Some good books to consider

In order to prepare for teaching portions of the WIU paleo field course, I've been perusing the two class texts: Dinosaurs: A Very Short Introduction by David Norman and Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau by Ron Blakey and Wayne Ranney (both can be found on Half.com and Amazon as well).

Dinosaurs is a familiar text for me, as we've used it for a couple of years now. It is a quick read with some general science history about how and why dinosaur paleontology/paleobiology have been shaped into the professions they are today. Additionally, as Norman is an expert on hadrosaurs, he uses duck-billed dinos frequently as examples to illustrate major dinosaur research topics such as histology (LAGs, growth charts, poikilo/homeothermy), EPB and soft tissue reconstruction, molecular/protein analysis, FEA, etc.


I have yet to read the second book, Ancient Landscapes, all the way through, but the artwork has already proven impressive. I am especially excited to see that the authors/artists took care to add in situ pics of the strata as well as maps of North America during various periods of geologic history (including state outlines on maps of Pangea, etc). I'll be back with a more in-depth review of it on a later occasion.



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