A History of the Earth from Stardust to Man PDF Download

Author: Hilda Finnemore
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Earth
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Author: Robert M. Hazen
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143123645
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Hailed by The New York Times for writing “with wonderful clarity about science . . . that effortlessly teaches as it zips along,” nationally bestselling author Robert M. Hazen offers a radical new approach to Earth history in this intertwined tale of the planet’s living and nonliving spheres. With an astrobiologist’s imagination, a historian’s perspective, and a naturalist’s eye, Hazen calls upon twenty-first-century discoveries that have revolutionized geology and enabled scientists to envision Earth’s many iterations in vivid detail—from the mile-high lava tides of its infancy to the early organisms responsible for more than two-thirds of the mineral varieties beneath our feet. Lucid, controversial, and on the cutting edge of its field, The Story of Earth is popular science of the highest order. "A sweeping rip-roaring yarn of immense scope, from the birth of the elements in the stars to meditations on the future habitability of our world." -Science "A fascinating story." -Bill McKibben

Author: Jacob Berkowitz
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1633888622
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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In 1957, as Americans obsessed over the launch of the Soviet Sputnik satellite, another less noticed space-based scientific revolution was taking off. That year, astrophysicists solved a centuries-old quest for the origins of the elements, from carbon to uranium. The answer they found wasn’t on Earth, but in the stars. Their research showed that we are literally stardust. The year also marked the first conference that considered the origin of life on Earth in an astrophysical context. It was the marriage of two of the seemingly strangest bedfellows—astronomy and biology—and a turning point that award-winning science author Jacob Berkowitz calls the Stardust Revolution. In this captivating story of an exciting, deeply personal, new scientific revolution, Berkowitz weaves together the latest research results to reveal a dramatically different view of the twinkling night sky—not as an alien frontier, but as our cosmic birthplace. Reporting from the frontlines of discovery, Berkowitz uniquely captures how stardust scientists are probing the universe’s physical structure, but rather its biological nature. Evolutionary theory is entering the space age. From the amazing discovery of cosmic clouds of life’s chemical building blocks to the dramatic quest for an alien Earth, Berkowitz expertly chronicles the most profound scientific search of our era: to know not just if we are alone, but how we are connected. Like opening a long-hidden box of old family letters and diaries, The Stardust Revolution offers us a new view of where we’ve come from and brings to light our journey from stardust to thinking beings.

Author: Renu Anand
Publisher: The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI)
ISBN: 8179935353
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 124

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For thousands of years, humans have probed and pondered over our planetary home. How was the Earth formed? How old is it? How did it become a living world? Today, because of our expanded knowledge and the wonders of technology, we know a lot more about Earth than our ancestors. We know that it is an evolving planet, undergoing never-ending changes, perhaps at a pace unequalled in its recent, or even remote, past. The Story of Planet Earth gives a detailed, yet interesting, account of a lot more aspects related to the creation of Earth – Earth’s origin in light of the Big Bang explosion, arrival of water on its surface, formation of its atmosphere, evolution of life forms from unicellular organisms to giants like dinosaurs, changes from its core to crust and its current state in terms of unsettling global changes, a majority of which find their roots in our greed and thoughtlessness. The book goes beyond time, into the future, to see what may be in store for our forthcoming generations, if we don’t care about this “home” of ours.

Author: Richard Fortey
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307761185
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 566

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By one of Britain's most gifted scientists: a magnificently daring and compulsively readable account of life on Earth (from the "big bang" to the advent of man), based entirely on the most original of all sources--the evidence of fossils. With excitement and driving intelligence, Richard Fortey guides us from the barren globe spinning in space, through the very earliest signs of life in the sulphurous hot springs and volcanic vents of the young planet, the appearance of cells, the slow creation of an atmosphere and the evolution of myriad forms of plants and animals that could then be sustained, including the magnificent era of the dinosaurs, and on to the last moment before the debut of Homo sapiens. Ranging across multiple scientific disciplines, explicating in wonderfully clear and refreshing prose their findings and arguments--about the origins of life, the causes of species extinctions and the first appearance of man--Fortey weaves this history out of the most delicate traceries left in rock, stone and earth. He also explains how, on each aspect of nature and life, scientists have reached the understanding we have today, who made the key discoveries, who their opponents were and why certain ideas won. Brimful of wit, fascinating personal experience and high scholarship, this book may well be our best introduction yet to the complex history of life on Earth. A Book-of-the-Month Club Main Selection With 32 pages of photographs

Author: Andrew H. Knoll
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062853937
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Harvard’s acclaimed geologist “charts Earth’s history in accessible style” (AP) “A sublime chronicle of our planet." –Booklist, STARRED review How well do you know the ground beneath your feet? Odds are, where you’re standing was once cooking under a roiling sea of lava, crushed by a towering sheet of ice, rocked by a nearby meteor strike, or perhaps choked by poison gases, drowned beneath ocean, perched atop a mountain range, or roamed by fearsome monsters. Probably most or even all of the above. The story of our home planet and the organisms spread across its surface is far more spectacular than any Hollywood blockbuster, filled with enough plot twists to rival a bestselling thriller. But only recently have we begun to piece together the whole mystery into a coherent narrative. Drawing on his decades of field research and up-to-the-minute understanding of the latest science, renowned geologist Andrew H. Knoll delivers a rigorous yet accessible biography of Earth, charting our home planet's epic 4.6 billion-year story. Placing twenty first-century climate change in deep context, A Brief History of Earth is an indispensable look at where we’ve been and where we’re going. Features original illustrations depicting Earth history and nearly 50 figures (maps, tables, photographs, graphs).

Author: Edmond Perrier
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Evolution
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Author: Yves Coppens
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing Inc.
ISBN: 1611455073
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Summary: 'In this book, three eminent scientists - Hubert Reeves, Joel De Rosnay and Yves Coppens have an open discussion about the origins of life on Earth"

Author: Natalie Starkey
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472944038
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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'Astonishing' - New Scientist Icy, rocky, sometimes dusty, always mysterious – comets and asteroids are among the Solar System's very oldest inhabitants, formed within a swirling cloud of gas and dust in the area of space that eventually hosted the Sun and its planets. Locked within each of these extra-terrestrial objects is the 4.6-billion-year wisdom of Solar System events, and by studying them at close quarters using spacecraft we can coerce them into revealing their closely-guarded secrets. This offers us the chance to answer some fundamental questions about our planet and its inhabitants. Exploring comets and asteroids also allows us to shape the story of Earth's future, enabling us to protect our precious planet from the threat of a catastrophic impact from space, and maybe to even recover valuable raw materials from them. This cosmic bounty could be as useful in space as it is on Earth, providing the necessary fuel and supplies for humans as they voyage into deep space to explore more distant locations within the Solar System. Catching Stardust tells the story of these enigmatic celestial objects, revealing how scientists are using them to help understand a crucial time in our history – the birth of the Solar System, and everything contained within it.

Author: Andrew H. Knoll
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691120294
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Knoll explores the deep history of life from its origins on a young planet to the incredible Cambrian explosion, with the very latest discoveries in paleontology integrated with emerging insights from molecular biology and earth system science. 100 illustrations.