Unmatched Currency, with coverage of
Discovery of Indohyus, the cloven-hoofed mammal that walked on the bottoms of streams and belonged to a taxon ancestral to whales (Chapters 7 and 18).
Discovery of the oldest know fossil cells: 3.5 million-year-old filamentous forms that bored into glassy material on the surface of pillow basalts, just as strikingly similar prokaryotes do today (Chapter 11).
New evidence of the history of cyanobacterial mats and the earliest burrowing animals close to the Proterozoic-Phanerozoic transition (Chapter 12).
The spectacular discovery of embryos of soft-bodied, bilaterally symmetrical animals in the Neoproterozoic of China (Chapter 12).
Discovery of the "missing link" Tiktaalik, the Late Devonian form that employed fins for swimming, but that also possessed a flexible neck and flexible wrist bones and fingerlike bones in its front fins—features that, in concert, would have permitted it to prop itself up to survey its above-water surroundings (Chapter 14).
Discovery of tillites in eastern North America that document midlatitude glaciation at the time of the Late Devonian mass extinction (Chapter 14).
New evidence concerning the cause of the greatest of all mass extinctions, which brought the Paleozoic Era to a close (Chapter 15).
An analysis of annual bone layers of Tyrannosaurus showing that the huge animal grew more rapidly than other dinosaurs (Chapter 16).
Documentation of a trail of explosive volcanism that traces out the migration of the Yellowstone hot spot relative to the North American craton (Chapter 19).
Evidence that the extinction of many large North American mammals 12,900 years ago, as well as the simultaneous Younger Dryas climatic reversal, resulted from the impact of a comet and evidence that the Clovis culture, rather than being responsible for the mammalian extinctions, actually died out with the large mammals (Chapter 20).
In addition, the new edition includes
An entirely new discussion of the controversial terms uniformitarianism and actualism
(Chapter 1)
Revised animal phylogenies produced by recent molecular analyses (Chapter 3)
An introduction to the new methods of cosmogenic, thermoluminescence, and optical dating (Chapter 6)
A discussion of the use of Milankovitch cycles for correlation and dating of strata (Chapter 7)
A description of two Middle Ordovician volcanic ash beds of the eastern United States, each larger than any other known Phanerozoic ash bed (Chapter 13)
A description of the Rio Grande Rift, which divides New Mexico in half and is probably still tectonically active (Chapter 18)
New and Updated Features
Updated! Visual Overviews—A widely praised, signature feature of the text, these two-page chapter opening spreads vividly illustrate the essential themes and concepts of Chapters 2 through 20. They also serve as a basis for a dynamic new interactive study feature (see Media & Supplements).
New! Consistent References to Scale in the figure captions give students context.
Redrawn Artistic Reconstructions, enhanced to make Earth system concepts and processes clearer and easier to grasp.
Headings written as statements provide succinct summaries of the contents of chapter sections that are easy to grasp and review.
Earth System Shift boxes highlight major events that transformed the Earth system on a global scale. In keeping with a central theme of this book, most entail both physical and biotic transitions.
Because the presentations in these boxes include the most important events of the past half billion years, as a group, they portray a significant portion of Earth’s history in relatively few pages. New boxes for this edition include:
Volcanism and Mass Extinction (Chapter 6)
Evidence that a Comet Struck Earth, Causing the Younger Dryas Event, the Exinction of Large Mammals, and the Disappearance of the Clovis Culture (Chapter 20).
Updated! Timelines at the beginning of Chapters 11–20 help students maintain a temporal perspective. New to this edition, they have been color coded according to the palette developed by the Untied States Geological Survey, making them beautiful and linking them to the profession.
Question-and-Answer Chapter Summaries are a more effective format for helping students review the material.