The Story of Earth

Earth evolves From first atom to molecule, mineral to magma, granite crust to single cell to verdant living landscape, ours is a planet constantly in flux In this radical new approach to Earth s biography, senior Carnegie Institution researcher and national bestselling author Robert M Hazen reveals how the co evolution of the geosphere and biosphere of rocks and living matter has shaped our planet into the only one of its kind in the Solar System, if not the entire cosmos.With an astrobiologist s imagination, a historian s perspective, and a naturalist s passion for the ground beneath our feet, Hazen explains how changes on an atomic level translate into dramatic shifts in Earth s makeup over its 4.567 billion year existence He calls upon a flurry of recent discoveries to portray our planet s many iterations in vivid detail from its fast rotating infancy when the Sun rose every five hours and the Moon filled 250 times sky than it does now, to its sea bathed youth before the first continents arose from the Great Oxidation Event that turned the land red, to the globe altering volcanism that may have been the true killer of the dinosaurs Through Hazen s theory of co evolution, we learn how reactions between organic molecules and rock crystals may have generated Earth s first organisms, which in turn are responsible for than two thirds of the mineral varieties on the planet thousands of different kinds of crystals that could not exist in a nonliving world The Story of Earth is also the story of the pioneering men and women behind the sciences Readers will meet black market meteorite hawkers of the Sahara Desert, the gun toting Feds who guarded the Apollo missions lunar dust, and the World War II Navy officer whose super pressurized bomb recycled from military hardware first simulated the molten rock of Earth s mantle As a mentor to a new generation of scientists, Hazen introduces the intrepid young explorers whose dispatches from Earth s harshest landscapes will revolutionize geology.Celebrated by the New York Times for writing with wonderful clarity about science that effortlessly teaches as it zips along, Hazen proves a brilliant and entertaining guide on this grand tour of our planet inside and out Lucid, controversial, and intellectually bracing, The Story of Earth is popular science of the highest order. Download The Story of Earth – kino-fada.fr It is time for my sorta yearly scientifical audiobook Last year, kinda around this time, I was listening to A Universe from Nothing Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing, which was good but quite a ways over my head technically This time, I shifted the focus a bit closer to home and just focused on Earth, rather than the whole of universal existence Listen to me ta...I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Earth history, or Earth s future My background I m a 2nd year master s student in geochemistry I ve been taking geology classes for 5 years and I ve never had the story of Earth explained in such a captivating way I m the type of person who doesn t claim to know a subject unless I could describe its processes from the ground up, without using much jargon That s all you get in Hazen s book My reading pace and enthusiasm decelerated I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Earth history, or Earth s future My background I m a 2nd year master s student in geochemistry I ve been taking geology classes for 5 years and I ve never had the story of Earth explained in such a captivating way I m the type of person who doesn t claim to know a subject unless I could describe its processes from the ground up, without using much jargon That s all you get in Hazen s book My reading pace and e...Hazen views earth s 4.5 billion year history through his unique lens as a mineralogist He explains how the earth was built from cosmic dust and transformed into continents, oceans, atmosphere, and life We find out why earth was primed for life and the many ways it could have started We learn how minerals and living organisms evolved together shaping the future of each other This very readable book is packed with fascinating insights Following are my notes.Hazen puts time in perspective If Hazen views earth s 4.5 billion year history through his unique lens as a mineralogist He explains how the earth was built from cosmic dust and transformed into continents, oceans, atmosphere, and life We find out why earth was primed for life and the many ways it could have started We learn how minerals and living organisms evolved together shaping the future of each other This very readable book is packed with fascinating insights Following are my notes.Hazen puts time in perspective If on a walk every step equaled 100 years after a mile you would have travelled back 175,000 years, about the time anatomically modern humans first appeared If you made it twenty miles that day, you would have travelled three million years into the past At 100 years per step and twenty mil...Well constructed review of consensus earth science by one practicing in the field Embarrassingly I was halfway through The Story of Earth before recalling that I had only recently read Hazen s Genesis The Scientific Quest for Life s Origins, a volume covering recent experimental science in origins of life research, including, or rather emphasizing, Hazen s own While in The Story of Earth Hazen largely resists the technical though, appropriately for a practitioner, he can t resist it a Well constructed review of consensus earth science by one practicing in the field Embarrassingly I was halfway through The Story of Earth before recalling that I had only recently read Hazen s Genesis The Scientific Quest for Life s Origins, a volume covering recent experimental science in origins of life research, including, or rather emphasizing, Hazen s own While in The Story of Earth Hazen largely resists the technical though, appropriately for a practitioner, he can t...I never liked geology in school Learning about rocks and how they formed was a series of exercises in memorization It s hard to say what made me pick this book up at the library Whatever the reason, I m glad I did Hazen has a way of making a topic I had always found dreadfully boring fascinating, interesting and exciting My layman s description is the book covers a bit of astronomy, geology, oceanography, meteorology, physics, biology, and even a little history Not too much of any one, usu I never liked geology in school Learning about rocks and how they formed was a series of exercises in memorization It s hard to say what made me pick this book up at the library...A very good book on the evolution of our universe, solar system and Earth Hazen chronologically walks the reader through 4.5 billion years of our earth s history, explaining the conditions at each stage of our planet s existence.One aspect of this book that was very appealing to me was his frequent references to current work being done by scientists who are searching for answers to geological questions still unknown His own theory, which he calls Mineral Evolution , explains how minerals an A very good book on the evolution of our universe, solar system and Earth Hazen chronologically walks the reader th...From the creation of the universe to the eventual destruction of the planet, Hazen, emphasizing the relationship between geology and biology, sets out the entire history and future of the Earth There are some boring bits For example, in writing about the billion years generally considered the most boring in Earth s history the boring billion he tries to sell the reader on the idea that these years were actually quite exciting and fails But for the most part he succeeds in making all th From the creation of the universe to the eventual destruction of the planet, Hazen, emphasizing the relationship between geology and biology, sets out the entire history and future of the Earth There are some boring bits F...It s difficult to rate a book like this It s not exactly a book one can disagree with, at least anyone who is not at worst an amateur geologist or other earth scientist I enjoyed that is to say I was interested in the concepts of a living Earth and a geo system that is actively and intimately involved in evolution of life Hazen had me pegged as one of the many people who assume that these systems are relatively independent I learned some things about plate tectonics that were new to me It s difficult to rate a book like this It s not exactly a book one can disagree with, at least anyone who is not at worst an amateur geologist or other earth scientist I enjoyed that is to say I was interested in the concepts of a living Earth and a geo system that is actively and intimately involved in evolution of life Hazen had me pegged as one of the many people who assume that these systems are relatively independent I learned some things about plate tectonics that were new to me The constantly moving inner Earth, something like a very slow lava lamp actually quite literally also drew my attention as did the physical descriptions of our beloved Earth at its various ages I simply wish I was able to grasp the entirety of his message but I do not think it is really possible in a single...I thought the book was well written I know of Darwinian theory, but I have never really heard how they think the non living earth evolved I wanted to hear the theories of how scientist think the big bang produced the 118 different elements and how they explain the formation of stars and planets from a singularity Throughout the book, occasiona...It s a fantastic treatise that argues that minerals and rocks are an intimate part of evolution Evolution is a fundamental process of the universe, not just in living organisms, but everywhere, at every level We don t perceive rocks in our notion ...

• English
• 27 November 2018
Robert M. Hazen
• Hardcover
• 320 pages
• 0670023558
• Robert M. Hazen
• The Story of Earth