'A dazzling achievement. Richard Fortey is without peer among science writers.' Bill Bryson 'The Earth is a true delight: full of awe-inspiring details... it blends travel, history, reportage and science to create an unforgettable picture of our ancient earth.' Sunday Times The face of the Earth, criss-crossed by chains of mountains like the scars of old wounds has changed constantly over billions of years, and the testament of the remote past is all around us. In this book, Richard Fortey teaches us how to read its character, laying out the dominions of the world before us. He shows how everything - human culture, natural history, even the shape of cities - roots back to a deeper geological truth. Far from being the driest of sciences, he proves that geology informs all our lives in the most intimate way. Nothing in this book seems to be at rest. The surface of the Earth dilates and collapses; seas and mountains rise and fall; continents move. We climb the Alps, wallow in Icelandic hot springs, dive down to the ocean floor; we explore the barren rocks of Newfoundland, walk through the lush ecosystems of Hawaii, cross the salt flats of Oman and saunter along the San Andreas Fault. And Fortey is the ideal guide, his descriptions of natural beauty as memorable as the best travel-writers, his prose as gripping as the best novelist, his crystal-clear scientific explanations fascinating and often surprising.

The acclaimed author of Trilobite! and Life takes us on a grand tour of the earth’s physical past, showing how the history of plate tectonics is etched in the landscape around us. • "Absorbing.... Cinematic.... The ultimate travel book, a guidebook that should be read by every person who wants to really know and understand the place we live on." —The New York Times Beginning with Mt. Vesuvius, whose eruption in Roman times helped spark the science of geology, and ending in a lab in the West of England where mathematical models and lab experiments replace direct observation, Richard Fortey tells us what the present says about ancient geologic processes. He shows how plate tectonics came to rule the geophysical landscape and how the evidence is written in the hills and in the stones. And in the process, he takes us on a wonderful journey around the globe to visit some of the most fascinating and intriguing spots on the planet.

From the acclaimed author of Life and Trilobite!, a fascinating geological exploration of the earth's distant history as revealed by its natural wonders. The face of the earth, crisscrossed by chains of mountains like the scars of old wounds, has changed and changed again over billions of years, and the testament of the remote past is all around us. In this book Richard Fortey teaches us how to read its character, laying out the dominions of the world before us. He shows how human culture and natural history-even the shape of cities-are rooted in this deep geological past. In search of this past, Fortey takes us through the Alps, into Icelandic hot springs, down to the ocean floor, over the barren rocks of Newfoundland, into the lush ecosystems of Hawai'i, across the salt flats of Oman, and along the San Andreas Fault. On the slopes of Vesuvius, he tracks the history of the region down through the centuries to volcanic eruptions seen by fifteenth-century Italians, the Romans, and, from striking geological evidence, even Neolithic man. As story adds to story, the recent past connects with forgotten ages long ago, then much longer ago, as he describes the movement of plates and the development of ancient continents and seas. Nothing in this book is at rest. The surface of the earth dilates and collapses; seas and mountains rise and fall; continents move. Fortey again proves himself the ideal guide, with his superb descriptions of natural beauty, his gripping narratives, and his crystal-clear, always fascinating scientific explanations. Here is a book to change the way we see the world.

Hailed by The New York Times for writing “with wonderful clarity about science . . . that effortlessly teaches as it zips along,” nationally bestselling author Robert M. Hazen offers a radical new approach to Earth history in this intertwined tale of the planet’s living and nonliving spheres. With an astrobiologist’s imagination, a historian’s perspective, and a naturalist’s eye, Hazen calls upon twenty-first-century discoveries that have revolutionized geology and enabled scientists to envision Earth’s many iterations in vivid detail—from the mile-high lava tides of its infancy to the early organisms responsible for more than two-thirds of the mineral varieties beneath our feet. Lucid, controversial, and on the cutting edge of its field, The Story of Earth is popular science of the highest order. "A sweeping rip-roaring yarn of immense scope, from the birth of the elements in the stars to meditations on the future habitability of our world." -Science "A fascinating story." -Bill McKibben

This book surveys the history of the Earth and the nature of the processes that controlled its history. Integrating information from many fields, the book focuses on fundamental processes, the geological record, historical topics, and specific areas such as the development of modern ocean basins and the nature of cratonic sedimentary cover sequences.