560 million year old fossils. (Courtesy of Samuel Bowring.)
Instructor(s)
Prof. Daniel Rothman
MIT Course Number
12.517
As Taught In
Spring 2005
Level
Graduate
Course Description
Course Highlights
This course features a complete reading list and student presentation topics in the assignments section.
Course Description
This seminar will focus on dynamical change in biogeochemical cycles accompanying early animal evolution -- beginning with the time of the earliest known microscopic animal fossils (~600 million years ago) and culminating (~100 million years later) with the rapid diversification of marine animals known as the "Cambrian explosion." Recent work indicates that this period of intense biological evolution was both a cause and an effect of changes in global biogeochemical cycles. We will seek to identify and quantify such coevolutionary changes. Lectures and discussions will attempt to unite the perspectives of quantitative theory, organic geochemistry, and evolutionary biology.
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