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The Road To Gondwana
In search of the lost supercontinent
By Bill Morris
Published by Exisle Publishing
ISBN: 9781922539335
Reading this book is an exceptionally interesting and a fascinating discovery into the search for Gondwana the massive continent that once included New Zealand, Australia, South America, Africa, Arabia and India and parts of Antarctica.
Bill Morris’ writing style is easy to follow and enjoyable to read. He has a way drawing the reader into this incredible history going back 500 million years, giving explanations of the various stages of developments up to modern times when he explains the actual causes of climate change.
It is such an interesting book that I didn’t want to put it down. I read in the mornings and found that I had read half the book after a couple of days even with stopping to practice how to pronounce many of the Latin names for the flora and fauna.
Bill Morris takes the reader on a journey to the places that he and other renowned geologists and palaeontologists from as far back as the 1700s as they travelled on their quests to find elusive fossils and Gondwana.
There are some surprises such as when on an expedition Bill together with other scientists stumbled upon reefs and fossils of whales and sharks, great distances from the sea.
The Road to Gondwana gives a greater understanding of how when looking at the world map we can see that continents were once joined and how they separated. It is incredible to think that species found in the Karoo in South Africa are common to countries on the other side of the world.
It also explains how the Falkland Islands situated over 400kms off the coast of Argentina were once between Southern Africa and Madagascar.
Bill Morris takes you on a journey of discovery, finding out about the development of Pangea and Gondwana through the various millennia, including the development of living organisms, plants, sea life, land animals various dinosaurs, how and why they became extinct.
Plus he explains the various stages of the extinctions and introduces the reader to some animals you wouldn’t want to meet. The inclusion of several illustrations, timelines spanning millions of years and photographs all help with the descriptions.
As Bill Morris explains one of his discoveries it brought to mind the great motivational speaker Earl Nightingale, and one of his famous phrases in his book Lead the Field "diamonds in your backyard"
Prior to reading this book I had no idea that geology and palaeontology could be so interesting, so fascinating that it would be worth seeking out more of his work as a documentary film maker.
Whilst this book is essentially a book for adults, I highly recommend senior high school students to read it too. It may open up other areas of interest.
This a hard cover book with dust jacket, printed on quality paper making it all the more pleasurable to read.
This is independent review, I am not paid by the publishers, so.If you
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