22 January 2022 | New Scientist | 31Earth before us
A unique mix of science and imagination takes us
on a journey through long-lost worlds, finds Gege LiBook
Otherlands: A world
in the making
Thomas Halliday
Allen Lane
OUR planet has existed for some
4.5 billion years. In that time, it has
undergone extraordinary changes,
with landscapes and life forms
that would seem almost alien to us
today. Yet clues to their existence
and fate can be found buried deep
within Earth’s layers.
Otherlands by palaeobiologist
Thomas Halliday provides a unique
portrait of these strange and
remarkable environments and
the species that inhabited them.
Through rich, detailed descriptions
of ancient organisms and geological
processes that draw on the fossil
record and his own imagination,
Halliday transports us back through
deep time, from the relatively
recent – tens of thousands of years
ago – to when complex life first
emerged in the Ediacaran period
hundreds of millions of years ago.
Each chapter spans a geological
time period, focusing on a specific
part of the world that stands out
either for the quality of the fossil
evidence or a notable event.
Halliday is careful to not only give
attention to charismatic animals like
dinosaurs and woolly mammoths,
but also to plants, land masses and
oceans, using the latest research
to back up his conclusions.
In one chapter, we discover that
giant penguins flourished in the
then-rainforests of Antarctica
during the Eocene. In another,
how Jurassic seas in what is now
Germany contained vast tropical
reefs built by glass sponges that
looked like “frozen lace”, as marine
pterosaurs soared in the skies
overhead. We also see how, during
the Devonian period, Scotland was
home to metres-high fungi that
would have resembled “half-melted
grey snowmen”.
As well as painting an intricate
picture of the worlds that once
existed, Halliday also highlights
the fleeting existence of humanity.
Our ancestors make the briefest
splash onto the scene in the
Pliocene around 4 million years ago,
when early hominins appeared in
the fossil record in what is now
Kanapoi in Kenya.If Earth’s history were squeezed
into a single day, written human
history would make up the last
2 thousandths of a second, Halliday
points out. And yet “our species has
an influence unlike almost any other
biological force”. It is also far more
destructive than the prominent
natural disasters of the past.
Here, the book carries a clear
message: that we must do
something about the urgent climate
situation we find ourselves in and
the coming human-induced mass
extinction. This, he argues, warrants
a meticulous look back through
Earth’s palaeontological record to
understand how things might turn
out in the future, and how we might
take control of them.
This message is, by now, one
we are used to hearing. For me, the
most distinctive feature of the book
is the way that Halliday chooses to
describe the past. He encourages
us to treat his writings like “a
naturalist’s travel book, albeit
one of lands distant in time rather
than space”. This provides a sense
of adventure and exploration
where we see “short willows write
wordless calligraphy in the wind”
20,000 years ago, or walk across
“centuries-old mattresses of conifer
needles” 41 million years ago.
It is refreshing to come across
a book on palaeontology and
geology that doesn’t just state
what we know and why. Instead,
Halliday uses scientific information
to provide insights into worlds
long gone. He is appropriately
lavish in his depiction of the
variety and resilience of life,
without compromising on
scientific accuracy.
To read Otherlands is to marvel
not only at these unfamiliar lands
and creatures, but also that we
have the science to bring them
to life in such vivid detail. ❚Gege Li is a writer based in LondonAn artist’s impression of how
Earth’s first multicellular animals
looked on the sea floor
MARK
GARL
ICK/SCIENCE
PHOT
O^ LIBRAR
YDon’t miss
Read
The Weaponisation
of Everything explores
how old-style warfare
has been replaced
by disinformation,
espionage, crime and
subversion. According
to security expert Mark
Galeotti, this may turn
out to be a good thing.Watch
The Orbital Children
is a dizzying sci-fi anime
series set in a future
where AI has given
people the freedom
to travel through space.
When a group of
children get stranded
on a space station they
must fight to survive. On
Netflix from 28 January.Visit
I Am Error at the De
La Warr Pavilion in
Bexhill-on-Sea, UK, sees
artist Bassam Al-Sabah
weave together video,
painting and sculpture to
explore how masculinity
is represented in
computer games.
From 30 January.
BASS
AMAL- SA
BA
H,^
I^ AMERROR,^2021.^
VIDEOHD,^28M
IN.^FILM^ STILL.^ COMMI
SS
IONED
BYGASWORKS
;^ N
ET
FL
IX^