A concise dictionary of paleontology / Краткий палеонтологический словарь

A moderately comprehensive reference handbook covering the most important paleontological taxa, terms, concepts, and localities, this book is written primarily for general readers and beginning students in the field. My professional experience lies in technical writing and in teaching literature and history, with a lifelong interest in paleontology inspired by Professor Charles Higgins at UC Davis and by studying the geology collection in UC Berkeley’s beautiful Bacon Hall before it was demolished in 1961. Using the essays of science writers like Loren Eiseley, Stephen Gould, and E.O. Wilson in my composition classes in the 1980s, I made critical thinking and the evolution of life on Earth the center of my teaching. An interesting technical writing project in the early 1990s showed me the lack of a dictionary like this, and I began the groundwork for a good reference work as I directed student research in the history of life in my writing courses. Retiring from teaching in 2014, I have widened my understanding of paleontology with intensive study in the last 5 years. <...>