Discover E: Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth’s Extinct Worlds

PRESENTER: DR. THOMAS HALLIDAY, PALEONTOLOGIST & EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGIST
Please join Dr. Caitlin Colleary, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History’s Assistant Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology, as she welcomes Dr. Thomas Halliday to discuss his debut book, Otherlands.
The past is past but it does leave clues, and Dr. Halliday has used cutting-edge science to decipher them more completely than ever before. In Otherlands, Halliday makes 16 fossil sites burst to life on the page.

This book is an exploration of the Earth as it used to exist, the changes that have occurred during its history, and the ways that life has found to adapt―or not. It takes us to the savannahs of Pliocene Kenya to watch a python chase a group of australopithecines into an acacia tree; to a cliff overlooking the salt pans of the empty basin of what will become the Mediterranean Sea, just as water from the Miocene Atlantic Ocean spills in; into the tropical forests of Eocene Antarctica; and under the shallow pools of Ediacaran Australia, where we glimpse the first microbial life.

Otherlands also offers us a vast perspective on the current state of the planet. The thought that something as vast as the Great Barrier Reef, for example, with all its vibrant diversity, might one day soon be gone sounds improbable. But the fossil record shows us that this sort of wholesale change is not only possible but has repeatedly happened throughout Earth’s history.

Even as he operates on this broad canvas, Halliday brings us up close to the intricate relationships that defined these lost worlds. In novelistic prose that belies the breadth of his research, he illustrates how ecosystems are formed; how species die out and are replaced; and how species migrate, adapt, and collaborate. It is a breathtaking achievement: a surprisingly emotional narrative about the persistence of life, the fragility of seemingly permanent ecosystems, and the scope of deep time, all of which have something to tell us about our current crisis.

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Copies of Otherlands are available for purchase through local bookstore Loganberry Books. All orders will include a bookplate signed by the author. Quantities are limited.

PRAISE FOR OTHERLANDS
“Immersive . . . bracingly ambitious . . . rewinds the story of life on Earth—from the mammoth steppe of the last Ice Age to the dawn of multicellular creatures over 500 million years ago.” —The Economist 

“Written with gusto and bravado . . . In a genre that can tend toward cookie-cutter sameness . . . Halliday has honed a unique voice. . . . Otherlands is a verbal feast. You feel like you are there on the Mammoth Steppe, some 20,000 years ago, as frigid winds blow off the glacial front.” —Steve Brusatte, Scientific American 

“Halliday’s brilliantly imaginative reconstructions, his deft marshalling of complex science, offers a thrilling experience of deep-time nature for pop-science buffs.” —Library Journal (starred review)

“Halliday takes an energizing spin through Earth’s past in his magnificent debut. . . . This show-stopping work deserves wide readership.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

About Thomas Halliday, Ph.D.

Dr. Thomas Halliday is a paleontologist and evolutionary biologist. He holds a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at the University of Birmingham, and is a scientific associate of the Natural History Museum. His research combines theoretical and real data to investigate long-term patterns in the fossil record, particularly in mammals. Dr. Halliday was the winner of the Linnean Society’s John C. Marsden Medal in 2016 and the Hugh Miller Writing Competition in 2018.