Earth Time - Exploring The Deep Past From Victorian England To The Grand Canyon

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.

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.

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.