Talk:Book Brainstorm

From Tlaquanaru

Contents 1 Discussion of Book Tone and Topics 2 Introduction 3 Lagerstättens by Geological periods 3.1 Precambrian 3.2 Cambrian 3.3 Ordovician 3.4 Silurian 3.5 Devonian 3.6 Carboniferous 3.7 Permian 3.8 Triassic 3.9 Jurassic 3.10 Cretaceous 3.11 Paleocene 3.12 Eocene 3.13 Oligocene 3.14 Miocene 3.15 Pliocene 3.16 Pleistocene 4 Glossary 5 References 6 Species and Genera to be Included, and By Whom

Discussion of Book Tone and Topics

OK, Let's start ;)

• The idea is to have a few editors of the English wikipedia and contributors of dA to work together in writing a book on prehistoric life.
• We should probably limit ourselves to no more than 10 contributing people. We need further discussion to see who should be invited to join.
• The book should be comprehensive enough to become a reference book for all and contain both accurate and up-to-date information. It should be written in a way to be accessible to a large audience without sacrificing the scientific content. The tone used in the wikipedia dinosaur articles seems the most appropriate.

Sounds like a plan.

• It should be written as just another encyclopedia on prehistoric life. Most of them are presented either in genus alphabetical order or according to the linnean classification. My idea is to have the book separated in geological periods down to the faunal stages. For each faunal stage, have a description of the main fossil formations and a reconstruction of the corresponding ecosystem, with description of plants and animals present. The main plants and animal groups will be described at the time of their first fossil occurrence.

My only concerns about this are what to do about those species/genera that appear in more than one faunal stage (i.e., like the way Naraoia is found in the Burgess, Maotianshan and Wheeler Shales, or how Kubanochoerus gigas is found in both Georgia and China), and those faunal stages that span several geological periods, like the Siwalik (from Miocene to Pleistocene), or the Flaming Cliffs.

• We need plenty of high quality illustrations including animal reconstructions, skeletals, ecosystem reconstruction, maps, size diagram and pictures of the actual fossils.

Some of the fossil photographs are copyrighted: should we ask permission, or just draw pictures of the fossils, as well?

• We need some kind of an on-line private zone where we could write, edit, correct. How do we do that?

At the moment, I recommend my wiki, it's an out of the way place that sees very little traffic.

• Would 1 year be a reasonable time span to complete the book?
• First thing to do is probably to organize the different chapters and see if we are missing anything.
• Should we divide tasks or should we proceed as on wikipedia, everybody contributing a little bit on everything?

Should we start picking out what we want/need to do now, or should we wait until we have everyone staffed, first?

• We will need a professional paleontologist to review our work who will act as a scientific advisor.

Thoughts? Ntamura 00:31, 30 April 2008 (EDT)

Introduction

Lagerstättens by Geological periods

Precambrian

Flinders... White Sea...

Cambrian

Sirius Passet... Burgess Shales... Maotianshan Shales... Wheeler Shales (reef)... Southern California...

Ordovician

Silurian

England, Bohemia

Devonian

Escuminac Formation/Miguasha, China, Spitzenbergen, Siberia, Gogo Reef, Taemas-Wee Jasper Reef

Carboniferous

Bear Gulch

Permian

South Africa, Siberia, Texas

Triassic

Chinle, Ichigualasto

Jurassic

Dinosaur Monument

Cretaceous

(too many to think of)

Paleocene

Eocene

Messel, Zhongyuan, Flaming Cliffs, Green River

Oligocene

Miocene

Pliocene

Pleistocene

Glossary

References

Species and Genera to be Included, and By Whom