The ordinary person looks at Stone Mountain and sees a solid, unmovable monolith. Emory paleontologist Anthony Martin, who thinks in geologic time, sees something more akin to a giant sugar cube.
Ever since the crystalized mass of igneous-born minerals rose from deep underground, pushed by the upwelling of magma that formed the Blue Ridge Mountains around 350 million years ago, the giant rock’s flanks have faced continuous assault — and not just from weather and water.
Stone Mountain “is fighting a battle against life, and life is winning,” Martin writes in the preface of his new book, “Life Sculpted: Tales of the Animals, Plants and Fungi That Drill, Break and Scrape to Shape the Earth.”
The University of Chicago Press is publishing “Life Sculpted” June 2, marking the fifth book during the past 10 years by Martin, professor of practice in Emory’s Department of Environmental Sciences.
Anthony Martin in Emory’s Lullwater Forest with the trunk of a pine tree carved up by beetles. Some species of beetles chew through wood to create tunnels where they lay their eggs. (Photo by Ruth Schowalter)
Anthony Martin in Emory’s Lullwater Forest with the trunk of a pine tree carved up by beetles. Some species of beetles chew through wood to create tunnels where they lay their eggs. (Photo by Ruth Schowalter)
Martin is a geologist and paleontologist focused primarily on ichnology — the study of traces of life such as tracks, burrows, nests and tooth marks. Among his discoveries are the only known burrowing dinosaur and the oldest bird tracks in Australia. His other passion is great science communication, which his books exemplify.
“Life Sculpted” is a follow-up to Martin’s 2017 book “The Evolution Underground: Burrows, Bunkers and the Marvelous Subterranean World Beneath Our Feet.” The current volume, also aimed at anyone interested in Earth sciences, goes beyond burrowing to cover how myriad forms of life have broken down the hard substrates of rock, shells, bones and wood during the past billion years.
“Yes, life can be hard,” Martin quips, “but life also makes everything less hard every day. Bioerosion shapes the world, literally. It’s changed entire ecosystems.”
“Life Sculpted” is aimed at general audiences. “Martin has fashioned a unique and engaging portrait of the Earth’s many movers and shakers,” Booklist wrote in a review.
“Life Sculpted” is aimed at general audiences. “Martin has fashioned a unique and engaging portrait of the Earth’s many movers and shakers,” Booklist wrote in a review.
Bioerosion has also changed human history. Martin cites the wood-boring clams that perforated the hulls of the Spanish Armada, helping tip the odds toward the English Navy in 1588, when it won a decades-long fight for maritime dominance.
Bioeroders come in all sizes, he writes, from microbes that transport calcium away from rock and shells to elephants that dig caves with their tusks to obtain salt.
Bioeroders can change the soundscape as well as the landscape.
In a chapter titled “Your Beach Is Made of Parrotfish Poop,” Martin describes hearing “a crunching and popping reminiscent of sugary breakfast cereals meeting milk” while snorkeling over a Bahamian reef.
The crunching, he explains, is actually the sound of parrotfishes biting out chunks of the reef with jaws and teeth capable of breaking apart rock. Reefs and the surrounding shallow-marine environments have been shaped by millions of years of such fishes gnawing on coral and defecating sediments.
