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Describes three geologic revolutions that have transformed our knowledge about the planet: the measurement of geologic time, the discovery of plate tectonics, and the recognition of the role of chance in Earth's evolution.
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Humans have been studying the earth and its ways for millennia. But, writes James Lawrence Powell, only in the last century have we had the tools and theories to "place our planet and our species in time and space."
About the Author:
Powell focuses on three major breakthroughs in understanding. The first has to do with the age of the earth, which had been guessed at through such things as biblical genealogies and the poorly understood fossil record. Thanks to the development of tools to gauge isotopic dating and other indexes, the solar system and our own planet are known to be 4.5 billion years old. The second has to do with the understanding of plate tectonics, which explains what were mysteries of geomorphology, proposing a "motor" for geological processes. The third, far less widely known than the first two, has to do with the history of meteoritic collisions with the earth--collisions that may have put the moon in the sky.
"If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it," Albert Einstein once remarked. Powell offers a readable overview of three theories that were once scorned by the scientific establishment and that now underlie contemporary geological thought. --Gregory McNamee
James Lawrence Powell is Director and President of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. He taught geology for twenty years at Oberlin College, where he also served as Acting President. The author of Night Comes to the Cretaceous, he lives in Los Angeles.
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- PublisherFree Press
- Publication date2001
- ISBN 10 068487282X
- ISBN 13 9780684872827
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages272
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