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

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.

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.

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.