The region around Cincinnati, Ohio, is known throughout the world for the abundant and beautiful fossils found in limestones and shales that were deposited as sediments on the sea floor during the Ordovician Period, about 450 million years ago--some 250 million years before the dinosaurs lived. In Ordovician time, the shallow sea that covered much of what is now the North American continent teemed with marine life. The Cincinnati area has yielded some of the world's most abundant and best-preserved fossils of invertebrate animals such as trilobites, bryozoans, brachiopods, molluscs, echinoderms, and graptolites. So famous are the Ordovician fossils and rocks of the Cincinnati region that geologists use the term "Cincinnatian" for strata of the same age all over North America. This book synthesizes more than 150 years of research on this fossil treasure-trove, describing and illustrating the fossils, the life habits of the animals represented, their communities, and living relatives, as well as the nature of the rock strata in which they are found and the environmental conditions of the ancient sea.

Author: Richard Arnold Davis, David L. Meyer
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 03/04/2009
Series: Life of the Past
Pages: 368
Weight: 2.25lbs
Size: 10.10h x 7.20w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9780253351982
Audience: Young Adult


Review Citation(s):
Choice 08/01/2009
Scitech Book News 06/01/2009 pg. 50

About the Author

David L. Meyer is Professor of Geology at the University of Cincinnati. He lives in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Richard Arnold Davis is Professor of Biology and Geology at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati. He lives in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Steven M. Holland is Professor of Geology at the University of Georgia, Athens. He lives in Athens, Georgia.