The Road to Gondwana: In search of the lost supercontinent

An immersive and fascinating journey into deep time, charting the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana through a billion years of Earth’s history. ‘Gondwana’ is a mystery of geological history; a lost supercontinent and a place woven into the consciousness of all who inhabit its scattered fragments. Today, the people who live in Africa, South America, India, Australia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Arabia spend their lives walking around on what’s left of Gondwana. But what was life like when it was whole?  The Road to Gondwana traces the steps science took to find Gondwana, and the evolutionary journey of Gondwana itself. Our tour guide on this journey is Glossopteris – an extinct tree that dominated the supercontinent for 50 million years, before vanishing in the most devastating event ever to strike life on this planet, the Permian mass extinction.  This is a story about deep time and the challenges that face those who venture there. It’s about the importance of imagination in science, and the reasons that the journey towards understanding is sometimes more important than the destination. 

Table of Contents:
Prologue 1. What Mean These Stones 2. Motherland 3. Great Southern Land 5. Accretion 5. Weeds 6. Survival Country 7. The Occupation 8. The Dying of the Light 9. Goodbye Gondwana 10. Earth Epilogue

About the Author :
Bill Morris is a writer, documentary filmmaker and musician based in Port Chalmers, New Zealand. He has worked extensively as a wildlife filmmaker for NHNZ, the BBC Natural History Unit and others, and his passion for science and stories of the natural world informs all his work. 

Review :
“Lyrical, dramatic and utterly readable – The Road to Gondwana leaps across continents and epochs with verve and scientific seriousness. A book to make you fall in love with geology, and the story of the earth’s deep time.” “The book is a fascinating read which takes the armchair explorer on a journey to a world which is long gone, step by step through eons of time." “a really enjoyable book. It reads more like a fiction book than nonfiction, despite being packed full of great information" "When you really love, really appreciate, really immerse yourself in the forces of nature, that is when you perhaps care a little more about our impacts on it. It’s important and powerful work" “It is a scholarly and persuasive work, dazzling in its detail, but immensely entertaining and intriguing " “The Road To Gondwana should be in every home. It is written for all to understand, and with so many descriptive stories, from the girls picking out coal with their fingers in India to geologists exploring the sea beds. Immensely relevant today!” "A wonderful new book. Is a lovely looking book, it is beautifully designed. It would be a great Chrissie present" "Prior to reading this book I had no idea that geology and palaeontology could be so interesting, so fascinating." "A geological jaunt" “Morris is s a gifted writer and researcher and a warm human being. He has a light and sometimes humorous way of filtering heaps of scientific data, spiced with stories about the people whose geological discoveries contributed to the discovery of Gondwana. For me his ability to create word pictures was the best part of the book”