Earth as an Evolving Planetary System

New edition of a key reference covering the Earth’s history over the past 4 billion years with a specific focus on the role of plate tectonics

Kent C. Condie (Author)

9780128199145, Elsevier Science

Paperback, published 23 September 2021

406 pages, 290 illustrations (110 in full color)
27.6 x 21.6 x 2.6 cm, 1 kg

Earth as an Evolving Planetary System, Fourth Edition discusses key topics dealing with the evolution and interaction through time of Earth’s crust, mantle, core, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere. It addresses the questions of why Earth is unique among planets of the solar system, and how the various subsystems in the planet have interacted over 4.6 billion years in the habitable planet that we live on. This new edition includes over 100 new pages of material, data, and images and is a key reference for students and researchers in Earth and planetary sciences. Earth as an Evolving Planetary System, Fourth Edition includes new material that has become available since the third edition, including new sections on the Mid-lithosphere discontinuity, geoneutrinos, mantle oxidation, continental emergence, Earth cycles (new chapter) and recycling processes, the evolution of Earth from a stagnant lid to a plate tectonic regime, the controversy over how the continents have grown, when plate tectonics began, and exoplanets.

1. Earth as a Planetary System
2. The Crust
3. Tectonic Environments of Crust Formation
4. Orogens and Orogenic Crust
5. The Mantle
6. The Core
7. Crustal and Mantle Evolution
8. The Supercontinent Cycle
9. Atmosphere/Hydrosphere
10. The Biosphere
11. Comparative planetary evolution

Subject Areas: Space science [TTD], Astronomy, space & time [PG]