Continents in Collision

Planet Earth

by Russell Miller

Planet Earth Continents in Collision [Hardcover] [Jan 01, 1983] Miller, Russell …

Genres: Science, Geology, Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Russell Miller (born c. 1938) is a British journalist and author of fifteen books, including biographies of Hugh Hefner, J. Paul Getty and L. Ron Hubbard. While under contract to The Sunday Times Magazine he won four press awards and was voted Writer of the Year by the Society of British Magazine Editors.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rather like the restless oceans, continents in collision helps set the scene for other books in the series. Here you have the foundation (I will resist saying bedrock) of the planet and how it reacts and its history, and in the process setting the scene for other books in the series. True the Earthquake books is pretty tightly linked but I suspect there are other titles too which will refer to this book or at least use the principles and facts presented here to develop further.

As I have said before even though this series of book was published in the early 80s where some principles and technologies were still in their infancy and in some cases details have subsequently been challenged and revised - there is still a lot of details and facts which are just as contentious and challenging today - from the impact of humans on the environment and pollution to trying to predict the weather to limit the damage to property and loss of life.

One thing you do realise is not just the rich heritage that these subjects have and the wealth of work others have done but also how much there is still to learn and discover- I am sure if I had these books as I was growing up I would have certainly paid a lot more attention to the world around me.

[David Alves · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall a pretty interesting book. It draws a very general picture of geology: its beginnings and the state of matters at the time the research was made.
It has in it many of past theories about earth's geology and brings an explanation on tectonic plates: what difficulties it had in emerging, when it did, how and so on. To that are added some interesting facts about the lives of the people who came up with the paradigm, but only details correlated to their insights. However, I think some of the limitations of the current theory ( I except there to be some, but I don't know about it) could have been added.
Besides such matter, also it has many reports on the machines and methods used in the XX century to observe the bottom of the oceans, and how it was predicted at the time that the earth would be in a few million years.
Of course, age has probably taken its toll on the book: it was published in the end 80s. This makes it, as I am writing, more than 30 years old, which does not make it a bad book, just outdated, I assume.
Another fascinating thing about the book are the pictures: not only large photos of mountains or seas, but also of technological equipment, such as vessels or submarines, but also of the people involved in the construction of such science. The ones in there are great but some pages are awkwardly just text, giving me the idea that it could be used to add a few more photos or side material.
This is a good book, overall. It's a nice read to start on Geology, but it has become a bit outdated, and I think that will be shown with further reading.