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Volcanoes are some of the most dramatic expressions of the powerful
tectonic forces at work in the Earth beneath our feet. But
volcanism, a profoundly important feature of Earth, and indeed of
other planets and moons too, encompasses much more than just
volcanoes themselves. On a planetary scale, volcanism is an
indispensable heat release mechanism, which on Earth allows the
conditions for life. IIt releases gases into the atmosphere and
produces enormous volumes of rock, and spectacular landscapes -
landscapes which, during major eruptions, can be completely
reshaped in a matter of hours. Through geological time volcanism
has shaped both climate and biological evolution, and volcanoes can
affect human life, too, for both good and ill. Yet, even after much
study, some of the fundamental aspects of volcanicity remain
mysterious. This Very Short Introduction takes the readers into the
inferno of a racing pyroclastic current, and the heart of a moving
lava flow, as understood through the latest scientific research.
Exploring how volcanologists forensically decipher how volcanoes
work, Michael Branney and Jan Zalasiewicz explain what we do (and
don't) understood about the fundamental mechanisms of volcanism,
and consider how volcanoes interact with other physical processes
on the Earth, with life, and with human society. ABOUT THE SERIES:
The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press
contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These
pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new
subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis,
perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and
challenging topics highly readable.
Bringing together works from the past 20 years, this book
introduces readers to multidisciplinary Belgian artist Maarten
Vanden Eynde Belgian artist Maarten Vanden Eynde (b. 1977) has
established a research-based practice, which spans diverse social,
economic, environmental, and anthropological perspectives. His work
covers some of the most important subjects of our time from
extractionism, ecology, and colonialism to the after-effects of
colonialism. The book is built up as an alternative encyclopaedia
of the history of human kind, investigating our influence on planet
Earth. It proposes an industrial and post-industrial archaeology of
the future, mapping out a speculative "future-fiction" of our
evolutionary traces, and offers a survey of Vanden Eynde's work
from the past two decades, including Plastic Reef, a massive
sculpture made from plastic debris the artist has harvested from
all the world's oceans. Distributed for Mercatorfonds Exhibition
Schedule: Mu.ZEE, Kunstmuseum aan zee, Ostend.
Alone in the known universe the Earth glows bright with life, a
unique cosmic oasis of biodiversity which is now under threat from
our own actions. The Earth is a unique as a living planet, a cosmic
oasis drifting in the vastness of barren space. It is strikingly
and obviously different from our nearest heavenly neighbours, the
Moon, Venus and Mars, in its thin skin of biology, extending from
the surface for a few kilometres into the crust, and for a few tens
of kilometres into the air. But how did this remarkable abundance
and diversity of life arise? How has life survived over the
enormous time frame of Earth's history? And does it continue to
flourish now, especially with the growing pressure for space from
humans? The Cosmic Oasis examines life on Earth, from our earliest
interactions with animals and plants to our absolute domination of
biology. It follows our developing understanding of life's origins,
its remarkable complexity, and its interactions with the air,
oceans and land. It also shows how patterns of diversity across the
surface of the planet evolved, and how humans are now homogenising
these, degrading both biodiversity and the space in which life can
exist. Within this overall trend of loss there are some remarkable
examples of survival, from the beneficial relationships between the
gelada monkeys and wolves of the Ethiopian highlands, and the
people and brown howler monkeys of Porte Allegre in Brazil, to
interactions between you and your gut microbiome. Thoughout, the
authors ask what these interactions can teach us about building a
better relationship with nature, and consider how we might become
stewards, rather than destructive exploiters, of the life around
us.
Ranging across the 4.6 billion year history of the planet, geology
is the subject that encompasses almost all that we see around us,
in one way or another, and also much that we cannot see, beneath
our feet, and on other planets. The fruits of geology provide most
of the materials that give us shelter, and most of the energy that
drives our modern lives. Within the study of geology lie some of
the clues to the extraordinary impact our species is going to play
out on the planet, in centuries and millennia to come. In this Very
Short Introduction Jan Zalasiewicz gives a brief introduction to
the fascinating field of geology. Describing how the science
developed from its early beginnings, he looks at some of the key
discoveries that have transformed it, before delving into its
various subfields, such as sedimentology, tectonics, and
stratigraphy. Analysing the geological foundations of the Earth,
Zalasiewicz explains the interlocking studies of tectonics,
geophysics, and igneous and metamorphic petrology and geochemistry;
and describes how rocks are dated by radiometric dating.
Considering the role and importance of geology in the finding and
exploitation of resources (including fracking), he also discusses
its place in environmental issues, such as foundations for urban
structures and sites for landfill, and in tackling issues
associated with climate change. Zalasiewicz concludes by discussing
the exciting future and frontiers of the field, such as the
exploration of the geology of Mars. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very
Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains
hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized
books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly.
Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas,
and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly
readable.
The Anthropocene, a term launched into public debate by Nobel Prize
winner Paul Crutzen, has been used informally to describe the time
period during which human actions have had a drastic effect on the
Earth and its ecosystems. This book presents evidence for defining
the Anthropocene as a geological epoch, written by the high-profile
international team analysing its potential addition to the
geological time scale. The evidence ranges from chemical signals
arising from pollution, to landscape changes associated with
urbanisation, and biological changes associated with species
invasion and extinctions. Global environmental change is placed
within the context of planetary processes and deep geological time,
allowing the reader to appreciate the scale of human-driven change
and compare the global transition taking place today with major
transitions in Earth history. This is an authoritative review of
the Anthropocene for graduate students and academic researchers
across scientific, social science and humanities disciplines.
This is the story of a single pebble. It is just a normal pebble,
as you might pick up on holiday - on a beach in Wales, say. Its
history, though, carries us into abyssal depths of time, and across
the farthest reaches of space. This is a narrative of the Earth's
long and dramatic history, as gleaned from a single pebble. It
begins as the pebble-particles form amid unimaginable violence in
distal realms of the Universe, in the Big Bang and in supernova
explosions and continues amid the construction of the Solar System.
Jan Zalasiewicz shows the almost incredible complexity present in
such a small and apparently mundane object. Many events in the
Earth's ancient past can be deciphered from a pebble: volcanic
eruptions; the lives and deaths of extinct animals and plants; the
alien nature of long-vanished oceans; and transformations deep
underground, including the creations of fool's gold and of oil.
Zalasiewicz demonstrates how geologists reach deep into the Earth's
past by forensic analysis of even the tiniest amounts of mineral
matter. Many stories are crammed into each and every pebble around
us. It may be small, and ordinary, this pebble - but it is also an
eloquent part of our Earth's extraordinary, never-ending story.
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The Epochs of Nature (Hardcover)
Georges-Louis Leclerc; Edited by Jan Zalasiewicz, Anne-Sophie Milon, Mateusz Zalasiewicz
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R1,177
Discovery Miles 11 770
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Georges-Louis Leclerc, le comte de Buffon's The Epochs of Nature,
originally published as Les Epoques de la Nature in 1778, is one of
the first great popular science books, a work of style and insight
that was devoured by Catherine the Great of Russia and influenced
Humboldt, Darwin, Lyell, Vernadsky, and many other renowned
scientists. It is the first geological history of the world,
stretching from the Earth's origins to its foreseen end, and though
Buffon was limited by the scientific knowledge of his era--the
substance of the Earth was not, as he asserts, dragged out of the
sun by a giant comet, nor is the sun's heat generated by tidal
forces--many of his deductions appear today as startling insights.
And yet, The Epochs of Nature has never before been available in
its entirety in English--until now. In seven epochs, Buffon reveals
the main features of an evolving Earth, from its hard rock
substrate to the sedimentary layers on top, from the minerals and
fossils found within these layers to volcanoes, earthquakes, and
rises and falls in sea level--and he even touches on age-old
mysteries like why the sun shines. In one of many moments of
striking scientific prescience, Buffon details evidence for species
extinction a generation before Cuvier's more famous assertion of
the phenomenon. His seventh and final epoch does nothing less than
offer the first geological glimpse of the idea that humans are
altering the very foundations of the Earth--an idea of remarkable
resonance as we debate the designation of another epoch: the
Anthropocene. Also featuring Buffon's extensive "Notes
Justificatives," in which he offers further evidence to support his
assertions (and discusses vanished monstrous North American
beasts--what we know as mastodons--as well as the potential
existence of human giants), plus an enlightening introduction by
editor and translator Jan Zalasiewicz and historians of science
Sverker Soerlin, Libby Robin, and Jacques Grinevald, this
extraordinary new translation revives Buffon's quite literally
groundbreaking work for a new age.
Over half a billion years ago life on earth took an incredible step
in evolution, when animals learned to build skeletons. Using many
different materials, from calcium carbonate and phosphate, and even
silica, to make shell and bone, they started creating the support
structures that are now critical to most living forms, providing
rigidity and strength. Manifesting in a vast variety of forms, they
provided the framework for sophisticated networks of life that
fashioned the evolution of Earth's oceans, land, and atmosphere.
Within a few tens of millions of years, all of the major types of
skeleton had appeared. Skeletons enabled an unprecedented array of
bodies to evolve, from the tiniest seed shrimp to the gigantic
dinosaurs and blue whales. The earliest bacterial colonies
constructed large rigid structures - stromatolites - built up by
trapping layers of sediment, while the mega-skeleton that is the
Great Barrier Reef is big enough to be visible from space. The
skeletons of millions of coccolithophores that lived in the shallow
seas of the Mesozoic built the white cliffs of Dover. These, and
insects, put their scaffolding on the outside, as an exoskeleton,
while vertebrates have endoskeletons. Plants use tubes of dead
tissue for rigidity and transport of liquids - which in the case of
tall trees need to be strong enough to extend 100 m or more from
the ground. Others simply stitch together a coating from mineral
grains on the seabed. In Skeletons, Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark
Williams explore the incredible variety of the skeleton innovations
that have enabled life to expand into a wide range of niches and
lifestyles on the planet. Discussing the impact of climate change,
which puts the formation of some kinds of skeleton at risk, they
also consider future skeletons, including the possibility that we
might increasingly incorporate metal and plastic elements into our
own, as well as the possible materials for skeleton building on
other planets.
Climate change is a major topic of concern today, scientifically,
socially, and politically. It will undoubtedly continue to be so
for the foreseeable future, as predicted changes in global
temperatures, rainfall, and sea level take place, and as human
society adapts to these changes. In this remarkable new work, Jan
Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams demonstrate how the Earth's climate
has continuously altered over its 4.5 billion-year history. The
story can be read from clues preserved in the Earth's strata - the
evidence is abundant, though always incomplete, and also often
baffling, puzzling, infuriating, tantalizing, seemingly
contradictory. Geologists, though, are becoming ever more ingenious
at interrogating this evidence, and the story of the Earth's
climate is now being reconstructed in ever-greater detail - maybe
even providing us with clues to the future of contemporary climate
change. The history is dramatic and often abrupt. Changes in global
and regional climate range from bitterly cold to sweltering hot,
from arid to humid, and they have impacted hugely upon the planet's
evolving animal and plant communities, and upon its physical
landscapes of the Earth. And yet, through all of this, the Earth
has remained consistently habitable for life for over three billion
years - in stark contrast to its planetary neighbours. Not too hot,
not too cold; not too dry, not too wet, it is aptly known as 'the
Goldilocks planet'.
Oceans make up most of the surface of our blue planet. They may
form just a sliver on the outside of the Earth, but they are very
important, not only in hosting life, including the fish and other
animals on which many humans depend, but in terms of their role in
the Earth system, in regulating climate, and cycling nutrients. As
climate change, pollution, and over-exploitation by humans puts
this precious resource at risk, it is more important than ever that
we understand and appreciate the nature and history of oceans.
There is much we still do not know about the story of the Earth's
oceans, and we are only just beginning to find indications of
oceans on other planets. In this book, geologists Jan Zalasiewicz
and Mark Williams consider the deep history of oceans, how and when
they may have formed on the young Earth - topics of intense current
research - how they became salty, and how they evolved through
Earth history. We learn how oceans have formed and disappeared over
millions of years, how the sea nurtured life, and what may become
of our oceans in the future. We encounter some of the scientists
and adventurers whose efforts led to our present understanding of
oceans. And we look at clues to possible seas that may once have
covered parts of Mars and Venus, that may still exist, below the
surface, on moons such as Europa and Callisto, and the possibility
of watery planets in other star systems.
Rocks, more than anything else, underpin our lives. They make up
the solid structure of the Earth and of other rocky planets, and
are present at the cores of gas giant planets. We live on the rocky
surface of the planet, grow our food on weathered debris derived
from rocks, and we obtain nearly all of the raw materials with
which we found our civilization from rocks. From the Earth's crust
to building bricks, rocks contain our sense of planetary history,
and are a guide to our future. In this Very Short Introduction Jan
Zalasiewicz looks at the nature and variety of rocks, and the
processes by which they are formed. Starting from the origin of
rocks and their key role in the formation of the Earth, he
considers what we know about the deep rocks of the mantle and core,
and what rocks can tell us about the evolution of the Earth, and
looks at those found in outer space and on other planets. ABOUT THE
SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University
Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area.
These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new
subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis,
perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and
challenging topics highly readable.
Geologist Jan Zalasiewicz takes the reader on a fascinating trip
one hundred million years into the future--long after the human
race becomes extinct--to explore what will remain of our brief but
dramatic sojourn on Earth. He describes how geologists in the far
future might piece together the history of the planet, and slowly
decipher the history of humanity from the traces we will leave
impressed in the rock strata. What story will the rocks tell of us?
What kind of fossils will humans leave behind? What will happen to
cities, cars, and plastic cups? The trail leads finally to the
bones of the inhabitants of petrified cities that have slept deep
underground for many millions of years. As thought-provoking as it
is engaging, this book simultaneously explains the geological
mechanisms that shape our planet, from fossilization to plate
tectonics, illuminates the various ingenious ways in which
geologists and paleontologist work, and offers a final perspective
on humanity and its actions that may prove to be more objective
than any other.
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