When Darwin wrote his Origin of Species, one of his main concerns was with the perceived shortness of the fossil record of life. Until the work of J. William Schopf and his colleagues, much of this history was thought to be unknowable. This book, through a memoire of Schopf’s personal recollections, documents astonishing discoveries revealing the first 85% of the history of life. These earliest periods of life on Earth emerge as a tale of individual and internationally collaborative exploration told by a scholar whose 60 years of research contributed to the recognition of the richness and...

Over the past half-century, studies of the evolution of life have themselves evolved, markedly. Life's earliest history, unknown and thought unknowable for the 100 years following publication of Darwin's great opus in 1859 has finally come to light as the documented fossil record has been extended an astonishing sevenfold, from 500 million to now 3,500 million years. No longer are studies of evolution based solely on ancient fossils, now augmented by the evidence of life's long development encoded in its genetic and biochemical make-up. Indeed, as new knowledge of the history of plants and...

Over the past half-century, studies of the evolution of life have themselves evolved, markedly. Life's earliest history, unknown and thought unknowable for the 100 years following publication of Darwin's great opus in 1859 has finally come to light as the documented fossil record has been extended an astonishing sevenfold, from 500 million to now 3,500 million years. No longer are studies of evolution based solely on ancient fossils, now augmented by the evidence of life's long development encoded in its genetic and biochemical make-up. Indeed, as new knowledge of the history of plants and...