Showing titles in Earth Sciences

Speaking to experts in fields as diverse as oil production and ecology, and visiting the places that have escaped recent human activity to discover how they have adapted to life without us, Alan Weisman paints an intriguing picture of the future of Earth. Exploring key concerns of our time, this absorbing thought experiment reveals a powerful - and surprising - picture of our planet's future.

*Fully revised and updated for the 21st century* The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry takes readers on an odyssey into the deepest, darkest depth of the universe and back again with his extra-terrestrial tour guide, Merlin. Merlin is a timeless visitor...

The Little Ice Age tells the story of the turbulent, unpredictable, and often very cold years of modern European history, how climate altered historical events, and what they mean in the context of today’s global warming.

Maybe it was a viral pandemic, or an asteroid strike, or perhaps nuclear war. Whatever the cause, the world as we know it has ended and you and the other survivors must start again. What key knowledge would you need to start rebuilding civilisation from scratch? Once you’ve scavenged what you...

In this Very Short Introduction audiobook, Jan Zalasiewicz gives a brief introduction to the fascinating field of geology. Describing how the science developed from its early beginnings, he looks at some of the key discoveries that have transformed it before delving into its various subfields, such as sedimentology, tectonics, and stratigraphy.  

How much do we really know about the place we call 'home'? In this sweeping, timely book, Nicholas Crane tells the story of Britain. Over the course of 12,000 years of continuous human occupation, the British landscape has been transformed form a European peninsula of glacier and tundra to an...

Published in 1951, The Sea Around Us is one of the most remarkably successful books ever written about the natural world. This classic work remains as fresh today as when it first appeared. Carson's writing teems with stunning, memorable images - the newly formed Earth cooling beneath an endlessly overcast sky, the centuries of nonstop rain that created the oceans, giant squids battling sperm whales hundreds of fathoms below the surface, and incredibly powerful tides moving 100 billion tons of water daily in the Bay of Fundy.

Paleoanthropologist Silvana Condemi and science journalist François Savatier tell the Denisovans’ story in The Secret World of Denisovans. Leading us through the excavation of Denisova cave, the sequencing of the Denisovan genome, and recent research on Denisovan fossils, Condemi and Savatier uncover how the Denisovans migrated to Asia, who they interacted with along the way, and why traces of Denisovan DNA can be found in modern-day humans.

COLLECTIVE WINNER OF THE HIGHLAND BOOK PRIZE AND SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE ‘This is the book that has been wanting to be written for decades: the ragged fringe of Britain as a laboratory for the human spirit’ Adam Nicolson Over the course of a year, leading historian and nature...

Brought to you by Penguin. The year is 1735. Twelve unruly men board ships bound for South America. Their mission? To discover the true shape of the earth. They will be exposed to a wilderness of dangers none can imagine. The survivors won't return for ten years. An almost forgotten moment in...

A story of defiance and determination by a controversial scientist, this is Lee Berger's own take on finding Homo naledi, an all-new species on the human family tree and one of the greatest discoveries of the 21st century. In 2013, Lee Berger, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence, heard of a cache of bones in a hard-to-reach underground cave in South Africa. He put out a call around the world for petite collaborators - men and women small and adventurous enough to be able to squeeze through eight-inch tunnels to reach a sunless cave forty feet underground. It worked.

‘Very entertaining’ SUNDAY TIMES ‘A thoroughly enjoyable book, brimming over with historical nuggets and contemplations about the future’ NEW YORK TIMES Sunday Times bestselling author Simon Winchester returns with a thought-provoking history of the wind, written in his edifying and...

When it comes to climate change, the media, politicians, and other prominent voices have declared that "the science is settled." In reality, the long game of telephone from research to reports to the popular media is corrupted by misunderstanding and misinformation. Core questions - about the way the climate is responding to our influence, and what the impacts will be - remain largely unanswered. The climate is changing, but the why and how aren't as clear as you've probably been led to believe.

On the afternoon of July 13, 1977, having become the first climbers to reach the summit of the Ogre, Doug Scott and Chris Bonington began their long descent. In the minutes that followed, any feeling of success from their achievement would be overwhelmed by the start of a desperate fight for survival. And things would only get worse.

Revisit the spectacle of the incredible new series of BBC One's Walking With Dinosaurs in this richly detailed look into the distant past. Delve deeper into the dramatic stories of dinosaurs whose remains are currently being unearthed on dig sites all over the world. With the latest scientific discoveries, these stories of legendary dinosaurs are waiting to be uncovered.

How did the world as we know it—from the soil beneath our feet to the air we breathe and the life that surrounds us—come to be? Geologists have proposed one set of answers while biologists have proposed another. Earth and Life is the first book to reveal why we need to listen to both voices—the physical and the biological—to understand how we and our planet became possible.

'The clouds are nature's poetry, and the most egalitarian of her displays, since everyone has an equally fantastic view of them. Clouds are for dreamers, and their contemplation benefits the soul. Yet their beauty is so everyday as to be in danger of being overlooked ...' Gavin Pretor Pinney is...

*Revised and updated for the twenty-first century* In this updated, illustrated companion volume to Merlin's Tour of the Universe, we visit again with Merlin, a timeless space traveler from Planet Omniscia, who answers a collection of imaginative questions about the cosmos from Earthlings of all...

 World renowned scientist, Dr. Gerald Pollack, takes us on a fantastic voyage through water, showing us a hidden universe teeming with physical activity - providing simple explanations for everyday phenomena, which you have inevitably seen but not really understood. Have you ever wondered how do clouds made up of dense water droplets manage to float in the sky? Why don't your joints squeak as they rub together? Why do you sink in dry sand, but not in wet sand? Pollack uses a recent and fundamental scientific finding - EZ water - to help explain these and many other head-scratchers.

This is the true story of a Harvard graduate who forsook his studies for two years of the grueling life of an ordinary seaman. This exciting tale was the first to realistically describe the lives of the roughly treated, poorly paid sailors of the merchant marine.