Unearthing the Underworld: A Natural History of Rocks

'McNamara finds incredible worlds preserved in stones we tend to ignore as he explore's life's rocky roads.' - New Scientist

'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.' - Richard Fortey, author of The Earth: An Intimate History

Unearthing the Underworld is a history of the Earth as told through rocks - the secret-keepers of past environments, of changing climates and the pulse of life over billions of years. Even the most seemingly ordinary stone can tell us much about the history of this planet, opening vistas of ancient worlds of ice, raging floods, strange, unbreathable atmospheres and prehistoric worlds teeming with life.
Remarkably, many types of rock owe their existence to living organisms, from the remains of dead animals to rotting ancient forests, or even the activity of fungi, bacteria and viruses. Anything but dull and uninteresting, rocks are intriguing portals that illuminate the secret underworld upon which we live.