Description
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.
