Echoes of Life What Fossil Molecules Reveal about Earth History

In 1936 a German chemist identified certain organic molecules in ancient rocks and oils as the fossil remains of chlorophyll, presumably from plants that had lived millions of years in the past. Many years later this insight was revisited and the term "biomarker" coined to describe fossil molecules whose molecular structures could reveal the presence of otherwise elusive organisms and processes - and then, the hunt was on. Echoes of Life is the story of those molecules and how they illuminate the history of the earth and its life. It is also the story of how a few maverick organic chemists and geologists defied the dictates of their disciplines and, at a time when the natural sciences were fragmenting into ever-more-specialized sub-disciplines, reunited chemistry, biology and geology in a common endeavor.

Susan Gaines was trained as a chemist and oceanographer, but abandoned the laboratory to pursue a writer's vocation. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous literary anthologies and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and she is the author of the novel Carbon Dreams. Geoffrey Eglinton is Professor Emeritus at Bristol University, Adjunct Scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Adjunct Professor at Dartmouth College.
Jurgen Rullkotter is a professor of organic geochemistry at the Institute of Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM), University of Oldenburg, Germany.