ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´

Cassell’s Atlas of Evolution: The Earth, its landscape, and life forms by

Richard Moody, Dougal Dixon, Ian Jenkins and Audrey Zhuravlev, £30, ISBN

0304355119

IT’S BENEATH our feet all the days of our lives but few of us get to know

much about it, or bother to find out. Try it, say some, and you may lose

yourself in this fascinating region of science. Well, this autobiography of

planet Earth does the job for you with great clarity, splendid graphics and

glorious colour admirably marshalled together by Richard Moody and his team.

The story opens around 12 billion years ago with the beginnings of space and

the big bang. It then runs through the formation of matter, the creation of our

Universe, its nebulae, stars, our Solar System with its planets and the main

focus of the story, Earth. The bulk of the Atlas of Evolution, however,

covers the past 3.5 billion years. It is concerned with the rise and fall of

numerous life forms, from single-celled microbes to early multicelled

organisms – a multitude of marine organisms and continental types. Each

section presents a major geological period with its own time line and the

evolutionary progression of plants, animals and their relationships within that

period. The graphics are comprehensive, showing the earliest life forms, corals,

ammonites, dinosaurs (fast and slow, big and small), nature red in tooth and

claw, and on to the short evolutionary path of humankind.

Intermingled with the long story of evolution and major and minor extinctions

is that of the planet’s inner workings. Here’s the structure of the Earth, its

bombardment, changing face, how it gained its oceans, the mechanisms of plate

tectonics, volcanoes, earthquakes and much more.

This is a book that deserves a place in every home, a wonderful asset to any

bookshelf.