Table of Contents

Acknowledgements.

Introduction.

PART I: CUTTING THROUGH EARTH TIME—MR. SMITH'S SECTION FROM LONDON TO SNOWDON.

1. Recent Earth Time - The Holocene.

2. The Diluvium - The Flood and the Ice Ages.

3. Below the Surface - Into Tertiary Times.

4. Layer upon Layer - Deeper and Deeper into Earth Tine.

5. Oolites and Lias - The Jurassic before the Park.

6. Red Beds in the Midlands and Russia.

7. Fuelling the Industrial Revolution.

8. A Boundary dispute in the Welsh Hills.

9. The end of the Line - The Precambrian.

PART II: MAJOOR POWELL'S BOAT TRIP THROUGH THE GRAND CANYON.

10. A Glympse into the abyss of Earth Time.

11. Signs of life appear.

12. The cambrian arms race.

13. The Upper Paleozoic - American Style.

14. The Missing Mesozoic and the making of the Canyon.

15. Peopling the Americas.

16. Rock of ages - Dating rocks and fossils.

Earth Time - Conclusion.

References.

Index.

About the Author

Douglas Palmer is an academic, lecturer and popular science writer. He is author or co-author of a wide range of books on prehistoric life and fossils, including the best selling Earth. He teaches for the Cambridge University Natural Science Tripos and the International Summer School. A former earth sciences lecturer at Trinity College, Dublin, he also spent two years as an exhibition coordinator at the National Museum of Wales.