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Tales from the underground : a natural history of subterranean life Preview this item
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Tales from the underground : a natural history of subterranean life

Author: David W Wolfe
Publisher: Cambridge, Mass. : Perseus Pub., ©2001.
Edition/Format: Book : EnglishView all editions and formats
Summary:

Ecologist David Wolfe takes us on a tour through current scientific knowledge of the subterranean world. We follow the progress of discovery from Charles Darwin's experiments with earthworms, to Lewis and Clark's first encounter with prairie dogs, to the use of new genetic tools that are revealing an astonishingly rich ecosystem beneath our feet. Wolfe plunges us deep into the earth's rocky crust, where life may have Read more...

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Details

Document Type: Book
All Authors / Contributors: David W Wolfe
ISBN: 0738201286 9780738201283 0738206792 9780738206790
OCLC Number: 46984480
Description: x, 221 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
Contents: pt. 1. Ancient life -- pt. 2. Life support for planet Earth -- pt. 3. The human factor.
Responsibility: David W. Wolfe.
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Abstract:

Ecologist David Wolfe takes us on a tour through current scientific knowledge of the subterranean world. We follow the progress of discovery from Charles Darwin's experiments with earthworms, to Lewis and Clark's first encounter with prairie dogs, to the use of new genetic tools that are revealing an astonishingly rich ecosystem beneath our feet. Wolfe plunges us deep into the earth's rocky crust, where life may have begun -- a world devoid of oxygen and light but safe from asteroid bombardment. Primitive microbes found there are turning our notion of the evolutionary tree of life on its head: amazingly, they represent perhaps a full third of earth's genetic diversity. As Wolfe explains, creatures of the soil can work for us, by providing important pharmaceuticals and recycling the essential elements of life, or against us, by spreading disease and contributing to global climate change.

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