Author : David C. Catling
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 595 pages
File Size : 10,4 MB
Release : 2017-04-13
Category : Science
ISBN : 0521844126
A comprehensive and authoritative text on the formation and evolution of planetary atmospheres, for graduate-level students and researchers.
Author : George H. Shaw
Publisher : Springer
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 39,56 MB
Release : 2015-10-16
Category : Science
ISBN : 9783319219714
This book provides a comprehensive treatment of the chemical nature of the Earth’s early surface environment and how that led to the origin of life. This includes a detailed discussion of the likely process by which life emerged using as much quantitative information as possible. The emergence of life and the prior surface conditions of the Earth have implications for the evolution of Earth’s surface environment over the following 2-2.5 billion years. The last part of the book discusses how these changes took place and the evidence from the geologic record that supports this particular version of early and evolving conditions.
Author : Michael I. Budyko
Publisher : Springer
Page : 156 pages
File Size : 49,83 MB
Release : 1987-03-16
Category : Nature
ISBN :
The authors of this book have studied the changes in the chemi cal composition of the atmosphere during geological history with regard to its close relationship to the evolution of the Earth's sedimentary shell. Beginning in 1977, the initial results of this study have been published as articles and parts of several monographs. Since new material clarifying atmospheric evolution have been obtained recently, the necessity has arisen to write a book treating the major results of investigations of the history of the atmosphere. In this book much consideration is given to the interrelation between the evolution of animate nature and changes in atmospheric composition. It proved be necessary to study the history of the two components of atmospheric air: carbon dioxide and oxygen. Attempts have been made to repre sent quantitatively the conclusions drawn here, i. e. to determine by calculation the changes in the amount of carbon dioxide and oxygen over much of the history of the atmosphere. These calculations, performed in most detail for the Phanerozoic and to a lesser degree for the Late Precambrian, are supplemented with estimates of changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere in the Early Precambrian. Comparisons have been drawn between the changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere and the development of animate nature, a close relationship being found to exist between the stages of the evolution of organisms and variations in the chemical composition of the atmosphere.
Author : Andrew H. Knoll
Publisher : HarperCollins
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 35,50 MB
Release : 2021-04-27
Category : Science
ISBN : 0062853937
Harvard’s acclaimed geologist “charts Earth’s history in accessible style” (AP) “A sublime chronicle of our planet." –Booklist, STARRED review How well do you know the ground beneath your feet? Odds are, where you’re standing was once cooking under a roiling sea of lava, crushed by a towering sheet of ice, rocked by a nearby meteor strike, or perhaps choked by poison gases, drowned beneath ocean, perched atop a mountain range, or roamed by fearsome monsters. Probably most or even all of the above. The story of our home planet and the organisms spread across its surface is far more spectacular than any Hollywood blockbuster, filled with enough plot twists to rival a bestselling thriller. But only recently have we begun to piece together the whole mystery into a coherent narrative. Drawing on his decades of field research and up-to-the-minute understanding of the latest science, renowned geologist Andrew H. Knoll delivers a rigorous yet accessible biography of Earth, charting our home planet's epic 4.6 billion-year story. Placing twenty first-century climate change in deep context, A Brief History of Earth is an indispensable look at where we’ve been and where we’re going. Features original illustrations depicting Earth history and nearly 50 figures (maps, tables, photographs, graphs).
Author : Robert M. Hazen
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 322 pages
File Size : 24,46 MB
Release : 2013-07-30
Category : Science
ISBN : 0143123645
Hailed by The New York Times for writing “with wonderful clarity about science . . . that effortlessly teaches as it zips along,” nationally bestselling author Robert M. Hazen offers a radical new approach to Earth history in this intertwined tale of the planet’s living and nonliving spheres. With an astrobiologist’s imagination, a historian’s perspective, and a naturalist’s eye, Hazen calls upon twenty-first-century discoveries that have revolutionized geology and enabled scientists to envision Earth’s many iterations in vivid detail—from the mile-high lava tides of its infancy to the early organisms responsible for more than two-thirds of the mineral varieties beneath our feet. Lucid, controversial, and on the cutting edge of its field, The Story of Earth is popular science of the highest order. "A sweeping rip-roaring yarn of immense scope, from the birth of the elements in the stars to meditations on the future habitability of our world." -Science "A fascinating story." -Bill McKibben
Author : Michael Allaby
Publisher : Infobase Publishing
Page : 257 pages
File Size : 10,4 MB
Release : 2009
Category : Atmosphere
ISBN : 0816060983
Presents a history of atmospheric studies, discussing such topics as the study of air, water, and gases throughout the ages, the classification of climates, the development of weather maps and forecasting, and the discovery and theory of the ice ages.
Author : J. Mayo Greenberg
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 429 pages
File Size : 47,99 MB
Release : 2012-12-06
Category : Science
ISBN : 9401119368
This volume contains the lectures presented at the second course of the International School of Space Chemistry held in Erice (Sicily) from October 20 - 30 1991 at the "E. Majorana Centre for Scientific Culture". The course was attended by 58 participants from 13 countries. The Chemistry of Life's Origins is well recognized as one of the most critical subjects of modem chemistry. Much progress has been made since the amazingly perceptive contributions by Oparin some 70 years ago when he first outlined a possible series of steps starting from simple molecules to basic building blocks and ultimate assembly into simple organisms capable of replicating, catalysis and evolution to higher organisms. The pioneering experiments of Stanley Miller demonstrated already forty years ago how easy it could have been to form the amino acids which are critical to living organisms. However we have since learned and are still learning a great deal more about the primitive conditions on earth which has led us to a rethinking of where and how the condition for prebiotic chemical processes occurred. We have also learned a great deal more about the molecular basis for life. For instance, the existence of DNA was just discovered forty years ago.
Author : Erik M. Conway
Publisher : JHU Press
Page : 416 pages
File Size : 49,91 MB
Release : 2008-12-08
Category : Science
ISBN : 1421401630
Honorable Mention, 2008 ASLI Choice Awards. Atmospheric Science Librarians International This book offers an informed and revealing account of NASA’s involvement in the scientific understanding of the Earth’s atmosphere. Since the nineteenth century, scientists have attempted to understand the complex processes of the Earth’s atmosphere and the weather created within it. This effort has evolved with the development of new technologies—from the first instrument-equipped weather balloons to multibillion-dollar meteorological satellite and planetary science programs. Erik M. Conway chronicles the history of atmospheric science at NASA, tracing the story from its beginnings in 1958, the International Geophysical Year, through to the present, focusing on NASA’s programs and research in meteorology, stratospheric ozone depletion, and planetary climates and global warming. But the story is not only a scientific one. NASA’s researchers operated within an often politically contentious environment. Although environmental issues garnered strong public and political support in the 1970s, the following decades saw increased opposition to environmentalism as a threat to free market capitalism. Atmospheric Science at NASA critically examines this politically controversial science, dissecting the often convoluted roles, motives, and relationships of the various institutional actors involved—among them NASA, congressional appropriation committees, government weather and climate bureaus, and the military.
Author : Donald E. Canfield
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 214 pages
File Size : 24,90 MB
Release : 2015-12-01
Category : Science
ISBN : 0691168369
The remarkable scientific story of how Earth became an oxygenated planet The air we breathe is twenty-one percent oxygen, an amount higher than on any other known world. While we may take our air for granted, Earth was not always an oxygenated planet. How did it become this way? Donald Canfield—one of the world's leading authorities on geochemistry, earth history, and the early oceans—covers this vast history, emphasizing its relationship to the evolution of life and the evolving chemistry of the Earth. Canfield guides readers through the various lines of scientific evidence, considers some of the wrong turns and dead ends along the way, and highlights the scientists and researchers who have made key discoveries in the field. Showing how Earth’s atmosphere developed over time, Oxygen takes readers on a remarkable journey through the history of the oxygenation of our planet.
Author : Hugh R. Rollinson
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 14,66 MB
Release : 2009-03-12
Category : Science
ISBN : 1444308947
Early Earth Systems provides a complete history of the Earth from its beginnings to the end of the Archaean. This journey through the Earth's early history begins with the Earth's origin, then examines the evolution of the mantle, the origin of the continental crust, the origin and evolution of the Earth's atmosphere and oceans, and ends with the origin of life. Looks at the evidence for the Earth's very early differentiation into core, mantle, crust, atmosphere and oceans and how this differentiation saw extreme interactions within the Earth system. Discusses Archaean Earth processes within the framework of the Earth System Science paradigm, providing a qualitative assessment of the principal reservoirs and fluxes in the early Earth. “The book would be perfect for a graduate-level or upper level undergraduate course on the early Earth. It will also serve as a great starting point for researchers in solid-Earth geochemistry who want to know more about the Earth’s early atmosphere and biosphere, and vice versa for low temperature geochemists who want to get a modern overview of the Earth’s interior.” Geological Magazine, 2008
