Earth evolves. From first atom to molecule, mineral to magma,
granite crust to single cell to verdant living landscape, ours is a
planet constantly in flux. In this radical new approach to Earth's
biography, senior Carnegie Institution researcher and national
bestselling author Robert M. Hazen reveals how the co-evolution of
the geosphere and biosphere--of rocks and living matter--has shaped
our planet into the only one of its kind in the Solar System, if
not the entire cosmos.
With an astrobiologist's imagination, a historian's perspective,
and a naturalist's passion for the ground beneath our feet, Hazen
explains how changes on an atomic level translate into dramatic
shifts in Earth's makeup over its 4.567 billion year existence. He
calls upon a flurry of recent discoveries to portray our planet's
many iterations in vivid detail--from its fast-rotating infancy
when the Sun rose every five hours and the Moon filled 250 times
more sky than it does now, to its sea-bathed youth before the first
continents arose; from the Great Oxidation Event that turned the
land red, to the globe-altering volcanism that may have been the
true killer of the dinosaurs. Through Hazen's theory of
"co-evolution," we learn how reactions between organic molecules
and rock crystals may have generated Earth's first organisms, which
in turn are responsible for more than two-thirds of the mineral
varieties on the planet--thousands of different kinds of crystals
that could not exist in a nonliving world.
"The Story of Earth" is also the story of the pioneering men and
women behind the sciences. Readers will meet black-market meteorite
hawkers of the Sahara Desert, the gun-toting Feds who guarded the
Apollo missions' lunar dust, and the World War II Navy officer
whose super-pressurized "bomb"--recycled from military
hardware--first simulated the molten rock of Earth's mantle. As a
mentor to a new generation of scientists, Hazen introduces the
intrepid young explorers whose dispatches from Earth's harshest
landscapes will revolutionize geology.
Celebrated by the New York Times for writing "with wonderful
clarity about science . . . that effortlessly teaches as it zips
along," Hazen proves a brilliant and entertaining guide on this
grand tour of our planet inside and out. Lucid, controversial, and
intellectually bracing, "The Story of Earth" is popular science of
the highest order.
General
Imprint: |
Penguin USA
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
April 2012 |
First published: |
April 2012 |
Authors: |
Robert M. Hazen
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 30mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover - Unsewn / adhesive bound / Paper over boards / With dust jacket
|
Pages: |
306 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-670-02355-4 |
Categories: |
Books >
Earth & environment >
Earth sciences >
General
|
LSN: |
0-670-02355-8 |
Barcode: |
9780670023554 |
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