Building Planet Earth: Five Billion Years of Earth History Book

Building Planet Earth superbly illustrates and describes the geology of Earth, how it formed, became structured and evolved into the planet as we know it today, with its present distribution of continents, oceans and dazzling diversity of life. This 4.6 billion year history of the third rock from the Sun is an extraordinary story and understanding its main geological processes has become more important for ensuring our future on this increasingly crowded planet. Designed for the general reader, Building Planet Earth explains these fundamental Earth processes--how the atmosphere interacts with the oceans to produce our changing climates; how the heat from the Earth's central core drives surface processes such as plate tectonics with its related earthquakes, fault movements, vulcanism; how mountains are formed and sediments deposited to form layers of strata with their economically important hydrocarbons that fuelled the industrial revolution; and, how life prospered and declined through evolution and extinction, sometimes being abruptly terminated by catastrophic events from outer space. The combination of good graphics, artwork and photographic illustration make this a visually attractive and accessible read, complete with short bibliography, glossary and index.--Douglas PalmerRead More