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

Douglas Palmer

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0470022213 ISBN 13: 9780470022214

Publisher: Wiley, 2005

Synopsis

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.

About this title

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.

From the Back Cover

Walk from London to North Wales, as a certain William Smith did, or from the top of the Grand Canyon to the river bed and you will walk through history from the present time to the deepest and most secret time in the history of the Earth.

In this fascinating tale Douglas Palmer explores mankindâ??s quest to understand the history of the planet on which we live. As nineteenth century explorers delved deeper into the hidden parts of the visible world, so scientists of the time explored the hidden depths of the Earthâ??s past. Douglas Palmer reveals the story of humankindâ??s search for a better understanding of the Earthâ??s story from the biblical view through to the most up-to-date rock sampling methods available to science today.

From the Inside Flap

The story of the Earth is one that has developed far beyond the traditional Biblical view of events, to the realm of high science and complex analysis. But still questions remain about the age and structure of the earth.

Expert geologist Douglas Palmer examines the extraordinary story of mankindâ??s quest to uncover the history of the Earth and introduces us to the host of eccentric characters that have paved the way to our current understanding. The Earthâ??s rocks have divulged startling information about a 4.54 billion year history filled with earthquakes, floods, asteroid collisions and stark climate changes, but the route to enlightenment has been far from straightforward and many questions remain unanswered.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0470022213
• ISBN 13: 9780470022214
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304