Book Description

*Best Books of 2014* New Zealand Listener Imagine a typical continent with seemingly endless land in all directions. There are broad valleys and uplands, wide-open vistas across undulating plains, and upstanding mountain ranges far in the distance. There may be prominent features that command attention and draw the eye, such as odd-shaped hills, peaks, pinnacles, mesas and volcanoes. And there may be canyons, valleys, gorges, large depressions and basins. Now imagine this same continent under the sea, and largely drowned. Welcome to Zealandia. Continents are some of Planet Earth's most striking geographic and geological features. To have a continental identity is to be important, significant, recognised. This book makes a compelling claim for Zealandia to take its place alongside Eurasia, Africa, North America, South America, Australia and Antarctica. Zealandia is a continent almost entirely submerged. With New Zealand as its largest inhabited land mass, it stretches north to incorporate New Caledonia, south beyond Auckland and Campbell islands, west beyond Australia's Lord Howe Island and east past the Chathams. Its ancestry reaches back more than half a billion years - a long, complex and dramatic story of growth, stretching, break-up, submergence, immersion and collision. The story of its cargo of plant and animal life is also one of change - of extinction, adaption and migration. A big book full of big ideas, and brought to you by renowned GNS scientists Hamish Campbell (co-author of In Search of Ancient New Zealand) and Nick Mortimer, Zealandia: Our Continent Revealed is in every respect a landmark publication - thought-provoking, visually stunning and eminently readable. 'I couldn't resist this superbly illustrated and persuasively written voyage through the distant past. It's fascinating stuff that will undoubtedly generate considerable debate.' - Christopher Moore, New Zealand Listener