Dancing Elephants and Floating Continents - The Story of Canada Beneath Your Feet

Reviewed: August 8, 2005
By: John Wilson
Publisher: Key Porter Books
48 pages, $24.95

The world is not as solid as we would like to think. The Dancing Elephants of this book's title have been proving that for years. They are 25 ton trucks that are used to pound the earth with huge hammers and create vibrations for seismic recordings. Generally used by mineral exploration companies, they have also been used by Lithoprobe to take "snapshots of the world far beneath our feet."

Nine hundred scientists and nineteen years later, Lithoprobe has given us a lot of information about what's down there. Wilson has chosen to guide us through this by treating the timeline for all the events as a normal school day, moving backwards from the bell at the end of the day.

For instance, one second ago (or 1700 AD) there was a major earthquake off Vancouver Island that did damage similar to last December's Indian Ocean quake. Wilson says we're overdue for another one like that.

The Elephants have shown that the west coast of the country, right up into the Yukon, is made up of 21 different land masses that used to be islands. Over a period of tens of millions of years - the last eight minutes of our imaginary school day - they have been absorbed by the continent as it moved west.

Wilson does more than describe his subjects. There are lots of pictures and illustrations, as well as do-it-yourself geological movements to help bring the subject to life. In addition there is a page of website references for those who want to take things further.

While this book is published as children's nonfiction, and written for that age group, it's a good primer on the subject for anyone.

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