Southern Limestones under Western Eyes: The Modern World Evolving in Southern Australia
Science, the growth of reliable knowledge, became a major triumph of the European Enlightenment in the seventeenth century, under the guise of ‘natural philosophy’: investigating what the earth and universe are made of and how things work. It took another century for the parallel subject ‘natural hi...
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ftanucanberra:oai:openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au:1885/316711 2024-05-12T07:56:07+00:00 Southern Limestones under Western Eyes: The Modern World Evolving in Southern Australia McGowran, Brian http://hdl.handle.net/1885/316711 https://doi.org/10.22459/SLWE.2023 en_AU eng ANU Press 9781760465872 http://hdl.handle.net/1885/316711 doi:10.22459/SLWE.2023 Author/s retain copyright https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Creative Commons licence (CC BY-NC-ND; creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) Book ftanucanberra https://doi.org/10.22459/SLWE.2023 2024-04-17T14:01:08Z Science, the growth of reliable knowledge, became a major triumph of the European Enlightenment in the seventeenth century, under the guise of ‘natural philosophy’: investigating what the earth and universe are made of and how things work. It took another century for the parallel subject ‘natural history’ to glimpse how the earth, its geography and its richly diverse life came to be. Later, geology and biology became intertwined as biogeohistory—an ever-changing environmental theatre hosting an ever-changing evolutionary play. This environmental theatre has shifted with the making and breaking of supercontinents, the birth and death of global oceans, and the rise and fall of global hothouses and ice ages. The evolutionary play begins with biostratigraphy, wherein fossils revealed deep time and ancient environments and built the first meaningful geological timescale, and ends with the still young science of palaeoceanography—central to which are microfossils, rich in information about the oceans and climates of the past. In Southern Limestones under Western Eyes, Brian McGowran recounts the history of biogeohistory itself: the ever-changing perceptions of rocks, fossils and landscapes, from the late 1600s to the present. McGowran’s focus is southern Australia, the north shore of the dying Australo-Antarctic Gulf, in an era bracketed by two catastrophes: the extinction of dinosaurs and the emergence of humans. Book Antarc* Antarctic Australian National University: ANU Digital Collections Antarctic |
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Australian National University: ANU Digital Collections |
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ftanucanberra |
language |
English |
description |
Science, the growth of reliable knowledge, became a major triumph of the European Enlightenment in the seventeenth century, under the guise of ‘natural philosophy’: investigating what the earth and universe are made of and how things work. It took another century for the parallel subject ‘natural history’ to glimpse how the earth, its geography and its richly diverse life came to be. Later, geology and biology became intertwined as biogeohistory—an ever-changing environmental theatre hosting an ever-changing evolutionary play. This environmental theatre has shifted with the making and breaking of supercontinents, the birth and death of global oceans, and the rise and fall of global hothouses and ice ages. The evolutionary play begins with biostratigraphy, wherein fossils revealed deep time and ancient environments and built the first meaningful geological timescale, and ends with the still young science of palaeoceanography—central to which are microfossils, rich in information about the oceans and climates of the past. In Southern Limestones under Western Eyes, Brian McGowran recounts the history of biogeohistory itself: the ever-changing perceptions of rocks, fossils and landscapes, from the late 1600s to the present. McGowran’s focus is southern Australia, the north shore of the dying Australo-Antarctic Gulf, in an era bracketed by two catastrophes: the extinction of dinosaurs and the emergence of humans. |
format |
Book |
author |
McGowran, Brian |
spellingShingle |
McGowran, Brian Southern Limestones under Western Eyes: The Modern World Evolving in Southern Australia |
author_facet |
McGowran, Brian |
author_sort |
McGowran, Brian |
title |
Southern Limestones under Western Eyes: The Modern World Evolving in Southern Australia |
title_short |
Southern Limestones under Western Eyes: The Modern World Evolving in Southern Australia |
title_full |
Southern Limestones under Western Eyes: The Modern World Evolving in Southern Australia |
title_fullStr |
Southern Limestones under Western Eyes: The Modern World Evolving in Southern Australia |
title_full_unstemmed |
Southern Limestones under Western Eyes: The Modern World Evolving in Southern Australia |
title_sort |
southern limestones under western eyes: the modern world evolving in southern australia |
publisher |
ANU Press |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/1885/316711 https://doi.org/10.22459/SLWE.2023 |
geographic |
Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic |
op_relation |
9781760465872 http://hdl.handle.net/1885/316711 doi:10.22459/SLWE.2023 |
op_rights |
Author/s retain copyright https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Creative Commons licence (CC BY-NC-ND; creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.22459/SLWE.2023 |
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1798836062592696320 |