After the discovery that elements were commonly composed of isotopes, there developed a range of studies of the variability of isotopic compositions in Earth materials, which was able to add to our understanding of Earth processes and history.

This collection of chapters from the Treatise on Geochemistry describes the range of isotopic studies. The chapters are grouped into the following categories: light stable isotopes, radiogenic tracers, noble gases and radioactive tracers. The first three groups depend on mass spectrometric measurements. The section on radioactive tracers employs both radioactive counting techniques and the newly developed accelerator mass spectrometric techniques.

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"Readingsfrom the Treatise onGeochemistry" offers an interdisciplinary reference for scientists, researchers and upper undergraduate and graduate levelgeochemistry students that ismore affordable than the full Treatise. For professionals, this volume will provide anoverview of the field as a whole. For students, it will provide morein-depth introductory content thanis found inbroad-based geochemistry textbooks. Articleswere selected from chapters across all volumes of the full Treatise, and include: The Origin and Earliest History of the Earth, Compositional Evolution of the Mantle, Evolution of Sedimentary Rocks, Soil Formation, Geochemistry of Groundwater, Geologic History of Seawater, Hydrothermal Processes, and Biogeochemistry of Primary Production in the Sea.
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Geochemistry of Earth Surface Systemsoffers an interdisciplinary reference for scientists, researchers and upper undergraduate and graduate levelgeochemistry students a sampling of articles on earth surface processes from The Treatise on Geochemistry that ismore affordable than the full Treatise. For professionals, this volume will provide anoverview of the field as a whole. For students, it will provide morein-depth introductory content thanis found inbroad-based geochemistry textbooks. Articleswere selected from chapters across all volumes of the full Treatise, and include: Volcanic Degassing, Hydrothermal Processes, The Contemporary Carbon Cycle, Global Occurrence of Major Elements in Rivers, Organic Matter in the Contemporary Ocean, The Biological Pump, and Evolution of Sedimentary Rocks.
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The history of Earth in the Solar System has been unraveled using natural radioactivity. The sources of this radioactivity are the original creation of the elements and the subsequent bombardment of objects, including Earth, in the Solar System by cosmic rays. Both radioactive and radiogenic nuclides are harnessed to arrive at ages of various events and processes on Earth.

This collection of chapters from the Treatise on Geochemistry displays the range of radioactive geochronometric studies that have been addressed by researchers in various fields of Earth science. These range from the age of Earth and the Solar System to the dating of the history of Earth that assists us in defining the major events in Earth history. In addition, the use of radioactive geochronometry in describing rates of Earth surface processes, including the climate history recorded in ocean sediments and the patterns of circulation of the fluid Earth, has extended the range of utility of radioactive isotopes as chronometric and tracer tools.
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In this first full-scale attempt to reconstruct the chemical evolution of the Earth's atmosphere and oceans, Heinrich Holland assembles data from a wide spectrum of fields to trace the history of the ocean-atmosphere system. A pioneer in an increasingly important area of scholarship, he presents a comprehensive treatment of knowledge on this subject, provides an extensive bibliography, and outlines problems and approaches for further research.

The first four chapters deal with the turbulent first half billion years of Earth history. The next four chapters, devoted largely to the Earth from 3.9 to 0.6 b.y.b.p., demonstrate that changes in the atmosphere and oceans during this period were not dramatic. The last chapter of the book deals with the Phanerozoic Eon; although the isotopic composition of sulfur and strontium in seawater varied greatly during this period of Earth history, the chemical composition of seawater did not.