Dimensions
155 x 236 x 14mm
A personal view from one of Australia's leading geologists on the history of our planet.
Like detectives geologists visit the scene of "action" after the event and reconstruct that "action" from a great diversity of clues. In the 19th century geology was called Natural Philosophy. It is an extraordinary gateway to the past, reaching back millions of years. Only with its help can we have any hope of reconstructing 'A Short History Of Planet Earth'.
Earth is completely different from all other planets in the Solar System. For more than 80 per cent of its history, Earth has had water. It is water that has supported life on Earth for 3,800 million years. It is water that has allowed the recycling of bits of planet earth over the last 4.5 billion years to make the continent of Australia . . .
Written for a non-scientific audience, this book walks us through the fascinating story of our planet both before and after the explosion of life showing all the while how much we depend on the incredible range of evidence found in the study of rocks to piece the picture together.
