to make this all into Good Television or, at least, Show Biz. Unfortunately, this book comes a bit too early--biotechnology has not advanced to the point where a mammoth might be cloned from scattered remnants of DNA and a superb specimen, frozen in the ice with useful bits intact, had not been found by the time the book went to press. Instead, author Richard Stone does an admirable job in sewing parts together to tell this story.

We learn that the inhabitants of Siberia believe that digging up the bones of mammoths brings bad luck, but there is nothing wrong with taking tusks when they are found. Huge numbers of tusks, estimated from 50,000 animals, have been shipped out in the last century. Scientists made arduous journeys trying to discover more about mammoths and our strong interest in them continues to this day. The book details how mammoths probably lived and alternative explanations about how they became extinct--through climactic change, being hunted or wiped out by disease.

This is quite interesting and the sections about cloning mammoths are highly imaginative and entertaining. Mr. Stone has done good research and writes engagingly of his voyages beyond the beyond. And he does not shy away from commenting on the ethical question of cloning extinct species. But at the end of the day, one has to wonder about the resources invested into the quixotic expeditions he details when there are pressing issues in habitat conservation today, including the protection of that much-loved and much-decimated relative of the mammoth, the elephant.

Recommended for those with an interest in science on the fringes...

Mammoth: The Resurrection of an Ice Age Giant
Mammoth: THe Resurrection of an Ice Age Giant written by Richard Stone is a book about adventure, but not just your oridinary adventure. The Adventure here is about the unearthing of giant animals from the Pleistocene Era... Giant Wooly Mammoths in the permafrost of Siberia. This is a very provocative book as the science is beautifully clear.

The Wooly Mammoth roamed Europe, Asia and North America and grew to huge proportions, but later became extinct and all that we know of their existance is being uncovered by some very good scientific research. Now, a new generation of explorers has taken up the challange, to find out more about the mammoth and the life and times that existed during their lifetimes. Armed with ground-penetrating radar, GPS, and helecopters the large expanse of Siberia is begins to yield some interesting finds and the clues that go along with more and more information.

There is promiss in this book that once again the mammoth may live... how you say can this happen... well through DNA and cloning. This book takes you on a rigerous adventure through frontiers of science. Yes, theoretically it can be done, but this book examins both the profound philosophical questions about the risks and morality of executing these efforts. Liken to "Jurassic Park," you say.. and you would be correct.

Theories exist as to why the mammoth did out and became extinct... one of which is the overchill theory as the Earth became increasingly cooler the food supply for the mammoth became less and less forage for the animal, next the psychological change of being penned in by dense forest and glacier. Mammoth were used to living in the Northern cooler climates as is evidece in the finds of today. So much so, as there are finds in the small islands of the Arctic Ocean.

This book tells a riveting adventureus tale that is fascinating to read. The prose flows well as you, the reader, are now in the hunt for the mammoth. The text treats the reader to a review of the wide variety of information Stone has learned about the Mammoth while doing research.

A mammoth primer and more
This book is enjoyable to read and packed with information. Richard Stone does a great job with the mostly scientific material while keeping it entertaining with descriptions of travel to Siberia. This book is an excellent primer on mammoths--their biology, their fossil record, the history of their discovery by humans, the theories of their extinction--and it has a bibliography if you would like to know more. But it is more than that. In discussing current research on mammoths, he covers paleontolgy, arctic exploration, Russian history, genetics, molecular biology, biogeography, and anthropology, and handles all of them equally well. The center piece of the book is the expedition to unearth the Jarkov mammoth and thaw it slowly to find out how intact it is (you would be surprised how many intact frozen mammoths have gone on record as having been left to the wolves to eat or fed to dogs, or just left to rot--what a waste!). The book ends with some uncertainty about how valuable the Jarkov mammoth will be, but that did not distract me from finding this a very satisfying book.

One small thing that would have made this book better is a graphic depiction of a timeline of the Pleistocene. I have trouble keeping my dates straight.

Big mammoth--No Hat
This book is a dreadful disappointment because the expedition was a bust. As a result, the author has injected a tedious history of mammoth hunting into the story--which is the story of struggling mightily to unearth and defrost an entire wooly mammoth. Unfortunately, the giant block of permafrost thought to contain an entire frozen beast yields only the usual bones and a small amount of mammoth flesh. According to the author, this mammoth flesh emits a distinct and odious aroma. So does this book.

Titan
Richard Stone's "Mammoth" opens the mind's eye to vivid and unexpected worlds of discovery - past, present, and future, from Pleistocene hunting parties who pursued the woolly colossus for sustenance, to 21st-century scientists who seek the still fugitive hunk of flesh from which, they hope, they will find themselves able to extract an unadulterated archive of genetic material; to those dreamers who would not only resurrect a creature that nature and history have conspired to bury beneath the snow but also to reconstruct around it a "Pleistocene Park," an entire ecosystem of the kind in which the ancient animal flourished.

What, indeed, caused the mammoth's disappearance in the first place? Stone asks. Was it climate change, for instance, or was it overhunting - or was it some horrible "hyperdisease" to which, if we extract the behemoth from its icy sepulchre, we might expose ourselves?

But "Mammoth" is not just a natural history; it is also a front-seat adventure that takes us on a trek of thousands of kilometers, from locales as diverse as Tokyo and North Africa to the vast whiteness and bone-chilling cold of the Siberian Arctic. It is an expedition that marries gleaming Western technologies to creaky post-Soviet gear and traverses the chaos and corruption of today's Russia. It is a quest, too, that brooks the terror of indigenous peoples that the latter-day grave-robbers about whom we read might expose themselves - and all of us, in their heedless arrogance - to some ancient curse or unpredictable calamity. ... Read more

Book Description

A decade ago, a nearly complete elasmosaur skeleton was found near Courtenay on Vancouver Island, in rocks dating from 80 million years ago, and it caused a sensation. Finds like this remind us that British Columbia is home to some of the richest marine fossil beds in the world, most of them on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands which lie along the geographically active "ring of fire" encircling the Pacific Ocean.Written by two leading paleontologists, this concise and authoritative guide introduces fossils from the area, from delicate insect wings to razor-sharp shark teeth to coiled ammonites the size of truck tires, each of which was once a living part of an ancient ecosystem.The book includes maps, charts and more than 200 fossil photographs, as well as information for locating, collecting, studying, photographing and preserving fossils, and notes on the ethics of fossil collecting. ... Read more

Book Description

Anyone interested in collecting fossils or in learning more about the previous life of these animals and plants will find a wealth of information in this lavishly illustrated guide. Here Helmut Mayr brings together over five hundred color photographs with concise and lively descriptions of both common and unusual fossils. Intended to aid amateurs in specimen identification and classification, this book offers an encyclopedic breadth of coverage that many specialists too will find useful.

In his introduction Mayr discusses the most important genera of animals and plants, the origins of fossils and the forms of their preservation, tips on collecting and on recovery and storing, technical terminology, and insights into scientific research. The main section contains illustrations and descriptions of the fossils themselves, with an emphasis on ammonites, but also including corals, mollusks, snails, echinoderms and brachiopods, vertebrates, and plants. Each illustrated example is accompanied by information on distinguishing marks, geographical distribution, period of existence, and the habits and ecology of the important representatives of the individual genera. ... Read more

Book Description

This compact, easy-to-use identification and field guide is a must for anyone with an interest in minerals, rocks and fossils.With user-friendly thumbnail outlines of a wide variety of geological formations, an authoritative text describing key identification features, and full color photographs illustrating more than 220 varieties or rock, mineral and fossil, this guide is an invaluable aid for anyone wishing to learn more and explore the fascinating world of geology.This handy reference book makes a great traveling companion for experienced naturalists and a great introduction for beginners and tourists with a casual interest in natural history. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Fabulous!
If you need to find out about fossil vertebrates of Alabama, this is the book you need!And I'm not just saying that because my maiden name is Thurmond and my father is the author!:)He lived in Alabama (which is where I was born)for quite a while and taught Paleontology at Birmingham Southern University.Please read my father's book!It's great for research, too!He won't care about royalties (I'm sure there aren't many...it's not on the best seller list or anything...) but he will care about spreading his vast knowledge to others who are interested in the subject!That is what he loved to do before he recently retired from teaching (after more than 25 years!).Enjoy! ... Read more

Book Description

Step back in time to an age when dinosaurs rules the Earth. find out about gentle Jurassic giants and the terrifying Tyrannosaurus rex. Marvel at fearsome packs of Velociraptors with their switchblade claws, and spy on herds of Hadrosaurs sporting colorful crests. Dramatic, atmospheric photography provides a wealth of visual information. Packed with facts and written in an accessible style, Eye Wonders are the perfect educational start for young children. Eye Wonders is a groundbreaking reference series specially developed for younger children aged five plus. In a stunning style departure for DK, wonderful photography shows subjects within their natural setting, offering a whole new level of information through powerful images. Vocabulary is accessible to children aged five plus, with the meanings of new, subject-related words clearly explained. The series provides an excellent knowledge base on the natural world for children starting to learn. The combination of breathtaking visuals and informative, accurate text will hook even those children who usually avoid books. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Very Informational
I know it's geared towards older kids, but we purchased this book for our then 3-year-old, who LOVES dinosaurs (Walking with Dinosaurs is one of his favorite programs). After a year and a half he stills asks me to read it to him. He loves the pictures, and enjoys learning the different facts. No matter how many times we read it, he still finds questions to ask. We chose it because it actually has the correct pronunciation for each dinosaur featured (something many other books didn't have). I would certainly recommend it to any dinosaur lover, regardless of age. ... Read more