Download or read book Fossils of the Chalk written by Ellis Owen and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 1987 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: TheChalk, a charateristic white limestone deposited across much of northern Europe during the Upper Cretaceous, contains a remarkably diverse and well preserved fossil fauna. Previously, descriptions of this important fauna were scattered throughout numerous specialist monographs. Here for the first time this book provides a pocket-scized field guide to the identification of the almost complete range of macrofossils likely to be encountered in the Chalk of Britain. Following a brief introduction there are 11 chapters each dealing with a specific fossil group, ranging from sponges to dinosaurs, and written by individual specialists. Almost 400 species are illustrated photographically in 59 plates and each is accompanied by a brief diagnosis to aid identification together with notes on its stratigraphical range and distribution. Numerous other species comparable with those illustrated are also discussed in the text and their diagnostic differences noted. In addition each chapter provides a guide to the more important monographs and specialist publications where a fuller account of each group might be found.