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by Dorrik Stow


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Six million years ago, a vast ocean--which scientists have named Tethys--vanished from the face of the earth. How could such a huge body of water simply disappear? More interesting, how is it possible for scientists to know with certainty that Tethys existed for a quarter of a billion years, a period that includes the entire "Age of Dinosaurs" and almost all of the "Age of Mammals," right up to the point when our distant ancestors began to walk upright. Vanished Ocean tells the fascinating story of Tethys, offering an illuminating account of the scientific evidence for the ocean's existence. Renowned geologist Dorrik Stow describes the powerful forces that shaped the ocean; the marine life it once held and the rich deposits of oil that life left behind; and the impact of its currents on environment and climate. The story of Tethys is also a story of extinctions, floods, and extraordinary episodes such as the virtual drying up of the Mediterranean, before being filled again by a dramatic cascade of water over the straits of Gibraltar. In telling this story, Stow reveals how geologists and oceanographers have spent years proving the former existence of Tethys, from a remarkable series of clues locked away in rocks now exposed high up in mountain ranges and buried in sediments deep beneath today's oceans. Indeed, these myriad clues are now scattered from Morocco to China and from the depths of the Caspian Sea to the highest Himalayan peaks. Here then is the gripping story of the merging and splintering of continents, the rise and fall of mountain ranges, and an ancient, vast ocean that simply vanished from sight. It is a story that reminds us of the profound impact of oceans and their currents on the environment, climate, and life of our planet.
Download Vanished Ocean: How Tethys Reshaped the World epub
ISBN: 019921428X
ISBN13: 978-0199214280
Category: Science
Subcategory: Earth Sciences
Author: Dorrik Stow
Language: English
Publisher: Oxford University Press; 1 edition (June 10, 2010)
Pages: 288 pages
ePUB size: 1762 kb
FB2 size: 1242 kb
Rating: 4.3
Votes: 748
Other Formats: docx lrf txt lrf

Qucid
It's rare to find a book that's so accessible to the general well-read reader in the field of marine geology and science. Books available seem to either emphasize the complex details of a researcher's work, or to gloss over science and focus on the strange or grandiose.
Vanished Ocean is sometimes a bit whimsical and personal, which lightens the reading. But it's also an excellent overview of what we know right now about a strange period in our planet's history, when life first nearly vanished in the blink of an eye (90 to 96 percent of Earth's life forms disappeared) then reappeared with a grand flourish in the warm, broad, shallow seas of the Tethys Ocean.
Very cool reading.
Tygrafym
When I first saw this book advertised on Amazon in my suggestions section, I quickly added it to my shopping list because it seemed like a very interesting topic. Who wouldn't want to know more about supercontinents and a long-vanished ocean that had a big impact on the world? In actuality, this book ends up being more of a geological and biological history of the areas related to the ancient ocean known as Thethys. There are some very interesting an relatively little-known (to lay readers) facts about Pangea and Tethys and some very fresh perspectives on things like mass extinction events and how they relate to previous tectonic arrangements of the planet, but overall, the book reads more like a standard history of the geology of a particular section of the planet. To me that is an interesting enough topic to keep me reading, but I should point out that in places, the author lists so many types of rocks or organisms in such a short space that some readers might become exasperated and give up before getting to the end of the book, which in my opinion, is one of the strongest parts.

Like many books of this type, there are a number of interesting anecdotes derived from the author's extensive trips and research junkets to places as disparate as an ocean drilling expedition and rock collecting trips to Tibet. He gives numerous examples of how evidence of the history of Tethys can be seen in different places around the globe. Included in the book also are a number of maps showing the general layout of the continents and oceans for the corresponding chapter.

The books starts at about 250 million years ago when the Pangea supercontinent had just formed and covers how the ocean that formed on its eastern edge witnessed and was part of various events such as the end Permian mass extinction, the formation of oil deposits, the flourishing of new avenues of evolution leading up to the dinosaurs, the so-called KT boundary event and the progress up to the current layout of the continents and the organisms that inhabit them. For a layperson, I think the great value in a book like this is that it allows you to connect events everyone knows and hears about such as the end Permian extinction, the KT event and the Eocene warm period with tectonic layouts that were quite different than the current one and as such, implied different climate, ocean circulation and biological regimes than we see now.
Duzshura
Read this book and you'll be carried a few hundred million years into deep time. Stow's passion for the Tethys come through every page. Would be a great book for high schoolers to learn about paleontology and geology, and parents will enjoy it too. Highly recommended!
Inabel
An excellent description of the changing Tethys Ocean and the inter-relationships between ocean, climate, lithification, and evolution in the sea and on the land.
Samuhn
If you want to know why what happen 250 million years matters today, this is a great book. Not too technical, just right for the geo-hobbyist.
Moonshaper
A different perspective on a vast stretch of Earth history. A basic knowledge of geology and paleontology would help the reader.
Phobism
Great book!! Thank you!!
What an interesting book. Full of surprising insight, personal experiences and scientific explanations. I've really enjoyed reading this. Highly recommended.

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