The reader is taken from the known and familiar past in the first chapter, peeling back the layers to the "terra incognita" of the deep past with its completely extinct life forms. Our human ancestry is traced back through different periods, focussing on different fossil environments, revealing how and when the site was discovered. Covering sites and discoveries from Europe, North America, the Middle and Far East and Australasia, the text is broken down into small digestible topics with box features. Timelines are included for every chapter and sub-topic, illustrating the age of our planet, as well as diagrams of the different stages of evolution.
Prehistoric Past Revealed : The Four Billion Year History of Life on Earth
Description
Table of Contents
Part 1 How the present day reveals the past: the diversity of life today; life's relationship with the environment; processes which change the environment; earth - a dynamic system in constant flux; global environments today; our view of the geological past. Part 2 The ice age (0-1.8 million years ago): the presents as a warm interglacial; the discovery of the ice age; evidence of lie during the ice age; human prehistory; the environmentalist impact of the ice age. Part 3 Life's third age (1.8-65 million years ago): discovering the ancient testimony of rocks; our oldest human relatives; a world dominated by mammals, flowering plants and insects; opening the oceans; building mountains. Part 4 Life's middle age (620205 million years ago): evolution; the discovery of sea dragons; the discovery of the dinosaurs; windows on the past in China. Part 5 Life's extinction events: the discovery of extinction events; extraterrestrial events; vulcanism and climate change; ice ages; changing sea levels. Part 6 Life's early age (205-245 million years ago): the discovery of deep time; fossil fuels fire the industrial revolution; climate change and sifting continents; the move from sea to land; putting the backbone into life. Part 7 Life's beginnings (454-4000 million years ago): the discovery of the Precambrian; the discovery of life in the Precambrian; discovering the origin of life; the trouble with fossils. Part 8 Earth's beginnings (4000-6000 million years ago): discovering the age of the earth; radiometric dating; the rock record of Earth's origin; the Earth's place in space. Part 9 The Earth's future: climate change; shifting continents; a material world; a dangerous world.
Author Description
Douglas Palmer is a science writer and academic currently teaching at Cambridge University. His articles appear regularly in New Scientist, BBC Wildlife magazine and Science magazine. He is the author of several books, including Earth, Atlas of the Prehistoric World, Neanderthal and The Illustrated Encycopledia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life.