Product Description

This work takes the reader on a journey back into time to see the Earth as it was. Chapter openers reveal the clues that have enabled scientists to uncover the Earth's secret history, reconstructions show the important flora and fauna of each period, and feature spreads explore events of interest.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #350079 in Books
• Published on: 1999-11-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
The Earth is not the spring chicken it was 4.6 billion years ago. With the passing of the millennia, earth's face, weathered by heat and ice and subject to tectonic friction, has erupted, wrinkled and sagged, as do all our faces ultimately, only more so. Continents have shifted, merged and split apart. Seas have turned to land and land has been submerged by seas. And micro-organisms have evolved into the vast diversity of flora and fauna that exists today. Douglas Palmer's Atlas is a digest of what is known so far about the history of the Earth, enhanced with brilliant maps, photographs and illustrations, and explained in lucid, enjoyable prose.

The Atlas starts off with "The Changing Globe", 36 beautiful pages of maps that chart the changing face of the earth from Vendian Times some 620 million years ago, when land was massed in two continents called Northern and Southern Gondwana. Flipping through the vivid pages, one sees how Siberia, during Early Cambrian Times, began to move north from its South Pole location, how in Odovician Times (460 million years ago) the Iapetus Ocean was beginning to close while the Rheic Ocean was starting to open and how a volcano in what's now Virginia spewed volcanic ash as far away as what's now Minnesota, while in Carboniferous Times (a mere 354 million years ago), there were swampy forests in Nova Scotia that are the coalfields of today.

"Ancient Worlds," the next section of the atlas, charts life, from the aquatic microbes formed 3.5 billion years ago and the multicelled organisms of the Vendian Period, the early-Cambrian brachiopods and the Silurianspiny trilobites, on through to the Jurassic and Cretaceous dinosaurs, the Tertiary mammals, and the entrance of hominids just 5 million years ago. The extinction of the dinosaurs is explained, the Ice Age is described and, in the "Earth Fact File", 200 years of scientific discovery are chronicled.

Douglas Palmer, a professor of natural and earth sciences at Cambridge University, also writes science articles for Science and New Scientist and is the author of many books on paleontology. His Atlas is an excellent layperson's reference for families and students, rendering a vast amount of history and science in a highly accessible, entertaining format. --Stephanie Gold, Amazon.com

Customer Reviews

Walking with Time
It will not be timeless in itself but the timeline this book provides is without a doubt very handy when reading about past times.
When I'm reading about ancient life forms that once occupied the earth I allways wondered where for example Africa lay 100 million years ago. This book provides an excellent view on how the world may have looked like during its existance. And it turns this also around by describing each period, and not only the dino-era, with the animals that lived then. The concept of describing the earth this way, accompanied with lots of illustrations gives a good idea of how nature might have looked and is very entertaining.

The Best Out There
Although some of the contents have already been superseded by recent scientific discoveries, this is still the most accessible work available. There are two sections to the book. The first section introduces the reader to the history of the planed, how the continents moved etc. The second part is about the evolution of life. The book is fully illustrated with accurate yet beautiful illustrations of what it probably looked like at the time. Every page is put into context by placing a small timeline at the top of the page. Therefore, you will always know how long ago something happened. The book contains examples from around the world (a map of the location is always included). A comprehensive index and an extensive glossary complete this excellent book. It is suitable for anyone with an interest. No specialist knowledge is required to enjoy this book.

for OU course about fossils
This book goes with the course book for the OU level one course on fossils. I got both books from Amazon and saved £120 on the course. Together they give you a very clear introduction to paleontology.