E book Earth Over 4 Billion Years in the Making Hardcover January 16, 2024 by Chris Packham Andrew Cohen
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- 452
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- 9.52 MB
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- Digital PDF
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- General Science
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- eBook[PDF]
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About this ebook
The Earth: Over 4 Billion Years in the Making by Chris Packham and Andrew Cohen serves as the official companion book to the landmark 5-part BBC television series Earth. The book provides a sweeping, deep-history "biography" of our planet. Rather than taking a human-centric approach, it places the planet itself as the central character.
The primary topics and themes covered in the book include:
🌍 Planetary Origins & Early Chaos
- The First Seconds of Existence: The cosmic formation of Earth from the dust, ice, and debris orbiting the early Sun.
- Massive Bombardments from Space: Exploring the volatile early eons (such as the Hadean and the Late Heavy Bombardment) where asteroid and meteorite impacts repeatedly reshaped the planet.
- The Formation of the Atmosphere and Oceans: How volcanic eruptions, intense degassing, and early cooling triggered million-year storms that filled the first primordial oceans.
🌋 Geology & Dynamic Planetary Forces
- Plate Tectonics: The mechanics behind the shifting crust, the birth of the carbon cycle, and how the continuous movement of landmasses stabilized global temperatures.
- The Collision and Tearing Apart of Continents: The cyclical assembly and breakup of ancient supercontinents, such as Pangaea.
❄️ Extreme Climate Shifts
- Extreme Changes in Climate: The planetary oscillations between intense greenhouse phases and catastrophic global freezes.
- Snowball Earth: Examining periods where the entire planet's future hung in the balance, entirely encased or nearly encased in ice.
🦠 The Emergence & Evolution of Life
- The Spark of Biological Life: The transition from simple single-celled marine microorganisms to complex life.
- The Great Oxidation Event: How early biological innovations like photosynthesis pumped massive amounts of oxygen into the sky, fundamentally changing the world's chemistry.
- Mass Extinction Events: Detailed explorations of the five previous cataclysmic mass extinctions—such as the asteroid impact 66 million years ago that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs—and how life bounced back each time.
🧠 The Anthropocene & The Future
- The Arrival of Humans and Intelligence: The relatively recent evolutionary emergence of Homo sapiens as the climate cooled.
- Anthropogenic Impact: How human civilization, farming, and the burning of fossil fuels are driving the current "sixth mass extinction" through modern climate change.
- The Lasting Legacy: The perspective that life and human intelligence will ultimately leave a footprint on the planet's history just as profound as any meteorite impact or massive earthquake.
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