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

Cover
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