The Evolving Earth Illustrated Edition by Donald R. Prothero, ISBN-13: 978-0190605629

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

Brief Table of Contents

Contents

Preface

PART I: Deciphering The Earth

1 The Abyss of Time

1.1 Deep Time and Immense Space

1.2 “No Vestige of a Beginning”

1.3 The Scientific Method

2 Building Blocks: Minerals and Rocks

2.1 Atoms and Elements

2.2 Minerals and Rocks

2.3 Igneous Rocks

2.4 Sedimentary Rocks

2.5 Metamorphic Rocks

2.6 The Rock Cycle

3 It’s About Time!: Dating Rocks

3.1 How Old are the Universe and the Earth?

3.2 Steno’s Laws and Unconformities

3.3 Relative Dating and Geologic History

3.4 Numerical Dating

3.5 Conclusion

4 Stratigraphy

4.1 The Record in the Rocks

4.2 Sedimentary Environments and Facies

4.3 Transgression and Regression

4.4 Geologically Instantaneous Events

4.5 Biostratigraphy

4.6 Time, Time-Rock, and Rock Units

4.7 The Geologic Timescale

4.8 Conclusion

5 Plate Tectonics and Sedimentary Basins

5.1 The Way the Earth Works

5.2 Plate Tectonics

5.3 Sedimentary Basins and Plate Tectonics

5.4 Conclusion

6 Evolution

6.1 The Evolving Earth—And Evolving Life

6.2 The Evolution of Darwin

6.3 Darwin’s Evidence of Evolution

6.4 The Origin of Variation

6.5 On the Origin of Species

6.6 Darwinism and Neo-Darwinism

6.7 Challenges to Neo-Darwinism

6.8 Macroevolution and “Evo Devo”

6.9 Evolution Happens All the Time!

PART II: Earth and Life History

7 Birth of the Earth

7.1 Origins

7.2 The “Big Bang” and the Origin of the Universe

7.3 The Solar Nebula Hypothesis

7.4 The Earth Develops Layers

7.5 Moonstruck

7.6 Cooling Down: The Oceans Form

8 The Early Earth: The Precambrian

8.1 The Precambrian or Cryptozoic

8.2 The Hadean (4.56–4.0 Ga): Hell on Earth

8.3 The Archean (4.0–2.5 Ga): Alien World

8.4 Proterozoic Eon (2.5–0.5 Ga): Transition to the Modern World

8.5 The Snowball Earth

8.6 The Precambrian Atmosphere

9 The Origin and Early Evolution of Life

9.1 How Did Life Begin?

9.2 Polymers and Salad Dressing

9.3 Mud and Mosh Pits, Kitty Litter and Fool’s Gold

9.4 Planet of the Scum

9.5 The Cambrian “Explosion”—Or “Slow Fuse”?

9.6 Why Did Life Change so Slowly Before the Cambrian?

10 The Early Paleozoic: Cambrian–Ordovician

10.1 Transgressing Seas in a Greenhouse World

10.2 The Sauk Transgression (Latest Proterozoic–Early Ordovician)

10.3 The Tippecanoe Sequence (Middle Ordovician–Early Devonian)

10.4 The Mountains Rise: The Taconic Orogeny (Middle–Late Ordovician)

10.5 Early Paleozoic Life

11 The Middle Paleozoic: Silurian and Devonian

11.1 Reefs, Limestones, and Evaporites

11.2 The Kaskaskia Sequence

11.3 The Acadian Orogeny

11.4 Middle Paleozoic Life

11.5 Devonian Mass Extinctions

12 The Late Paleozoic: Carboniferous and Permian

12.1 The Late Paleozoic: A World of Change

12.2 Continental Collision and Mountain-Building

12.3 The Permian Supercontinent

12.4 Life in the Late Paleozoic

12.5 The “Great Dying”

13 The Mesozoic: Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous

13.1 The Age of Dinosaurs

13.2 Triassic: Beginning of the Breakup

13.3 Jurassic Tectonics

13.4 Cretaceous World: Greenhouse of the Dinosaurs

13.5 The Laramide Orogeny

13.6 Life in the Mesozoic Oceans

13.7 Life on the Mesozoic Landscape

13.8 The End of the Age of Dinosaurs

14 The Cenozoic: Paleogene and Neogene Periods

14.1 The Transition to Today

14.2 Breakup of Pangea

14.3 The Ring of Fire

14.4 The Hawaiian Hot Spot

14.5 North American Cenozoic Geology

14.6 Cenozoic Life and Climate

14.7 Cenozoic Land Life

15 The Cenozoic: The Pleistocene

15.1 The Ice Age Cometh

15.2 A World of Ice

15.3 What Caused the Ice Ages?

15.4 Life in the Ice Ages

15.5 Ice Age: The Meltdown

15.6 Where Have All the Mammals Gone?

16 Human Evolution

16.1 The Descent of Man

16.2 The Human Fossil Record

16.3 Miracles from Molecules

16.4 A Perspective

17 The Cenozoic: The Holocene—and the Future

17.1 The Holocene

17.2 Climate and Human History

17.3 The Anthropocene

17.4 The Future of Planet Earth

17.5 The Geological Perspective from Earth’s History

Appendix A: Biological Classification

BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION

THE CLASSIFICATION OF LIFE

Appendix B: SI and Customary Units and Their Conversions

Credits

Index