Overview

"An exploration of how the Cryogenian Period, when our planet was covered in ice for millions of years, created today's remarkable biodiversity More than half a billion years ago, our world was completely covered by glaciers, a ""Snowball Earth"" that persisted for millions of years. Incredibly, this unimaginable cold led to the remarkable diversification of life on earth known as the Cambrian explosion. With a geologist's eye and a knack for storytelling, Graham Shields explores when and how such inhospitable conditions enabled animals to evolve, radiate, and diversify into our earliest ancestors. This journey navigates the wild swings between hot and cold climates, oxygenation and asphyxiation, biological radiations and extinctions, asking how such instability relates to grander forces that brought our planet to its modern state. Shields guides listeners through evidence found in the Australian outback, Mongolia, Scotland, and other locales, revealing how geologists can trace glaciation, the atmosphere, oceans, mountain building, and more through the earth's rocks, providing a comprehensive theory of how life evolved and diversified."

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"Graham Shields is professor of geology at University College London. He lives in London, United Kingdom. Graham Mack is a multi-award-winning voice actor, producer, broadcaster, and programmer. It all started one day in 1991 when he was working as an an air-conditioning engineer in Sydney Australia. He came home from work and said to his wife, ""I've had the radio on in the van today; I reckon I could do that!"" Graham was born in Liverpool and grew up in Great Sankey near Warrington. His family emigrated to New Zealand when he was eighteen. His parents returned to Britain and left him in New Zealand when he was twenty-one. He worked as a pipe fitter on an oil refinery construction site, married a Kiwi (Julie), and studied heating ventilating and air-conditioning. After seven years in New Zealand, three married to Julie, Graham and Julie moved to Sydney, Australia, where he looked after air-conditioning plants in high-rise buildings. He studied commercial radio full-time at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School in Sydney and graduated top of the class of '93. After graduation in August that year, he started his first paid on-air radio job at 2PK, Parkes (in the Central West of New South Wales), doing afternoon drive. Then he did breakfast at 5SE in Mount Gambier, South Australia, then nights on 2GO on the NSW Central Coast. He moved back to the UK in 1997 to present the breakfast show on 2CR FM in Bournemouth, then Century North East, BRMB, Century East Midlands, and returned to 2CR FM as program director for three years (2004-2006). Then he spent four years on breakfast at TFM, three years doing an all-speech breakfast show on BBC Wiltshire, five years as the program director and breakfast show host at BOBfm in the home counties, and two years as the PD at Fix Radio in London. He has also presented radio shows on BBC London 94.9, BBC Radio Merseyside, BBC Coventry and Warwickshire, BBC Hereford and Worcester, BBC Radio Oxford, BBC Radio Shropshire, BBC Radio York, BBC Radio Derby, BBC Radio Kent, and 106 Jack FM. Graham has also done a lot of TV work, presenting commercials and corporate videos in Australia and in the UK. He was the subject of a five-part documentary called Changing Places for Carlton Television, appeared on Ready Steady Cook, Monkey Business on Animal Planet, and Big Brother and Big Brother's Little Brother with Russell Brand. He has also worked as a voice-over artist for many commercial clients, including radio and television companies in the UK, USA, and Australia, and has narrated many audiobooks."

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