ABSTRACT
The history of the Earth is, of couse, about what happened here in the past and when. Chapters 2 and 3 described how the measuring and recording of what happened are done, but we need also to understand when, and how quickly, significant changes in the Earth’s environment did (and thus can) occur if we are to predict what may take place in the future. To recognise patterns of local and global change we need an accurate record of the order and speed of past events. Then we can try to deduce a progression of cause and effect between separate events.
