From Gondwanaland, with love : the tale of how Boston got its rocks

Thesis (S.M. in Science Writing)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2006. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 26-27). The rocks on which the city of Boston was built did not form as part of North America. They formed about 600 mi...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Cull, Selby (Selby C.)
Other Authors: Thomas Levenson., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate Program in Science Writing., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate Program in Science Writing, MIT Program in Writing & Humanistic Studies
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2006
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/39447
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Summary:Thesis (S.M. in Science Writing)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2006. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 26-27). The rocks on which the city of Boston was built did not form as part of North America. They formed about 600 million years ago, at the South Pole, as the northern coast of a supercontinent called Gondwanaland. Boston's journey from the South Pole to its current location traces the world's geologic history over that period of time, including the emergence of animal life as we know it, the formation and destruction of Pangaea, and the rise and fall of the dinosaurs. More than that, though: the history of our understanding of Boston's journey illustrates how geologists think about their world, and how their ideas have changed over the last 150 years in one of science's great revolutions. by Selby Cull. S.M.in Science Writing