Time Machines: Explorations in Deep Time
Copernicus, New York, 1998
ISBN 0-387-98416-x
Monika says:
Paleontology investigates past life on Earth. Most people only have a
very vague idea of geological periods. According to the latest findings
Earth is ca. 4.6 billion years old and life started already after a period
of one billion years when the crust had cooled off. But how do scientists
get those exact dates? How is it possible to determine whether a rock or a
fossil is a billion years old or just a couple of hundred million years?
In TIME MACHINES Peter Ward describes a special kind of method that
allows scientists to answer the question about the age of rocks and
fossils. They don’t need the kind of device H. G. Wells described in his
famous novel to travel back into a distant past but use the instruments of
modern science. Although the geological timescale was basically determined
in mid-19th century only in our century it has become possible
to put an exact date to geological periods because we now have new
fascinating ways of dating objects.
The author takes the reader on a journey to Sucia Island, a small
island in the US state of Washington that is distinguished by several
special geological features. With the fossils found there Peter Ward
describes the methods used to determine their age. We learn about
radiometric dating, paleomagnetism, sedimentology and cladistics. Ward
turns what could be a very dry subject into the adventure of science. At
the end of the book we board a real time machine and visit the Sucia
Island of the late Cretaceous, more than 65 million years before our time,
before a giant comet hit the Earth and destroyed the ecosystem whose
fossils are locked in the sediments of the island.
As in ON METHUSELAH’S TRAIL
and THE CALL OF DISTANT MAMMOTHS
Peter D. Ward proves his ability to describe scientific methods and
findings in an interesting, lively way. He is one of the few scientists
able to write books attractive to laymen and experts alike. |
Any comments? Write us:
Monika Hübner
Christina Gross
|
