Supercontinent: Ten Billion Years in the Life of our Planet by Ted Nield (PDF)

Description

The shifting continents of the Earth are heading for inevitable collision: 250 million years from now, all the land masses on this planet will come together in a single, gigantic supercontinent which no human is ever likely to see. That future supercontinent will not be the first to form on Earth, nor will it be the last. Each cycle lasts half a billion years, making it the grandest of all the patterns in nature. It is scarcely a century since science first understood how Pangaea, the supercontinent which gave birth to dinosaurs, split apart, but scientists can now look back three-quarters of a billion years into the Earth’s almost indecipherable past to reconstruct Pangaea’s predecessor, and computer-model the shape of the Earth’s far-distant future. Ted Nield’s book tells the astounding story of how that science emerged (often in the face of fierce opposition), and how scientists today are using the most modern techniques to draw information out of the oldest rocks on Earth. It also reveals the remarkable human story of the Altantis-seeking visionaries and madmen who have been imagining lost or undiscovered continents for centuries. Ultimately all supercontinents exist only in the human imagination, but understanding the ‘Supercontinent Cycle’ represents nothing less than finally knowing how our planet works.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Great book!!

⭐I was introduced to the hypothesis of “continental drift” by an enlightened geography teacher at grammar schoolat the age of 12, some 66 years ago. At that time, it was not a generally accepted idea, but the way that “sir” explained it to us it seemed to make sense.. Although the name of the great southern continent, Gondwanaland, did tend to conjure up thoughts of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Lost World ” in the mind of an adolescent boy.Later, in the 1970’s, I came across geology text books, expounding the fairly novel theory of plate tectonics. Ah! Mr Skeet’s unorthodox ideas, shared with us 12 year olds in the 1950,s were now becoming the new orthodoxy.It was informative to read the history of the theories behind modern plate tectonics and the straightforward exposition of the formation and break up of the past super-continents – and the projection of the future shape of the earth’s land masses. It has encouraged me to read a lot more in the field of “earth history”: both geology and palaeontology.

⭐In this book Dr Nield describes how scientists believe the surface of our planet has changed since it’s first formation, and the internal mechanisms that drive that change. Translating complex science into layman’s language that anyone interested in this subject might be able to follow, and though I have long enjoyed reading about natural processes, evolution, etc., I must admit that I’ve learned quite a lot of new stuff from this book (didn’t know it’s possible to actually date when certain rocks were “born” from the earth’s mantle, using depleted mantle modelling).However, some chapters have long descriptions of past theories (that today appear quite ludicrous), and background history of the various writers and the politics involved, and how our present theories took shape. I had to gloss over all those names and blind alleys which I found rather confusing, though I imagine that a student of geology or paleontology could well find them very interesting and illuminating. He uses a recurring analogy with the Palimpsest of Archimedes, a manuscript much damaged by time to describe the surviving evidence of our planet’s past, and how we try to piece together this puzzle with so many missing pieces, to arrive at our theories of what was, what’s going on now, and what might happen in future. The super-continent of the title has been named as Pangea, but it seems that there were other super-continents long before that, and they didn’t all form in the same manner, with profound consequences for the emergence, evolution and survival of complex life.

⭐This book takes an interesting approach to “popular science-writing” by deliberately enmeshing the serious science it describes with discursive meanders into art, culture, history and other foibles of the one species that we know has lived on the uncaring, drifting continents of this planet and begun to understand them and their role in how we came to be here.In doing so, I think it delivers an important message; that science is something that people do, and as an endeavour it’s about understanding ourselves as well as how the rest of the Universe works. I certainly enjoyed learning more about plate tectonics, and the Earth’s geological history over billions of years, as I expected to. But, I was delighted by the unexpected bonus of things like the link between Permian rock formations and Alice in Wonderland, and the explanation for US scientists’ prolonged resistance to tectonic theory that Mr Nield offers. I was also impressed by his conjuring something of the vertigo I remember feeling when I first realised what talking about rocks being millions and billions of years old meant. For me, that’s good science-writing.I can understand that some people might prefer their science in a purer form; if you’ll excuse my metaphor, this is more like a fancy cocktail, complete with curly straw, fruit, sparklers and an umbrella, than a shot of geology on the rocks.I’ve read the Kindle edition, on a Kindle Keyboard 3G, and found it well-formatted… with the usual proviso that on its screen the maps/illustrations are disappointing, compared to print. I recommend it.(However, I did not pay six quid for it! For every £GB over 2, in price, please deduct one star from my rating).

⭐Geology even more than most sciences, has to span more than one discipline. Here the earth’s history has always been measured by fossils, but it is clear life has helped shape the very land we stand on, the air we breathe and even makes the world go round. The last comment is made clearer if you read the book, so I won’t spoil the plot.Underpinning all this is the movement of the continents, oceans opening up and vanishing all the blink of a few hundred million years. Most readers have heard of Pangaea, but this is only the latest of a number of supercontinents in the earth’s past, the exact number and form they took difficult to ascertain because most have the evidence has been obliterated.The style of writing is chatty and informal at times, but in no way insulted the reader’s intelligence, Full marks for having a pop at the young earth creationists. In UK they might be dismissed as harmless nuts, but in America they can seriously peg back science education. When knowledge of how plates interact can help understand earthquakes and put decent warnings in place it gets serious.

⭐This is a fascinating account of the history of our planet and in particular how continental drift has led to the formation and break up of continents over the lifetime of our planet and how this will continue into the future. It also tells of the history of the geological discoveries that have led to the state of the science of geophysics at the present time, with some colourful and interesting 19th and early 20th century characters along the way, working during the time when the modern science was taking shape and the evidence for the Earth’s genuine age was becoming ever firmer. Although in places the chemical and biochemical details got somewhat too technical for me as a lay reader, this was a very good read and the names and shadowy nature of Ur, Rodinia and Pangaea will resonate with me in the future.

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