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Origins : The Evolution of Continents, Ocean and Life
Changes in climate and sea level are nothing new; over the last 700 million years, the Earth has been slowly but constantly changing from within. This fascinating story of our planet explores how continents have come and gone, climate patterns have altered and a multitude of life forms battled for survival in an unstable environment. The entertaining and accessible text displays a remarkable breadth and diversity of knowledge, drawing on discoveries in natural history, geology, geography and palaeontology to unravel the secrets of millions of years. Glorious panoramic photography of key sites reveals the physical legacy of the Earth's volatile past in a striking celebration of inevitable global change.
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First published August 10, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 2, 2016
A big, beautifully illustrated global tectonic history of the movement of continents and the lost lands, seas and oceans of the past 700 million years.
It is hard to believe that plate tectonics; the unifying theory of the geo-sciences was only widely embraced in the early 1970s, more than a century after evolution by natural selection and decades after quantum theory and genetics transformed the physical and biological sciences.
By 2000, the pace of discovery had been so fast that Ron Redfern’s magnificently illustrated Origins, could act as an atlas and guide to the evolution of the continents, oceans and life on earth.
After introductory pieces on the ill fated theory of continental drift and the tragic fate of Alfred Wegener, the lines of evidence that led to plate tectonics and the origins of the planet and life, the main section of the book is devoted to a gorgeously detailed account of planetary history over the past 700 million years.
A series of global and regional maps, illustrations of flora and fauna and geological processes are accompanied by a detailed narrative to convey a sense of the lost lands, seas and oceans.
One of my favourites is the lost island continent of Avalonia, which was sheared off the great southern landmass of Gondwana some 500 million years ago, a time so unimaginably distant that the bedrock of most of England was near the Antarctic circle and a day lasted only 21 hours. As Avalonia was pushed northwards, one earthquake at a time, its barren and lifeless interior and braided rivers carrying huge quantities of sediments into its shallow seas, the earliest multicellular life exploded and multiplied around its shores. Over the ages the land greened, ice ages waxed and waned and the great Iapetus Ocean to the north shrank as the crust beneath it was pulled beneath the margins of this Japan like island arc.
Avalonia’s fate was to be crushed into the centre of the new super continent of Pangea and sheared apart again in its break up as the North Atlantic Ocean formed.
In glorious photography, Origins shows the remains of this once unified land as they are now, in locations as far apart as England, Wales and Ireland, Germany, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New England and the clues in the rocks that can stitch their history together so far back into the deep past.
That is just a tiny part of the monumental narrative of global evolution in Ron Redfern’s account. It is a book that I have owned for over a decade, and one that I always return to, often to dip in to remind myself of where the landscapes I visit, such as the chalk downs of south east England or the red sandstones of the Eden valley originated: The white sands and warm seas of the Cretaceous and the great deserts of the Triassic in their own global contexts.
My only regret is that this wonderful book is now sixteen years old and the huge and continuing research programme in the earth sciences since the millennium could add to and refine this great account of global change.
Someone really should produce a second edition
It is hard to believe that plate tectonics; the unifying theory of the geo-sciences was only widely embraced in the early 1970s, more than a century after evolution by natural selection and decades after quantum theory and genetics transformed the physical and biological sciences.
By 2000, the pace of discovery had been so fast that Ron Redfern’s magnificently illustrated Origins, could act as an atlas and guide to the evolution of the continents, oceans and life on earth.
After introductory pieces on the ill fated theory of continental drift and the tragic fate of Alfred Wegener, the lines of evidence that led to plate tectonics and the origins of the planet and life, the main section of the book is devoted to a gorgeously detailed account of planetary history over the past 700 million years.
A series of global and regional maps, illustrations of flora and fauna and geological processes are accompanied by a detailed narrative to convey a sense of the lost lands, seas and oceans.
One of my favourites is the lost island continent of Avalonia, which was sheared off the great southern landmass of Gondwana some 500 million years ago, a time so unimaginably distant that the bedrock of most of England was near the Antarctic circle and a day lasted only 21 hours. As Avalonia was pushed northwards, one earthquake at a time, its barren and lifeless interior and braided rivers carrying huge quantities of sediments into its shallow seas, the earliest multicellular life exploded and multiplied around its shores. Over the ages the land greened, ice ages waxed and waned and the great Iapetus Ocean to the north shrank as the crust beneath it was pulled beneath the margins of this Japan like island arc.
Avalonia’s fate was to be crushed into the centre of the new super continent of Pangea and sheared apart again in its break up as the North Atlantic Ocean formed.
In glorious photography, Origins shows the remains of this once unified land as they are now, in locations as far apart as England, Wales and Ireland, Germany, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New England and the clues in the rocks that can stitch their history together so far back into the deep past.
That is just a tiny part of the monumental narrative of global evolution in Ron Redfern’s account. It is a book that I have owned for over a decade, and one that I always return to, often to dip in to remind myself of where the landscapes I visit, such as the chalk downs of south east England or the red sandstones of the Eden valley originated: The white sands and warm seas of the Cretaceous and the great deserts of the Triassic in their own global contexts.
My only regret is that this wonderful book is now sixteen years old and the huge and continuing research programme in the earth sciences since the millennium could add to and refine this great account of global change.
Someone really should produce a second edition
August 30, 2013
This is one of the most beautiful books I have seen. The photography is spectacular and the text is engrossing. I would recomment this to anyone wishing to know understand about crustal movement, continents, orogenies and evolution.
shelved
October 26, 2010... geography, geology, paleontology, the climate change issue. Just some topics that caught my attention in the review for this volume...
January 31, 2023
This is an amazing book, even though it's now 20+ years out of date. There have been a lot of really cool advances in the intervening time, and I would love to know what the author would make of them or how it would change the text.
But even so, this is an incredible look through time, with great visuals to show how the Earth might have looked in different stages through its history. I ended up with Google Maps open while reading, and could see the traces of how the continents move, especially as the book pointed them out! This was the first text that really made me understand where the continents were while dinosaurs and mammals lived on them. It was a lot later than I thought!
I thoroughly recommend this to anyone who has an interest in geologic history and the development of the Earth. Don't be fooled by just the breathtaking pictures. There's a wealth of information to read in the longer essays as well.
But even so, this is an incredible look through time, with great visuals to show how the Earth might have looked in different stages through its history. I ended up with Google Maps open while reading, and could see the traces of how the continents move, especially as the book pointed them out! This was the first text that really made me understand where the continents were while dinosaurs and mammals lived on them. It was a lot later than I thought!
I thoroughly recommend this to anyone who has an interest in geologic history and the development of the Earth. Don't be fooled by just the breathtaking pictures. There's a wealth of information to read in the longer essays as well.
April 2, 2025
I really love this book! I think some of the historical narrative is iffy (gives Wegener more credit than he deserves), but it's lovely and the photography is gorgeous.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews