∎ Libro Gratis Mysteries of Terra Firma The Age and Evolution of the Earth James Powell 9780684872827 Books

Mysteries of Terra Firma The Age and Evolution of the Earth James Powell 9780684872827 Books

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Mysteries of Terra Firma The Age and Evolution of the Earth James Powell 9780684872827 Books

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Mysteries of Terra Firma The Age and Evolution of the Earth James Powell 9780684872827 Books Reviews

Mysteries of Terra Firma by James Lawrence Powell, author of Night Comes to the Cretaceous, is an excellent introduction to what are arguably the science of geology's greatest contributions to humankind's knowledge of the universe. These great discoveries are the age of the Earth [4.55 billion years old], the theory of plate tectonics, and the knowledge that the impacts of comets and asteroids are an important force in our solar system, including here on Earth. In each of the three sections of the book, Powell takes the reader through the convoluted histories of each of these great discoveries, showing geology and the geologists, warts and all. These histories illustrate the fact that science can be slow and imperfect, but ultimately does a good job at pushing our knowledge of the universe forward. Mysteries of Terra Firma is an excellent read and should be enjoyed by anybody with an interest in geology, the Earth, or the history of science. I also recommend that college and high school earth science teachers append this title to their supplementary reading lists as soon as possible. I thoroughly enjoyed Mysteries of Terra Firma and I think you'll enjoy it, too.
Great book, informative, easy to read. What I enjoyed the most was the fact that Dr. Powell sets the record straight with regards to giving credit where it's due - at least as much as possible. For instance he points out that it is Lawrence Morley (pp.131-132), who should have been credited for the idea that the magnetic reversal patterns that we see in oceanic basalt are linked to seafloor spreading. Instead, it was Vine and Matthews who were given sole credit for the discovery. A genuinely good read.
It often amazes me that most students get out of high school with no appreciation of how science is done or how difficult it is to extract information from nature. In James Powell's book, "Mysteries of Terra Firma The Age and Evolution of the Earth" these themes are repeated again and again as we learn how difficult it was to get away from Lord Kelvin's 20-100 million year estimate of the earth's age, escape the idea that the continents were stable and did not move, and counter the view that asteroids could not have caused the moon to be ejected from the earth. A similar debate is now raging over global climate change, but eventually all of these arguments fall to the weight of evidence. Now (as Powell says) we know that Lord Kelvin was wrong and all of the modern estimates for the earth's age are concentrated around 4.5 billion years. We know that sea-floor spreading, continental motion, and volcanoes and earth quakes, are all tied together by convection in the earth's mantle. We also know that many asteroids and comets have struck the earth, other planets and our moon, and that several caused great disruptions, including separating materials from the planet struck as was the likely case with our own moon. This was brought closer to home by the spectacular impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy's on the atmosphere of Jupiter, an event who's resulting marks on Jupiter's clouds could be observed (as I did) easily with a ten-inch telescope.

On my cabinet I have a rock from South Africa dated at 3.5 billion years. The depth of that long corridor of time is truly difficult to even comprehend, but the secret of this little rock was one of those hard-won from nature. The history of that struggle is exactly the story we need to teach in order to make science understandable to young people. Powell's book is a good place to start.
This is an excellent history of the attempt to determine the age of the earth and moon and to understand how they have evolved geologically. The author divides the book into three sections, dealing with "time, drift, and impact", i.e. the dating of the earth, the discovery of continental drift, and the discovery of the importance of impact events on the history of the earth and moon. (A better title for the book would have been Mysteries of Terra and Luna The Age and Evolution of the Earth and Moon".)

One of the things I like the most about this book is its depiction of how the scientific process and human foibles interact to produce the following 3 common situations 1) a theory later shown to be true is initially seen as preposterous and is rejected by the scientific establishment; 2) eminent scientists continue to cling to outdated theories long after evidence to the contrary becomes overwhelming, and 3) even when there is overwhelming evidence for a theory, some scientists with reputable credentials attack it on flimsy grounds. This may well be relevant to the current controversy over anthropogenic global warming.

I also enjoyed some of the quotations the author prefaces the chapters with. Particularly nice is a quote attributed to Goethe to the effect that "to be uncertain is to be uncomfortable, but to be certain is to be ridiculous". Another one I liked attributed to the evolutionist Thomas Huxley is "how incredibly stupid not to have thought of that".

I read this book shortly after I read another one with which it overlaps "Nature's Clocks". I must say that the latter is better written. The author of the former does not always express himself as clearly as he could. He sometimes uses a technical term without properly defining it. He has a bad habit of referring to scientists mentioned in prior chapters without refreshing the reader's memory. At a number of places a picture or diagram would have been very helpful. In general he has a tendency to use sentences which are not as clear as they could be. But with a little effort it's usually possibly to figure out what he means.

I recommend this book to anyone who would like to know how our modern understanding of the origin and geologic development of the earth and moon came about.
Excellent! Exactly what I wanted!