The Lost Ocean of the Himalaya: Fossils, Empire and Pilgrimage in the High Mountains

"Gibling’s work reminds us that the study of the Earth isn’t just about rocks, but about time both long and short. Looking back on his own long career as a scientist, all the while considering the millions of years of tectonic activity on which he stands, this book is a masterpiece of geology, human history, and religion. And within all that, lie the remarkable stories of prospectors and pilgrims, all seeking answers to their own places in a broader cosmology nestled within a Himalayan landscape that is simultaneously at the bottom of the sea and at the top of the world. A place where mountains and fossils are gods and their rivers feed the blood of the world. The Lost Ocean of the Himalaya isn’t another dusty academic book destined for an obscure library shelf. It’s an invitation for all of us to walk the unfathomable paths of time" - ** Dr. Holly Walters, Department of Anthropology, Wellesley College "This book is a fascinating web of thought-provoking strands woven together around a group of geologists on an expedition to the Himalayas in the 1990s. The scientific side of the story traces the evolution of European thoughts about fossils, from the world of Mary Anning’s Dorset coast in England to the limestones near the top of Mt Everest, through the life and death of the British Empire. Ideas about ancient waters have evolved from the biblical flood to the plate tectonic creation of the High Himalaya via the sea floor of the Southern Hemisphere. In this book the geologists are on a scientific pilgrimage to examine the ancient life and times of famous ammonite fossils. They share their geological “shrine” with the Buddhist and Hindu pilgrims who have been seeking for a thousand years exactly the same fossils, conceived by them in an entirely different cosmology and culture. Gibling reflects on our place in the mountains as the world becomes smaller; as well as a lost ocean, there are losses of wilderness and ancient cultures as new roads have crept ever further into the high valleys. And now global warming is increasingly sending devastating floods down those valleys. Which approach to the world is going to best facilitate our progress into the Anthropocene?” - Professor Dave Craw, Department of Geology, University of Otago, Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka