In a new paper appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vermeij and his research colleague Tracy Thomson catalogued the features of various mollusks in the fossil record and found that early mollusks evolved a unique physical trait once every 2 million years. That frequency began declining roughly 444 million years ago to about one new feature every 9 million years. 

Explore new interpretations of classic land ethics, multiple cases of climate action and land sovereignty and witness how past generations reacted to the changing climate. Scholars from across the College of Letters and Science provide insight into how human action and inaction has influenced the natural environment around us.

Geerat Vermeij wasn’t sure he had another book in him. The 77-year-old paleobiologist and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Earth and Planetary Sciences already had six books and hundreds of academic publications to his name. But Vermeij, if anything, is a constant student, and writing, for him, is still one of the best ways to learn.