otherlands a journey through earth's extinct worlds

This quality is extended into Halliday's vivid writing style as he describes giant flightless birds with 'can-opener hooks' on the end of their beaks and sediment left behind evaporating water that raises the water source itself 'compacted sugar on a growing stack of pancakes.' Art meets Earth science in Halliday's densely detailed portrayal of our ecosystem's history, alluding to the 'Epic of Gilgamesh,' Gaudi's architecture and the sepia tones of silent-era films. Merging human culture with the changing environments brings out an accessible human layer that contextualizes the scientific density. By beginning with the most recent period, the Miocene, and progressing backward until the very earliest, the Ediacaran, Halliday brings deep time's primordial soup to life. Structured between 16 geologic periods, Halliday's book takes readers back in time through the millions of years predating our present. It is a breathtaking achievement: a surprisingly emotional narrative about the persistence of life, the fragility of seemingly permanent ecosystems, and the scope of deep time, all of which have something to tell us about our current crisis.Thousands of scientists over hundreds of years have contributed to Halliday's reconstructions of the past based on the paleontological irony of death being the primary way of understanding life. But the fossil record shows us that this sort of wholesale change is not only possible but has repeatedly happened throughout Earth history. The thought that something as vast as the Great Barrier Reef, for example, with all its vibrant diversity, might one day soon be gone sounds improbable. Otherlands also offers us a vast perspective on the current state of the planet. It takes us from the savannahs of Pliocene Kenya to watch a python chase a group of australopithecines into an acacia tree to a cliff overlooking the salt pans of the empty basin of what will be the Mediterranean Sea just as water from the Miocene Atlantic Ocean spills in into the tropical forests of Eocene Antarctica and under the shallow pools of Ediacaran Australia, where we glimpse the first microbial life. This book is an exploration of the Earth as it used to exist, the changes that have occurred during its history, and the ways that life has found to adapt―or not. Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth's Extinct Worlds

Otherlands a journey through earth's extinct worlds