h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

...I'm sitting here writing this Journal Entry, wondering how on Earth I'm going to make it interesting.

I am in the middle of writing a book about the history of life on Earth, with twelve chapters, each corresponding to a geological period (starting with the Precambrian which, yes I know, is not strictly speaking a 'period'). Anyway I've got to the second last chapter (the Tertiary) and am currently researching what was going on in the Palaeocene epoch (the first of five epochs in that period). As you might expect, it largely concerns the radiation and diversification of the mammalian fauna, but it also considers the radiation of birds (particularly the giant predatory land birds like Diatryma) and the ongoing success of crocodiles.

To be honest, there is not a great deal to say about the Palaeocene, at least not in comparison with the action-packed Eocene epoch that followed it (global cooling, appearance of grasses, emergence of a great many bird orders, plus the appearance of whales, bats, elephants, horses, sirenians ... the list goes on).

I'm going to endeavour to avoid the horribly anthropocentric stance taken by most works of this kind. Therefore my last chapter, dealing with the Quaternary period, will be brutally short.