The Road to Gondwana takes the reader on a journey in search of the lost southern supercontinent. It traces the steps science took to find Gondwana, and the journey Gondwana itself took through 500 million years of Earth history. Our tour guide on this journey is Glossopteris – an extinct tree that dominated the supercontinent for 50 million years, before vanishing in the most devastating event ever to strike life on this planet, the Permian mass extinction. The Road to Gondwana is a story about deep time, and the challenges that face those who venture there. It’s a story about the importance of imagination in science, and the reasons that the journey towards understanding is sometimes more important than the destination.
Bill Morris is a writer, documentary film-maker and musician based in Port Chalmers, New Zealand. He has worked extensively as a wildlife filmmaker for NHNZ, the BBC Natural History Unit and others, and is a regular contributor to New Zealand Geographic magazine. His passion for science and stories of the natural world informs all of his work. Bill’s deep interest in geology and the movement of rocks across the globe and his equally deep interest in plants led him to follow the journey of one group of plants into the ancient history of the land he lives on.