Journal of a Fossil Hunter

Journal of a Fossil Hunter PDF Author: Louise Spilsbury
Publisher: Heinemann-Raintree Library
ISBN: 9781410919236
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 40

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Book Description
Describes how and where fossils are found and what they represent using examples of real fossils, from the point of view of a paleontologist.

Journal of a Fossil Hunter

Journal of a Fossil Hunter PDF Author: Louise Spilsbury
Publisher: Heinemann-Raintree Library
ISBN: 9781410919236
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 40

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Book Description
Describes how and where fossils are found and what they represent using examples of real fossils, from the point of view of a paleontologist.

Mary Anning

Mary Anning PDF Author: Sally M. Walker
Publisher: Millbrook Press
ISBN: 9781575054254
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 56

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Book Description
Describes the life of Mary Anning, who discovered many of the best and most complete fossils in nineteenth-century England, yet received little credit for her work.

The Life of a Fossil Hunter

The Life of a Fossil Hunter PDF Author: Charles Hazelius Sternberg
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description


The First Fossil Hunters

The First Fossil Hunters PDF Author: Adrienne Mayor
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691245606
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
The fascinating story of how the fossils of dinosaurs, mammoths, and other extinct animals influenced some of the most spectacular creatures of classical mythology Griffins, Centaurs, Cyclopes, and Giants—these fabulous creatures of classical mythology continue to live in the modern imagination through the vivid accounts that have come down to us from the ancient Greeks and Romans. But what if these beings were more than merely fictions? What if monstrous creatures once roamed the earth in the very places where their legends first arose? This is the arresting and original thesis that Adrienne Mayor explores in The First Fossil Hunters. Through careful research and meticulous documentation, she convincingly shows that many of the giants and monsters of myth did have a basis in fact—in the enormous bones of long-extinct species that were once abundant in the lands of the Greeks and Romans. As Mayor shows, the Greeks and Romans were well aware that a different breed of creatures once inhabited their lands. They frequently encountered the fossilized bones of these primeval beings, and they developed sophisticated concepts to explain the fossil evidence, concepts that were expressed in mythological stories. The legend of the gold-guarding griffin, for example, sprang from tales first told by Scythian gold-miners, who, passing through the Gobi Desert at the foot of the Altai Mountains, encountered the skeletons of Protoceratops and other dinosaurs that littered the ground. Like their modern counterparts, the ancient fossil hunters collected and measured impressive petrified remains and displayed them in temples and museums; they attempted to reconstruct the appearance of these prehistoric creatures and to explain their extinction. Long thought to be fantasy, the remarkably detailed and perceptive Greek and Roman accounts of giant bone finds were actually based on solid paleontological facts. By reading these neglected narratives for the first time in the light of modern scientific discoveries, Adrienne Mayor illuminates a lost world of ancient paleontology.

The Fossil Hunter

The Fossil Hunter PDF Author: Shelley Emling
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 023010097X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
At a time when women were excluded from science, a young girl made a discovery that marked the birth of paleontology and continues to feed the debate about evolution to this day. Mary Anning was only twelve years old when, in 1811, she discovered the first dinosaur skeleton--of an ichthyosaur--while fossil hunting on the cliffs of Lyme Regis, England. Until Mary's incredible discovery, it was widely believed that animals did not become extinct. The child of a poor family, Mary became a fossil hunter, inspiring the tongue-twister, "She Sells Sea Shells by the Seashore." She attracted the attention of fossil collectors and eventually the scientific world. Once news of the fossils reached the halls of academia, it became impossible to ignore the truth. Mary's peculiar finds helped lay the groundwork for Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, laid out in his On the Origin of Species. Darwin drew on Mary's fossilized creatures as irrefutable evidence that life in the past was nothing like life in the present. A story worthy of Dickens, The Fossil Hunter chronicles the life of this young girl, with dirt under her fingernails and not a shilling to buy dinner, who became a world-renowned paleontologist. Dickens himself said of Mary: "The carpenter's daughter has won a name for herself, and deserved to win it." Here at last, Shelley Emling returns Mary Anning, of whom Stephen J. Gould remarked, is "probably the most important unsung (or inadequately sung) collecting force in the history of paleontology," to her deserved place in history.

Fossil Hunter

Fossil Hunter PDF Author: Cheryl Blackford
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0358396026
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
“This in-depth, beautifully illustrated biography of Mary Anning sings with the passion and perseverance of the woman herself, who from girlhood on scoured the shifting cliffs of her native Dorset to dig out prehistoric mysteries and make sense of them—altering forever our view of the past.” —Joyce Sidman, Newbery Honor winner and Sibert Medal winner A fascinating, highly visual biography of Mary Anning, the Victorian fossil hunter who changed scientific thinking about prehistoric life and would become one of the most celebrated paleontologists of all time. Perfect for children learning about woman scientists like Ada Lovelace, Jane Goodall, and Katherine Johnson. Mary Anning grew up on the south coast of England in a region rich in fossils. As teenagers, she and her brother Joseph discovered England’s first complete ichthyosaur. Poor and uneducated, Anning would become one of the most celebrated paleontologists ever, though in her time she supported herself selling by fossils and received little formal recognition. Her findings helped shape scientific thinking about extinction and prehistoric life long before Darwin published his famous work on evolution. With engaging text, photographs, and stunning paleoart, Fossil Hunter introduces this self-taught scientist, now recognized as one of the greatest fossilists the world has ever known.

Fossil Legends of the First Americans

Fossil Legends of the First Americans PDF Author: Adrienne Mayor
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400849314
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 489

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Book Description
The burnt-red badlands of Montana's Hell Creek are a vast graveyard of the Cretaceous dinosaurs that lived 68 million years ago. Those hills were, much later, also home to the Sioux, the Crows, and the Blackfeet, the first people to encounter the dinosaur fossils exposed by the elements. What did Native Americans make of these stone skeletons, and how did they explain the teeth and claws of gargantuan animals no one had seen alive? Did they speculate about their deaths? Did they collect fossils? Beginning in the East, with its Ice Age monsters, and ending in the West, where dinosaurs lived and died, this richly illustrated and elegantly written book examines the discoveries of enormous bones and uses of fossils for medicine, hunting magic, and spells. Well before Columbus, Native Americans observed the mysterious petrified remains of extinct creatures and sought to understand their transformation to stone. In perceptive creation stories, they visualized the remains of extinct mammoths, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and marine creatures as Monster Bears, Giant Lizards, Thunder Birds, and Water Monsters. Their insights, some so sophisticated that they anticipate modern scientific theories, were passed down in oral histories over many centuries. Drawing on historical sources, archaeology, traditional accounts, and extensive personal interviews, Adrienne Mayor takes us from Aztec and Inca fossil tales to the traditions of the Iroquois, Navajos, Apaches, Cheyennes, and Pawnees. Fossil Legends of the First Americans represents a major step forward in our understanding of how humans made sense of fossils before evolutionary theory developed.

Remarkable Creatures

Remarkable Creatures PDF Author: Tracy Chevalier
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101152451
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
From the New York Times bestselling novelist, a stunning historical novel that follows the story of Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot, two extraordinary 19th century fossil hunters who changed the scientific world forever. On the windswept, fossil-strewn beaches of the English coast, poor and uneducated Mary learns that she has a unique gift: "the eye" to spot ammonites and other fossils no one else can see. When she uncovers an unusual fossilized skeleton in the cliffs near her home, she sets the religious community on edge, the townspeople to gossip, and the scientific world alight. After enduring bitter cold, thunderstorms, and landslips, her challenges only grow when she falls in love with an impossible man. Mary soon finds an unlikely champion in prickly Elizabeth, a middle-class spinster who shares her passion for scouring the beaches. Their relationship strikes a delicate balance between fierce loyalty, mutual appreciation, and barely suppressed envy, but ultimately turns out to be their greatest asset. From the author of At the Edge of the Orchard and Girl With a Pearl Earring comes this incredible story of two remarkable women and their voyage of discovery.

Bone Wars

Bone Wars PDF Author: Tom Rea
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 082298847X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
Foreword by Matthew C. Lamanna New Afterword by Tom Rea Less than one hundred years ago, Diplodocus carnegii—named after industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie—was the most famous dinosaur on the planet. The most complete fossil skeleton unearthed to date, and one of the largest dinosaurs ever discovered, Diplodocus was displayed in a dozen museums around the world and viewed by millions of people. Bone Wars explains how a fossil unearthed in the badlands of Wyoming in 1899 helped give birth to the public’s fascination with prehistoric beasts. Rea also traces the evolution of scientific thought regarding dinosaurs and reveals the double-crosses and behind-the-scenes deals that marked the early years of bone hunting. With the help of letters found in scattered archives, Tom Rea recreates a remarkable story of hubris, hope, and turn-of-the-century science. He focuses on the roles of five men: Wyoming fossil hunter Bill Reed; paleontologists Jacob Wortman—in charge of the expedition that discovered Carnegie’s dinosaur—and John Bell Hatcher; William Holland, imperious director of the recently founded Carnegie Museum; and Carnegie himself, smitten with the colossal animals after reading a story in the New York Journal and Advertiser. What emerges is the picture of an era reminiscent of today: technology advancing by leaps and bounds; the press happy to sensationalize anything that turned up; huge amounts of capital ending up in the hands of a small number of people; and some devoted individuals placing honest research above personal gain.

Mary Anning's Curiosity

Mary Anning's Curiosity PDF Author: Monica Kulling
Publisher: Groundwood Books Ltd
ISBN: 1554988993
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 69

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Book Description
The amazing story of how the world’s greatest fossilist found her first huge find at the age of twelve. Mary was born in 1799 in Lyme Regis, England. Her father, a carpenter and part-time fossil hunter, taught his children to look for fossils. When her father injured himself and was unable to work, Mary quit school and took up fossil hunting full-time to help support her family, a task that became even more important when her father died, leaving the Annings in debt. At the age of twelve, Mary, with her older brother Joe, found what they believed to be the skeleton of a gigantic crocodile, the Great Croc of the legends. Between dodging her rival fossil hunter the Curiman, and the sheer work of carefully digging out the fossil, Mary took almost a year to excavate what would later be termed the Ichthyosaurus. Mary Anning was uneducated, poor and a woman, but her life’s work of fossil hunting led her to make many discoveries that influenced our understanding of prehistoric creatures and the age of the Earth. In this triumphant novel about scientific discovery, Monica Kulling brings Mary Anning and her world to life for young readers. Key Text Features author's note historical context resources facts further reading