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| Rebels, Scholars, Explorers : Women in Vertebrate Paleontology
ISBN: 9781421439716
Platform/Publisher: Ebook Central / Johns Hopkins University Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Limited; Download: 7 Days at a Time
Subjects: Science: Geology; Science;
Paleontologists Berta and Turner deliver a valuable encyclopedia of female vertebrate paleontologists, or VPs. Their instructive, well-organized reference, targeted at readers with some knowledge of the field (not all terminology is defined), highlights how women have helped vertebrate paleontology shape science's "understanding of the history of life." Berta and Turner begin with 19th-century "bone-hunting icon" Mary Anning, discoverer of a nearly intact plesiosaur in 1824, following up with brief biographies of other important figures, such as Fanny Rysam Mulford Hitchcock, the first American female VP to publish, and Elga Mark-Kurik, who uncovered a transitional fossil between fish and land-dwelling animals. Along with historical firsts and discoveries, the coauthors share some maddening tales of gender inequity, such as about Mary Buckland, forbidden by her husband, fellow VP William Buckland, from attending scientific conferences. This didn't prevent him from relying on her help: when he "awoke with an idea about fossil tracks at two o'clock one morning," she gamely helped "by covering the kitchen table with pie crust dough while he fetched their pet tortoise and together they confirmed" that its footprints matched those of a recently discovered fossil. Women in science will appreciate Berta and Turner's tribute to female trailblazers in paleontology. (Nov.)
Annalisa Berta is professor emerita of biology at San Diego State University. She is the author of Return to the Sea: The Life and Evolutionary Times of Marine Mammals and The Rise of Marine Mammals: 50 Million Years of Evolution . Susan Turner is a DAAD Professor, an honorary research fellow in the Department of Geosciences at the Queensland Museum, and a research adjunct at Monash University. She is the coauthor of Handbook of Paleoichthyology , volume 1B, "Agnatha" II: Thelodonti . |
