Origins: the evolution of continents, oceans and life by Ron Redfern,
Cassell, 拢35, ISBN 0304354031
EARTH has had an extraordinary geological history, and in Origins
Ron Redfern uniquely combines superb landscape photography, elegant graphics and
authoritative text to give us the gen on it. This could have been just another
glossy object for the coffee table, but it stands out from the pack: Redfern
knows his planet inside out.
He has a passion for geology. Redfern鈥檚 also an accomplished photographer,
and the author of bestselling popular science books such as Corridors of
Time and The Making of a Continent. In the story of Earth鈥檚
origins he uses his talents brilliantly.
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The shift and slide of the rocky plates that make up the continents are his
key to Earth鈥檚 beginnings. To make the story manageable, he focuses on the
evolution of the Atlantic region, its oceans and surrounding continents. He
doesn鈥檛 ignore the Gondwanan continents鈥擲outh America, Africa, Antarctica,
Australia and India. He just reserves the full photographic glory for the
islands of the Atlantic and its bordering landmasses.
Redfern serves up the region鈥檚 geological evolution in a sequence of themes,
from the breakup of the Precambrian supercontinent of Rodinia around 650 million
years ago right down to the mapping of the Earth鈥檚 geography in the 15th
century. Along the way, he weaves in the history of life as it unfolds within
the ever-changing environments of land and sea.
This is an ambitious book, covering an enormous amount of, well, ground. The
Cretaceous story of how the North Atlantic opened up between 144 and 99 million
years ago is illustrated by stunning photographs from the chalk cliffs of
England鈥檚 south coast to the fossil reefs of the Bahamas and ancient volcanoes
of the Azores. And there are clever graphics revealing each era鈥檚 fossil
organisms set in their global and regional plate-tectonic setting.
Plate reconstruction maps are often very difficult for the novice to 鈥渞ead鈥�.
Redfern makes them simple by using views of Earth鈥檚 hemispheres, taken from
space, to show the distribution of the plates, and whole-Earth projections for
reconstructions of ocean, sea and continent distribution. His text is up to date
and excellent on the history of important discoveries and the scientists
involved. It鈥檚 a perfect gift, but beware: you may find it hard to part
with.