GEMOC ARC National Key Centre

ATLAS joins BILLION-YEAR EARTH HISTORY OF AUSTRALIA AND NEIGHBOURS IN GONDWANALAND (BYEHA) Tectonic synthesis is an important thread linking all the Research Programs in GEMOC.  The publication of BYEHA in July 2000 presented a collation of the vast knowledge that John Veevers has accumulated in his career along with contributions from other GEMOC participants (Paul Morgan, Sue O'Reilly, Erwin Scheibner, Malcolm Walter, David Clark and Phil Schmidt).  In 2001, BYEHA was joined by an ATLAS of 80 colour pages.

P.R. Evans' review of the ATLAS in September 2001 THE AUSTRALIAN GEOLOGIST:

"Twelve months ago John Veevers and his colleagues published a cohesive theory and the underlying evidence for the evolution of the earth's crust during the last billion years under the title 'Billion-year earth history of Australia & neighbours in Gondwanaland' (BYEHA).  It was a peer-reviewed compilation of articles for researchers by researchers amounting to 388 pages and 379 figures.  Now, as sole author, John has published this 80 page version of the original with 92 illustrations culled from the original and enhanced with the clever application of selective colouring.  He describes it as a 'pictorial primer' and says, 'The atlas is aimed at those who want an affordable and up-to-date picture of Australia's tectonic and environmental heritage from the past billion years uncluttered by but's and if's or references'.  Linking the Atlas with 'companion primers' published by the Geological Survey of New South Wales and the Australian Geological Survey Organisation, John claims '...... the primers encompass much of the earth history needs of secondary students of the Earth & Environmental Sciences curriculum in NSW'.

The Atlas is divided into three main sections, leading from the general to the more specific, with the titles: I Global, II Gondwanaland, III Australia-wide......  In many ways the Atlas is a better, albeit abridged version of BYEHA.  The logic of its order of presentation is readily apparent and I am sure better suited to its target readership.  The text is essentially composed of paragraphs extracted from BYEHA that have been tightened into a more direct form.  The judicious application of a range of light colours and coloured patterns greatly enhances the diagrams......  To those who already own a copy of BYEHA, I thoroughly recommend the Atlas be acquired as a supplement.  For those wanting their knowledge of this truly remarkable story of the earth to be up-dated, I recommend buying the Atlas, but be prepared to later acquire the original.  The one is the lesser without the other."

The coloured maps and diagrams were designed for a wide range of readership - from practising geoscientists to secondary students, from interested lay persons to tertiary students.  Readers have found particularly attractive the double-page spread of 20 global reconstructions from the Cambrian to the present day, the 10 maps of Australia with paleolatitude, the 13 maps showing the pattern of seafloor spreading around Australia since the Jurassic, and the velocity of Australia and adjacent plates as measured by GPS and by calculation from the NUVEL-1A model.  Favourites in eastern Australia are the distribution of granite types and the 13 lithospheric cross-sections of the Tasman Fold Belt System.
 

The cover of BYEHA is the painting 'Nunngara' by Robert Juniper
 

The book can be purchased by contacting John Veevers