A lyrical journey through four moments in Earth’s past and their lessons for our future.
The epic stories of our planet’s 4.54-billion-year history are written in strata—ages-old remnants of ancient seafloors, desert dunes, and riverbeds striping canyon walls and cliffsides all around us. These layers of rock help geologists piece together how our planet became the place we know and gather context for modern change. In Strata, Laura Poppick travels with leading Earth historians across the globe to show us how to decipher these primeval plotlines—tales of connection and evolutionary invention, of turmoil and balance restored.
Digging into four moments of global transformation that shaped Earth and made our lives possible—from the first accumulations of oxygen in the atmosphere to the deep freeze of “Snowball Earth,” the rise of mud on land, and the dinosaurs’ reign on a hothouse planet—we see how, even amidst environmental upheaval, the arc of geologic time bends toward stability. Beautifully grounding and laced with awe, Strata unveils the wisdom and hope for our times these rocks can hold.
"Strata, like its subject, is deep and richly layered with stories―of the planet, and of the people doggedly trying to decipher the tales locked within its rocks. It left me with a profound appreciation of our world, and the sheer amount of history upon which we stand."
― Ed Yong, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and author of An Immense World
"Like the earth itself, Strata is a work of many layers. It’s about the deep past, about how geologists work and think, about the great changes that have taken place in geological history and the ones that lie ahead. Laura Poppick is an elegant writer and an intrepid reporter."
― Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction
"In prose as graceful and clear as a mountain stream, Laura Poppick guides us on a journey through the stone palimpsest that is Earth’s crust, revealing the hidden histories upon which we walk every day. Poppick weaves scientific exposition with well-chosen anecdotes, portraits of contemporary scientists, field reporting, and strands of memoir and poetry, forming a tapestry as splendid as Earth’s richly layered skin. … An excellent choice for anyone who wants to better understand not only how our planet came to be the world we inhabit today, but also why we must continually relearn how best to interpret the vestiges of its unfathomably vast, bewilderingly complex, and endlessly fascinating past."
― Ferris Jabr, author of Becoming Earth
"Traipsing through ancient mud flows and across the frozen rind of early Earth, and imagining the origins of our atmosphere along with its searing hot future, Laura Poppick introduces us to a cast of characters working to peel back the layers of Earth history. Threads of memoir and poetry remind us that while the work of geology is timeless, it happens on personal timescales. In the tradition of our best natural history writers, Poppick understands the true gift of geology is the perspective of deep time, where we come to understand that not even stone is indelible. Strata offers a reminder that the things which connect us, and will outlast us all, are deeper still: the iron in our blood, the oxygen we breathe, and the stories we tell."
― Rebecca Boyle, author of Our Moon
"It is one thing for a book to transform your knowledge of the world, and another for its lyricism to shape how you perceive yourself in it, too. Reading Laura Poppick’s Strata felt like being gifted a pair of magic glasses through which I could not only revel anew in our planet’s geology, but understand myself―and our warming future―within it. As precise as it is poetic, Poppick’s voice is an invaluable guide."
― Erica Berry, author of Wolfish
"Laura Poppick takes readers deep into the minds of geologists working to interpret the sedimentary chronicles of four critical 'moments' in Earth's past. Revealing the logic used to decode the rock record―and the reasons geologists sometimes disagree about the details of the translation―Strata is an extraordinary book."
― Marcia Bjornerud, author of Turning to Stone: Discovering the Subtle Wisdom of Rocks
"Rock has never felt more alive, nor deep time more current, than in Laura Poppick’s absorbing, illuminating Strata. In the intrepid tradition of John McPhee and Elizabeth Kolbert, Poppick spelunks into our planet’s history to unearth the ancient dramas that sculpted our landscapes and ourselves. This book is an indispensable guide to the dynamic stories our planet writes in stone."
― Ben Goldfarb, award-winning author of Crossings and Eager
"In Laura Poppick’s wise and wonderfully observant Strata, Earth is not a static stage but an epic told in silt, sand, and microscopic fossils. A rare and exhilarating view of our ever-changing planet."
― Michelle Nijhuis, author of Beloved Beasts