Breakthroughs in Geology by Geological research does not flow steadily onwards by means of small incremental advances but can be better understood as a series of significant discoveries or changes in interpretation that transformed the way we understand the Earth. Each of these changes or new ideas encouraged a burst of activity as researchers attempted to apply them more widely in order to test their universality, and thereby their validity as a scientific theory.
Earth's Surface and History by This subset explores the land masses and seas of the world. It describes mountain ranges, the oceans, continental movement, and a wide variety of features that have influenced life on earth. Detailed explorations of the evolution of dinosaurs, fish, birds, plant life and humans, as they were influenced by the earth's surface, fill this set. Fantastic disruptions, from Mount St. Helens to the ice ages are woven into the story of how the earth influences everything.
Earth Materials & Resources by An encyclopedic review of the material world in which we live and the uses to which those materials can be put. Everything from gold to hazardous waste is described and put in the context of humans’ life on earth. Water, soil, minerals, radioactive substances, oil and gas, and an array of substances present on earth and mined from it are described in depth. In every case, the science behind the use of the resource is examined in full.
Physics and Chemistry of the Earth by A detailed look at the dynamics of the earth’s mass and how its chemistry produces change. Its scope is broad. For instance, the set goes beyond the basics of climate change to explore many underlying factors surrounding the issue, including geothermometry and geobarometry, glacial events, and mass extinction theories. The set also explores earthquakes, their engineering, hazards, predictability, and the role of fault and mantle dynamics.
The Story of the Earth in 25 Rocks by Every rock is a tangible trace of the earth's past. This book tells the fascinating stories behind the discoveries that shook the foundations of geology. In twenty-five chapters--each about a particular rock, outcrop, or geologic phenomenon--Donald R. Prothero recounts the scientific detective work that shaped our understanding of geology.
Underland by In Underland, Robert Macfarlane delivers an epic exploration of the Earth's underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself. Traveling through the dizzying expanse of geologic time--from prehistoric art in Norwegian sea caves, to the blue depths of the Greenland ice cap, to a deep-sunk "hiding place" where nuclear waste will be stored for 100,000 years to come - Underland takes us on an extraordinary journey into our relationship with darkness, burial, and what lies beneath the surface of both place and mind. Global in its geography and written with great lyricism, Underland speaks powerfully to our present moment. At once ancient and urgent, this is a book that will change the way you see the world.
The World Is Moving Around Me by This moving and revelatory book is an eyewitness account of the quake and its aftermath. In a series of vignettes, Laferriere reveals the shock, rage, and grief experienced by those around him, the acts of heroism he witnessed, and his own sense of survivor guilt.
Nature's Clocks by In Nature's Clocks, Macdougall tells how scientists who were seeking to understand the past arrived at the ingenious techniques they now use to determine the age of objects and organisms. By examining radiocarbon (C-14) dating--the best known of these methods--and several other techniques that geologists use to decode the distant past, Macdougall unwraps the last century's advances, explaining how they reveal the age of our fossil ancestors such as "Lucy," the timing of the dinosaurs' extinction, and the precise ages of tiny mineral grains that date from the beginning of the earth's history.
The Universe Within by Just as the history of the earth is written in the rocks, so too is the universe's 14-billion-year history written in the human body. Starting at the smallest level, with our very molecular composition, Shubin explores the question of why we are the way we are, tracing the formation of the planets, the moon, and the globe of Earth through the development of the organs, cells, and genes that make up human life.
Island on Fire by Laki is Iceland's largest and potentially most dangerous volcano. Its eruption in 1783 is one of history's great untold natural disasters. Spewing out sun-blocking ash and then a poisonous fog for eight months, the effects of the eruption lingered across the world for years, causing the death of people as far away as the Nile and creating catastrophic conditions throughout Europe, including extreme weather and crop failures that may have triggered the French Revolution.
