A History of the Earth

This book surveys both the history of the Earth and the nature of the processes that controlled its history. It integrates information from many fields to provide a comprehensive summary of an interdisciplinary topic. Fundamental processes such as convection, thermal evolution of the Earth, evolution of the crust, mantle, orogeny, and rifting are explained. Historical topics such as the origin of life, paleontologic extinction events, differences between the Archean and younger time periods, deposition of Precambrian sediments, and evolution of the atmosphere and oceans are discussed. The book then focuses on the development of modern ocean basins, the history of Phanerozoic orogenic belts, and the nature of cratonic sedimentary cover sequences. The book can be used as a reference to give an overview of earth history for readers in other research areas, and as a broad introduction to this vast subject for all interested in earth science.