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Cephalopods Present and Past : New Insights and Fresh Perspectives
Cephalopods are diverse, highly developed molluscs capable of swimming and jet propulsion. These animals are an important component of present-day marine ecos- tems throughout the world and comprise approximately 900 species. They also have an extraordinary fossil record, extending back to the Cambrian Period, with as many as 10,000 extinct species. Throughout their long history, they have experienced sp- tacular radiations and near-total extinctions. Because of their superb fossil record, they also serve as ideal index fossils to subdivide geologic time. This book touches on many of these themes, and it treats both fossil and present-day cephalopods.
Mass Extinction
The present book combines three main aspects: five major mass extinctions; contributions on some other minor extinctions; and more importantly contributions on the current mass extinction.
Catastrophic Events Caused by Cosmic Objects
Many times all of us could hear from mass media that an asteroid approached and swept past the Earth. Such an asteroid or comet will inevitably strike the planet some day. This volume considers hazards due to collisions with cosmic objects, particularly in light of recent investigations of impacts by the authors. Each chapter written by an expert contains an overview of an aspect and new findings in the field. The main hazardous effects – cratering, shock, aerial and seismic waves, fires, ejection of dust and soot, tsunami are described and numerically estimated. Numerical simulations of impacts and impact consequences have received much attention in the book. Fairly small impacting objects 50 -100 m in diameter pose a real threat to humanity and their influence on the atmosphere and ionosphere is emphasized.
Biological processes associated with impact events
The biological effects of asteroid and comet impacts have been widely viewed as primarily destructive. The role of an impactor in the K/T boundary extinctions has had a particularly important influence on thinking concerning the role of impacts in ecological and biological changes. th During the 10 and final workshop of the ESF IMPACT program during March 2003, we sought to investigate the wider aspects of the involvement of impact events in biological processes, including the beneficial role of these events from the prebiotic through to the ecosystem level. The ESF IMPACT programme (1998-2003) was an interdisciplinary effort that is aimed at understanding impact processes and their effects on the Earth environment, including environmental, geological and biological changes.
