The Garden of Ediacara

by Mark A.S. McMenamin

-- Tree

Genres: Evolution, Palaeontology, Science, Nonfiction, Biology

368 pages, Hardcover

First published April 15, 1998

About the author

Mark McMenamin is Professor of Geology in the Department of Earth and Environment at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Bea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I could give this a 2.5. The subject matter was interesting - when the author was sticking to it. I learned a lot about the Ediacara - what we know about them, how they might relate to other life, how they might reproduce, when they lived, where their fossils have been found.

Unfortunately, the author is very rambling - mixing up interesting scientific chapters with overly detailed personal accounts of uninteresting details of his life. This is paralleled by the odd choice of figures - some good photos and drawings, then random uninteresting photos (the falling down horse shed?). I wanted more pictures and drawings of the fossils, more timelines, and drawings of stratigraphy to explain the geological terms he throws about.

The last chapters were philosophical. They lost me a bit at times (so many long quotations!) and I don't think he provided good evidence of why convergent evolution is best explained by directionality in evolution. I still think that responses to environmental factors and contingency can explain all of his scenarios.

Overall, I'm glad I read it to broaden my knowledge of early life on earth and the possibility of very different life forms. I wish he had expounded more on how he thinks Ediacara grow and might reproduce - very interesting speculations!

[Dylan Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dive into a world so intriguing, so bizarre, so completely disparate from the reality that we as humans now find ourselves living in. Mark A. S. McMenamin, an authority on Ediacaran biota, does his best to describe a period in time completely enshrouded in mystery. The Ediacarans, called by some the Vendobionts, represent a phase in animal evolution (or perhaps just animal-adjacent) that continues to confound and drive scientists to contention. From the triradially symmetrical trilobozoans to the frond-like petalonamids to the segmented proarticulates, the Ediacaran period marked a time of evolutionary experimentation. So what exactly were these strange creatures? Some propose that they were early members of the Cnidaria assemblage, which includes the jellyfish and the corals. Others, including the author, postulates a more dynamic explanation, concluding that these forms represent an early iteration of multicellularity adjacent to that seen in the animal kingdom. As an author of fiction, I like a good story, and the complexities involved in the latter explanation tend to intrigue me more, though I’m no expert on the matter. Whatever these creatures were, understanding their place within our earthly family tree will be crucial to our modern synthesis of evolution. A captivating and accessible read.

[Priscilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

His megalomania is a little hard to take, but other than that, an interesting book.