Unearthing the Underworld

Ken McNamara is an Emeritus Fellow of Downing College, University of Cambridge. He is the author of many books on palaeontology and evolution, including Dragons’ Teeth and Thunderstones: The Quest for the Meaning of Fossils (Reaktion, 2020).

"In Unearthing the Underworld, palaeontologist Ken McNamara finds incredible worlds preserved in stones we tend to ignore as he explores life's rocky roads." - New Scientist"Earth scientist Ken McNamara focuses on palaeontology and evolution. His appealing book about rocks and their lessons - illustrated with fine photographs of fossils - leaves aside igneous and metamorphic rocks, and the wonders of mineralogy. It concentrates instead on sedimentary rocks: mudstones, siltstones, sandstones and limestones, scattered over three-quarters of Earth’s surface in 'endless piles'. As he jokily advises: 'Ignore rocks at your peril'." - Andrew Robinson, Nature"What does McNamara’s Unearthing the Underworld add to an already busy bookshelf? The answer lies in the subtitle: A Natural History of Rocks. McNamara attempts to tell us, through rocks, about how life and Earth coevolved over the last four billion years or so . . . In summary, this is a brave attempt to write a popular book about the origin of sedimentary rocks and what they tell us about past and present life on Earth . . . If you are interested in life, landscape and the environment, it is a must-read. And the lavish colour illustrations help bring these lifeless rocks to life." - The Critic"Ken McNamara writes in his new book, Unearthing the Underworld: A Natural History of Rocks, that rocks are "the secret keepers of past environments." To this end, McNamara concentrates on the rocks that litter about three quarters of the Earth’s outer skin – sedimentary rocks . . . Earth’s early history is writ large in the stories encapsulated in cliffs, roadsides, seaside quarries, and wherever the underworld has reached the light, McNamara contends, likening rocks to "fascinating little books.”" - Milbry C. Polk, The Explorers Journal"An idiosyncratic and informative celebration of the rocks that underlie our human world, showing how they record the history of the planet and underpin the narrative of life, even though their role is too often unacknowledged. Engrossing field excursions into the wildernesses of Western Australia illuminate the stories McNamara has to tell; he explains the lithic histories embedded in everything from prehistoric monuments to the Stone of Scone. The dramas of the early history of life, extinction, evolution and climate change are all deciphered through the rock record. These wise and entertaining "sermons in stones" pay proper respect to the billions of years of earth history that lie beneath us everywhere." - Richard Fortey, author of The Earth: An Intimate History