Earth in one hundred groundbreaking discoveries History of earth in 100 groundbreaking discoveries History of earth in one hundred groundbreaking discoveries
Notes:
Includes index
Contents:
Introduction Birth of a planet Earth's oldest materials Geological dating The oldest rocks The early atmosphere The evolving hydrosphere Layered earth Probing earth's interior Tectonic earth The molten core "D double-prime" Exploring the mantle The base of the crust Oceanic crust Long-lived continents Earth's continental rocks Continental rifting Making mountains Tectonic uplift Glacial puzzles Earthquakes and plate tectonics What makes faults slip? A case study in volcanism Island arc volcanoes Hot spot volcanoes Earth's greatest eruptions First fossils? LUCA Controversial origins Rising oxygen levels From simple to complex life Rodinia Snowball earth The phosphorus effect Gondwana and Pangea Mysterious ediacarans The first animals Secrets of the sponge genome The Doushantuo embryos Life in the Cambrian seas Soft bodies from the Ordovician Avalonia Ordovician boom and bust Living on the land Oxygen booms and growth spurts Four feet on the ground The fossils of East Kirkton Joggins fossil cliffs Coal forests and glaciation Early Permian life The great dying Triassic survivors Rise of the dinosaurs Late Triassic life Life in Triassic seas Mongolian mammals Africa's giant dinosaurs Australia's polar dinosaurs India's journey north Evolution of flowering plants Sauropod puzzles Linking birds and dinosaurs Dinosaur eggs and babies The end of the Mesozoic The Cenozoic recovery Primate beginnings PETM-the great warming The great rift valley Changing climates of the past The australopithecine clan The real "great flood" The Quaternary ice age Genus homo The first art Neanderthal mysteries Unexpected cousins The younger Dryas Megafloods The Holocene rebound Domestication of plants and animals Disappearing megafauna Biodiversity Extremophiles The census of marine life Human overkill The carbon dioxide record Climate change and mountain erosion Changing sea levels Habitats on the move Danger from the soil? Freshwater challenges Does coal have a future? Atmospheric pollution Ocean hypnoxia Energy futures The Athabasca tar sands Threat from the skies Future sea levels Future tectonics The fate of the earth Glossary and timeline
