The authors Susan Gaines, Prof. Dr. em. Geoffrey Eglinton and Prof. Dr. Jürgen Rullkötter will give an exposé of life on Earth at the presentation of their new release Echoes of Life: What Fossil Molecules Reveal about Earth History at the Hanse Institute for Advanced Study (HWK). This extraordinary book project uses straightforward means to make complex scientific correlations accessible to the reader.
The presentation will be held in English.
The book deals with the discovery of certain organic substances that are found in sediments and which act as biomarkers to provide information about otherwise impenetrable fossil organisms and processes. And it is the story of scientists from organic chemistry and geology, who defied the dictates of their highly specialized disciplines to reunite chemistry, biology and geology for the benefit of common research interests.
This fruitful and momentous collaboration was possible at the Hanse Institute for Advanced Study (HWK). At this intellectually independent and interdisciplinary location, the American author and Royal Academy member Susan Gaines and the Dan David Prize laureate Geoffrey Eglinton began work on this book as HWK fellows together with Jürgen Rullkötter, Director of the Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM) at the C.v.O. University of Oldenburg. "This unlikely trio – a writer, a founding father of molecular biogeochemistry, and a leading petroleum organic geochemist – have created a work that is a difficult to characterize as it is fun to read†(Kate Freemann, Sience Feb.2009).
A look at the contents of Echoes of Life promises a thought-provoking, provocative, and pleasurable read:
1. Molecular Informants: a changing perspective of organic chemistry
2. Looking to the Rocks: immortal molecules and life’s first vestiges
3. From the Moon to mars: the search for extraterrestrial life
4. Black Gold: an alchemist’s guide to petroleum
5. Deep Sea Mud: biomarker clues to climate history
6. More Molecules, More Mud and the Isotopic Dimension: ancient
environments revealed
7. Microbiologists (finally) climb on Board
8. Weird Molecules, Inconceivable Microbes, and Unlikely Proxies:
marine ecology revised
9. Molecular Paleontology and Biochemical Evolution
10. Early Life Revisited
11. Thinking Molecularly, Anything Goes: from mummies to oil spills,
doubts to new directions
