The history of the Earth and the history of life are endlessly fascinating to readers who want to know about origins: where did the landscape come from, where did life come from, where did humans come from? Many may think the story has been told before, and the details are rather well established and even somewhat hackneyed in popular presentations. However, scientific research is advancing fast, and new finds, and especially new methods, are providing much more detail throughout. New finds often overturn well-established views.
The aim of the book is to present the grand narrative, but also to show how earth scientists and palaeontologists know what they know. New analytical techniques allow ever more accurate dating of the rocks, and interdisciplinary studies using geochemistry, palaeontology, and geology provide new insights into global change, linking the evolution of life with the evolution of climates.
The book will be of interest to dinosaur and fossil fans of course, but it will also present an authoritative and up-to-date account that will provide a useful introduction for those interested in global change, climate evolution, and the origins of modern biodiversity.