The ocean-floor sludge at the fringes of vanished continents might, after hundreds of millions of years, reemerge in volcanic eruptions3 or be transformed into diamonds. The day came when the Earth had cooled enough for the water vapor in the atmosphere to condense and fall as rain.

In this book, Dr Gee presents an engaging exploration of this enduring ‘where did we come from’ question by combining findings from a variety of scientific disciplines into a coherent story using beautifully evocative and witty prose. Es ist eine gute Zusammenfassung in einer einfachen Sprache, die trotzdem informativ und spannend erzählt ist.There is no evidence to support Dr Gee’s argument as anything other than especially interesting science fiction, but this idea is something I’ve heard before.

And teeth then became more complex forms with teeth molars to manage and deal with grazing on the food that became the new substance for energy.

The Earth’s heat, radiating outward from the molten core, keeps the planet forever on the boil, just like a pan of water simmering on a stove.

the concepts can be so difficult to grasp at times, I felt like wanting to know why a certain thing happened a little bit more, not just read in a sentence.This will be our greatest challenge, and one we may not be able to survive at all, if the history of life on Earth has any bearing on it. The last of these occurred 65 million years ago and wiped out most of the dinosaurs, caused by the impact of a meteorite. They spread in sheets over rocks and lawns on the seabed, only to be buried by sand in the next storm: but conquering again and being buried once again, building cushion-like mounds of layered slime and sediment. For billions of years, Earth was an inhospitably alien place – covered with churning seas, slowly crafting its landscape by way of incessant volcanic eruptions, the atmosphere in a constant state of chemical flux.

Less dense materials such as aluminum, silicon, and oxygen combine into a light froth of rocks near the surface.And I'm a little doubtful of the assertion 'Within the next few thousand years Homo sapiens will have vanished. Particular highlights are his discussion of the incredibly different anatomy of plants/"trees" in the Carboniferous forests (they were hollow! However, when most of life lived in the sea, the idea of moving to land would’ve been extreme and there wasn’t much land. O nce upon a time…’ The opening words of Henry Gee’s new book give notice that what follows will be a story – and a dazzling, beguiling story it is, told at an exhilarating pace. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.