Interpreting Pre-Quaternary Climate from the Geologoc Record

A valuable sourcebook that describes how various indicators are used to interpret paleoclimate... This text is an excellent sourcebook for professors, students and researchers who want a basic grasp of pre-Quarternary climates."–Nina L. Baghai, American Scientist
"This is the only book of its kind at present. It will be an extremely useful reference text not just for paleoclimatologists, but for many others - both researchers and students - who would like to know how their data can be useful to the full extent."–Jane Francis, University of Leeds GSA Today
"An excellent resource for researchers and a beginning point for graduate students in pre-Quaternary climatology."– Northeastern Naturalist
"Researchers and students will want to own this book for the sheer volume of information it contains. . . . Parrish offers a solid foundation for learning about the rich variety of geologic data available for understanding past climates."–Lisa Cirbus Sloan, Science Within the geological science of paleoclimatology, the earth's pre-Quaternary period--more than two million years ago--has been studied systematically only since the 1960's, when geologists started to take seriously the concept that the continents have changed position on the earth's surface. In the decades since, the study of pre-Quaternary paleoclimatology has expanded greatly. A wide variety of methods have been developed to study pre-Quaternary climates, but until now, no single text has sought to synthesize those methods.
Judith Totman Parrish's text offers a much-needed entry point into the literature. While a number of previous books have dealt with climate models and paleoclimate, this is the first to offer a sustained exploration of the methods that are the foundation of any interpretation of earth processes. Focusing primarily on the description and analysis of paleoclimatic indicators-signals of a particular climate--this valuable reference work offers detailed explanations of biotic and lithologic indicators in the marine and terrestrial realms and includes case histories of paleoclimatic studies.
The most up-to-date and comprehensive volume on the subject, Interpreting Pre-Quaternary Climatefrom the Geologic Record will be an important resource for students and scientists alike. Parrish's focus on the established, underexploited, and controversial methods bring to light a spectrum of potential new avenues of research in this field.

Contents

• Foreword
• Introduction
• Marine Biotic Indicators of Paleoclimate
• Continental Biotic Indicators of Paleoclimate
• Marine Lithologic Indicators of Paleoclimate
• Continental Lithologic Indicators of Paleoclimate
• Integrating Marine and Continental Paleoclimatic Records
• Models
• Case Histories of Paleoclimatic Studies