The rapid evolution of terrestrial ecosystems in the Devonian Period combined with climate change and many global events had a pronounced influence on sedimentation and biodiversity in various terrestrial and marine settings. This volume presents a number of case studies which cover the following topics land-sea transitional settings, the role of ecological-evolutionary subunits, the diversity and palaeoecology of reef building organisms and microfloras with respect to sedimentary processes and global events.

Excerpt from The Devonian Crinoids of the State of New York York and sent him out among the Devonian rocks of the State specially to collect these crinoids with whose mode of occurrence he was already SO well acquainted. When a scientific collector goes out to get a certain class of objects he is or Should be blind to all else. Doctor White could see naught but crinoids and his explorations had not continued long before he uncovered, on the land of a Mr Sisson in the northern part of the town of Bristol, Ontario county, on a ravine slope at the village of Muttonville (now more euphoniously denominated Vincent), a colony of crinoids in the Hamilton (middle Devonian) shales which proved to be the most extraordinary assemblage of these ancient stone lilies which the rocks of New York or of the Devonian system have ever afforded. Doctor White had for his assistant in the actual work of uncovering this extraordinary bed, the late Christian Van Deloo, a very successful collector of invertebrate fossils. Together the two removed the hillside and left barely a trace behind. They had, however, located a distinct crinoidal horizon now well known through out the Finger Lakes region Of western New York as the Crinoid Layer lying directly above the T ichenor limestone at about the middle of the Hamilton beds and recognized as the base of the Moscow shales. Doctor White continued his investigations and collections in this region during the season of 1860, and with that very successful campaign among the crinoids the special collecting of them was for many years abandoned. A few years later Doctor White became the State Geologist of Iowa and eventually United States Paleontologist. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Crinoids have graced the oceans for more than 500 million years. Among the most attractive fossils, crinoids had a key role in the ecology of marine communities through much of the fossil record, and their remains are prominent rock forming constituents of many limestones. This is the first comprehensive volume to bring together their form and function, classification, evolutionary history, occurrence, preservation and ecology. The main part of the book is devoted to assemblages of intact fossil crinoids, which are described in their geological setting in twenty-three chapters ranging from the Ordovician to the Tertiary. The final chapter deals with living sea lilies and feather stars. The volume is exquisitely illustrated with abundant photographs and line drawings of crinoids from sites around the world. This authoritative account recreates a fascinating picture of fossil crinoids for paleontologists, geologists, evolutionary and marine biologists, ecologists and amateur fossil collectors.