Strata

Laura Poppick & Sarah Gilman

Language: English

Published: Jan 15, 2025

Description:

"[A]n extraordinary book." —Marcia Bjornerud, author of Turning to Stone

A revelatory journey through four moments in Earth's deep past, and their lessons for our future.

The epic stories of our planet's 4.54-billion-year history are written in strata—ages-old remnants of ancient seafloors, desert dunes, and riverbeds striping landscapes around the world. In this brilliantly original debut work, science writer Laura Poppick decodes strata to lead us on a journey through four global transformations that made our lives on Earth possible: the first accumulations of oxygen in the atmosphere; the deep freezes of "Snowball Earth"; the rise of mud on land and accompanying proliferation of plants; and the dinosaurs' reign on a hothouse planet

Poppick introduces us to the researchers who have devoted their careers to understanding the events of deep time, including the world's leading stegosaur scientist. She travels to sites as...