Supercontinent

Title: Supercontinent – Ten Billion Years in the Life of Our Planet

Author: Ted Nield

Publisher:  Granta Publications, 2008 (First published 2007)

ISBN: 978-1-84708-041-7

Pages: 270

The earth is our home which holds myriad wonders in her bosom, unwilling to expose them except only to the adventurous few. That chosen few people come in one variety – geologists. It may seem surprising and counterintuitive to us today the fact that plate tectonics and continental drift, which explain the movement of continents on the surface, came into vogue only during the last fifty years, after mankind had invented nuclear power, electronics and computers. Though the discovery of plate tectonics does not in anyway was a consequence of the three marvelous inventions that changed human lot incomparably, it vindicates the case of geologists that their field of research is so hard and time consuming. Nield’s book would go a long way in popularizing the arcane topic so that young mids sufficiently awed by the wonders of earth would choose to follow on the footsteps of great geologists like Lyell and Wegener.

Our earth housed a supercontinent, which included all the presently existing continents in one whole landmass, hundreds of millions of years ago, which got fractured into many pieces and travelled on the crust to their present positions. The geological forces which effected this phenomenon are still at work. We see that the Atlantic ocean is widening itself by pushing away Europe and America, while the Pacific is shrinking on the opposite side. The pace of the system is so slow as to measure on our everyday scales, but on the scale of a several millions of years, a whole landmass will once again form a supercontinent which will be surrounded by a huge ocean. Other changes are also going on simultaneously – Africa is moving northward, crushing the Mediterranean sea out of existence. Curiously, the idea of a lost continent coloured the imaginations of both poets and scientists for a very long time. Around the beginning of 20^th century, scientists believed that human life originated on an island, named Lemuria, which submerged in the Indian ocean. The author then dwells at some length on this idea based on outdated science. It still animates popular minds in Tamil Nadu, which nurses a myth and contends that their island of origin sank into the sea. However, the author hints that the old reference must be to a previous tsunami which might have devastated the shoreline of ancient India.

The supercontinent Pangea, from which our present-day continents emerged, consisted of two interlinked landmasses, Laurasia and Gondwanaland. It may amuse us, but the name of Gondwanaland was christened by eminent 19^th century geologist Eduard Suess in memory of the Gond tribals of Madhya Pradesh, who had entered geological lore earlier, thanks to some very old plant species found in their midst. Alfred Wegener, who first proposed the idea of a supercontinent and continental drift didn’t find easy acceptance among U.S. geological community where the real money lay, when it was first proposed during the beginning of last century. Brilliant though Wegener’s idea was, he couldn’t propose a mechanism that drove the entire process. His appeals for the congruency of American and African coastlines and the distribution of mountains and rocks on continuous lines across the two continents couldn’t satisfy the demands for evidence. It was an Irish geologist, John Joly who proposed the mechanism by which continents split apart and moved across the crust of the planet. Joly found radioactive elements in layers of rock which emitted heat radiation from below. This radioactivity produced immense heat which is blanketed by the crust. As a result, the heat accumulates and a time will come when the crust can no longer sustain it. It breaks apart, with outpouring of molten lava from beneath. This drives the pieces further away, resulting in continental drift.

The making and undoing of supercontinents repeat in cycles, Rodinia being the name of the supercontinent preceding Pangea where complex life forms probably evolved. The geological events like ice house and greenhouse helped foster or eradicate the prevailing life forms during several periods of its chequered history. Nield illustrates several examples of how a geological event led to the growth of a new chapter in life’s story. He ends the book with a good admonishment at the charlatans who espouse myths and stories of ancient poets envisioned in religious texts and still try to enslave people to outdated beliefs (like America’s infamous Creation Museum). Awareness and preparedness of geological disasters such as the 2004 Indian ocean tsunami has helped save thousands of lives in the form of quake sensors and early warning systems that the scale of damage would be considerably less if such an event recurred. It all point to the need for a new thinking among people to cast off old and redundant beliefs and embrace the scientific worldview.

The book is a heroic attempt to popularize geology. It also includes a lively criticism of mystic traditions camouflaging as scientific concepts, with special reference to the Urantia Book and the religion it spawned. Referring to quotations put forward by its sympathisers, Nield’s opinion is valid for any religious text masquerading as science, “These quotations are selective, of course, which is always the key to making the prophecies of mystics look ‘uncanny’. If you look at other parts of the same passage from which those quotations come, you can find a rich and colourful mixture of half-correct ideas and plain nonsense.” (p.189). Also, “The trick of a successful prophet is to say enough things, and to phrase them sufficiently elliptically, so that the occasional correct hits within the general rambling leap out at the prepared mind. Just like cloud patterns or the face of the Man in the Moon” (p.190).

However, some parts of the book are heavily sodden with geological parlance which the author has not bothered to explain. It hinders the flow of interest from cover to cover. Also, any book on geology should include some good pictures of the so called faults and ridges which this book sadly lacks. It does not fully justify the title either. Though formation and destruction of supercontinents are discussed in detail, the readers quickly discern the thrust is on popularization of the author’s preferred field of study – geology.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star