geology

Book review – The Age of Mammals: Nature, Development, & Paleontology in the Long Nineteenth Century

9-minute read
keywords: history of science, paleontology

In modern palaeontology, dinosaurs always hog the limelight. However, as science historian Chris Manias shows in The Age of Mammals, for a long time this was not the case. This scholarly book shows how palaeontology, from its inception in the 1700s until the 1910s, revolved around mammals. In a wide-ranging book that examines historical episodes around the world, Manias convincingly shows that you cannot understand the history of palaeontology without considering mammals.

The Age of Mammals (more…)

Book review – The Gaia Hypothesis: Science on a Pagan Planet

10-minute read
keywords: earth sciences, history of science, philosophy

This is the final part of my four-part review series on the Gaia hypothesis (see also part 1, part 2, and part 3), James Lovelock’s notion that the Earth is a giant self-regulating system that maintains conditions suitable for life on the planet. I selected this book as a counterpart to the hard-science analysis of Tyrrell’s On Gaia (also published in 2013) to take a step back and read about the wider reception of Lovelock’s ideas. As it turns out, professor of philosophy Michael Ruse additionally delves into the historical and philosophical precursors to the notion of Earth as a living planet. An intellectually rigorous if sometimes challenging book, The Gaia Hypothesis gives a very satisfying overview of why Lovelock got the reception he did and, for me, marks Ruse as a notable writer to keep an eye on.

The Gaia Hypothesis (more…)

Book review – On Gaia: A Critical Investigation of the Relationship between Life and Earth

10-minute read
keywords: earth sciences, ecology

The scientist, environmentalist, and futurist James Lovelock is probably best remembered for the Gaia hypothesis: the notion that the Earth is a giant self-regulating system that maintains conditions suitable for life on the planet. It has gained a certain respectability in academic circles over the decades, but how justified is this? In my previous reviews of Lovelock’s original 1979 book Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth and the 1995 follow-up The Ages of Gaia, I was critical of various assumptions and claims expressed therein. At the same time, I am aware that other, more knowledgeable people have worked on this idea for years, so what do I know? In On Gaia, Earth system scientist Toby Tyrrell gives a thorough and dispassionate overview of the scientific evidence and whether it supports Gaia. This, then, is the third of a four-part review series that explores the Gaia hypothesis in greater detail (see also part 1, part 2, and part 4).

On Gaia (more…)

Book review – The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth

9-minute read
keywords: earth sciences, ecology

James Lovelock, the famous scientist, environmentalist, and futurist, is probably best remembered for the Gaia hypothesis. This is the notion that the Earth is a giant self-regulating system that maintains conditions suitable for life on the planet. In the process of reviewing his first book, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, it became clear that that book was a time capsule, its text not updated from the 1979 original. However, Gaia stimulated much criticism, response, and further research. This resulted in The Ages of Gaia, a second book aimed at a more scientific audience. Will it answer some of the questions I was left with after reviewing Gaia? Join me for this second of a four-part review series as I delve deeper into Lovelock’s ideas and how they developed (see also part 1, part 3, and part 4).

Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (more…)

Book review – Super Volcanoes: What They Reveal about Earth and the Worlds Beyond

6-minute read
keywords: earth sciences, popular science, volcanology

If volcanoes make you giddy, then this is the book for you. Robin George Andrews is that rare hybrid of the scientist–journalist: a volcanologist who decided to focus on science communication after completing his PhD. Super Volcanoes combines scientific exactitude with engaging writing and is a tour of some exceptional volcanoes on Earth and elsewhere in the Solar System. Andrews starts it with an unabashedly enthusiastic mission statement: “I want you to feel unbridled glee as these stories sink in and an indelible grin flashes across your face as you think: holy crap, that’s crazy!” (p. xxi). For me, he nailed it and I found this an incredibly satisfying read.

Super Volcanoes (more…)

Book review – Notes from Deep Time: A Journey Through Our Past and Future Worlds

6-minute read
keywords: earth sciences

Deep time is, to me, one of the most awe-inspiring concepts to come out of the earth sciences. Getting to grips with the incomprehensibly vast stretches of time over which geological processes play out is not easy. We are, in the words of geologist Marcia Bjornerud, naturally chronophobic. In Notes from Deep Time, author Helen Gordon presents a diverse and fascinating collection of essay-length chapters that give 16 different answers to the question: “What do we talk about when we talk about deep time?” This is one of those books whose title is very appropriate.

Notes from Deep Time (more…)

Book review – Paleontology: An Illustrated History

6-minute read
keywords: art, history of science, palaeontology

It is no mean feat to try and tell the history of a discipline as enormous as palaeontology through images in a mere 256 pages. Yet this is exactly the challenge that David Bainbridge has taken on with this book. He has curated a striking selection of vintage and modern palaeoart, archival photos of fossils and their discoverers, and scientific diagrams through the ages. The resulting Paleontology: An Illustrated History manages to combine the old and the new with the familiar and the unfamiliar into one neatly crafted package that makes for a very nice gift.

Paleontology (more…)

Book review – A (Very) Short History of Life On Earth: 4.6 Billion Years in 12 Chapters

7-minute read
keywords: earth sciences, evolutionary biology

Deep time is one of the most mind-boggling yet underappreciated concepts to come out of the disciplines of evolutionary biology and the earth sciences. As an editor with Nature for over three decades, Henry Gee has had a front-row seat to numerous exciting scientific developments that have enriched our understanding of Earth’s vast 4.6-billion-year history. This high-octane popular science book is his take on the genre of the “earth biography”.

A (Very) Short History of Life On Earth (more…)

Book review – London Clay: Journeys in the Deep City

6-minute read
keywords: archeology, earth sciences, geography

We walk on layered history. The ground beneath our feet is shot through with traces of our past, some in plain sight, many buried and badly eroded. Writer and artist Tom Chivers will concur that nowhere is this more true than in cities. London Clay is the result of a decade of exploration on foot, tracing vanished rivers, lost islands, and geological strata hiding under the concrete bedlam of modern London. The city’s untidy edges, its brownfields and derelict buildings, the very lay of the land—in Chivers’s hands all of these become cracks through which the past oozes back in. An unlikely chimaera of nature writing and urban exploration, this lyrical book offers a fresh way of looking at the built environment.

London Clay (more…)

Book review – Ocean Worlds: The Story of Seas on Earth and Other Planets

7-minute read

Life most likely originated in the oceans, and it is to oceans that astronomers are looking to find life elsewhere in the universe. With the publication last year of Kevin Peter Hand’s Alien Oceans, I decided this was the right time to finally review Ocean Worlds, a book that I have been very keen to read ever since buying it some years ago. This, then, is the first of a two-part dive into the story of oceans on Earth and elsewhere.

Ocean Worlds slanted (more…)