Earth Time: Exploring the Deep Past from Victorian England to the Grand Canyon

by Douglas Palmer (Editor)

Overview

The dramatic history of planet Earth and the rocky road to understanding the past

• A probing account of the history of the earth and an introduction to the many eccentric characters that have attempted to understand its origins.
• Full of fascinating anecdotes about 19th century explorers and natural philosophers who first carved up Earth's history just as others were carving up the globe.
• Unravels the fascinating history of rock strata and the implications they have had on accepted theories on the Earth's life.
• Considers the future of the earth, and what a repeat of some of the catastrophic events of the earth's past, such as major earthquakes and asteroid collisions, could mean for life today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780470022214
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	05/27/2005
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 7.50(h) x 1.02(d)

About the Author

Douglas Palmer is an academic, lecturer and popular science writer. He is author or co-author of a wide range of books on prehistoric life and fossils, including the best selling Earth. He teaches for the Cambridge University Natural Science Tripos and the International Summer School. A former earth sciences lecturer at Trinity College, Dublin, he also spent two years as an exhibition coordinator at the National Museum of Wales.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements.

Introduction.

PART I: CUTTING THROUGH EARTH TIME—MR. SMITH'S SECTION FROM LONDON TO SNOWDON.

1. Recent Earth Time - The Holocene.

2. The Diluvium - The Flood and the Ice Ages.

3. Below the Surface - Into Tertiary Times.

4. Layer upon Layer - Deeper and Deeper into Earth Tine.

5. Oolites and Lias - The Jurassic before the Park.

6. Red Beds in the Midlands and Russia.

7. Fuelling the Industrial Revolution.

8. A Boundary dispute in the Welsh Hills.

9. The end of the Line - The Precambrian.

PART II: MAJOOR POWELL'S BOAT TRIP THROUGH THE GRAND CANYON.

10. A Glympse into the abyss of Earth Time.

11. Signs of life appear.

12. The cambrian arms race.

13. The Upper Paleozoic - American Style.

14. The Missing Mesozoic and the making of the Canyon.

15. Peopling the Americas.

16. Rock of ages - Dating rocks and fossils.

Earth Time - Conclusion.

References.

Index.