The Planet in a Pebble: A journey into Earth's deep history

"A large number of those working in geology started young. It is the kind of topic that can capture the imagination of a young person, and that fascination and enthusiasm never leaves them. I started to collect pebbles as an eight year old, often agates from the shores of the Ayrshire coast in Scotland. I then moved on to minerals and by the time I was fourteen I was an avid collector of fossils. For a young amateur there is always seeing something no one else has or in the case of fossils finding one new to science. These rocks, minerals and fossils can tell us so much about the history of the planet and how we came to be here. The book by Jan Zalasiewicz is a real gem. It takes a simple pebble from the coast of Wales and unwraps its history. It takes us into the way we investigate the history of the Earth and step by step reveals the history of the pebble from the day the sediment was laid down at the bottom of the ocean to the burial and transformation to a rock through to when it was uplifted and eroded with much in between. What the book illustrates is not only how all the sciences are involved in unraveling the history of our planet but the sheer excitement of the discoveries and that there is a story for us all to unravel. What is so wonderful about geology is that anyone can make their own journey and all have the potential, however young or old, amateur of professional of finding out something new about the history of our planet. This is a book that I would have liked to have written. Perhaps I will. As Jan writes, “ pick up a pebble from somewhere else, and it will have other stories to tell”. It is certainly a wonderful start to make us think about our long past."