The Planet in a Pebble: A Journey into Earth's Deep History pdf

Jan Zalasiewicz, professor of paleobiology at the University of Leicester, delves into the Anthropocene. Jan Zalasiewicz is Professor of Palaeobiology at the University of Leicester, UK. In early career he was a field geologist and palaeontologist at the British Geological Survey, working to decipher the strata of eastern England and then the mountains of central Wales. Now, he teaches geology and Earth history to undergraduate and postgraduate students, and studies fossil ecosystems and environments across over half a billion years of geological time. Over the last few years he has been involved in helping develop ideas on the Anthropocene, the concept that humans now drive much geology on the surface of Earth, and chairs the Anthropocene Working Group of the Intrnational Commission on Stratigraphy.

The Planet in a Pebble: A Journey into Earth's Deep History pdf by Jan Zalasiewicz

This is the story of a single pebble, whose history carries us into abyssal depths of time, and across the farthest reaches of space. Indeed, starting from this tiny, common speck, Jan Zalasiewicz offers readers a stimulating tour that begins with the Universe's dramatic birth in the unimaginable violence of the Big Bang and explores the construction of the Solar System and the origins of our own planet. Zalasiewicz shows the almost incredible complexity present in the apparently mundane pebble, starting with the astonishing number of atoms in each. We learn that many events in the Earth's ancient past can be deciphered from a pebble: volcanic eruptions; the lives and deaths of extinct animals and plants; the alien nature of long-vanished oceans; and even the creations of fool's gold and oil deep underground. Zalasiewicz also demonstrates how geologists reach deep into the Earth's past by forensic analysis of even the tiniest amounts of mineral matter. The pebble may be small, and ordinary, but it is also an eloquent part of our Earth's extraordinary, never-ending story.