Earth Story: The Shaping of Our World

By describing the remarkable forces that formed and shaped our ever-changing world, Earth Story gives us a new understanding of the planet and our place within its evolution.

When and how was Earth formed? What is the link between earthquakes, volcanoes, and the creation of continents? How do mountains affect our climate? What triggers ice ages? Earth Story answers these and many other questions as it tells the amazing story of our planet and its constantly changing nature.

Two centuries ago, scientists began to investigate the history of Earth by examining the rocks beneath its surface and began to formulate the astonishing concept of geological time. Using this discovery as their starting point, Simon Lamb and David Sington unravel the fascinating history of Earth from its earliest beginnings to the dawn of human civilization, using full-color illustrations, stunning photography, and the latest scientific thinking.

"This book is a wonderful introduction to a new discipline, the geosciences, which integrates diverse fields to explain the intimate connections between fascinating and seemingly unrelated phenomena--the shapes of continents, earthquakes, the locations of mountains and volcanoes, weather and climate, and the evolution of life."--S. George Philander, Princeton University; author of Is the Temperature Rising?

Introduction 7

Chapter One: The Time Travelers 11

Chapter Two: The Deep 33

Chapter Three: Ring of Fire 63

Chapter Four: A Volcanic Imagination 91

Chapter Five: The Flow of the Continents 115

Chapter Six: The Ice Age 141

Chapter Seven: The Living Planet 173

Chapter Eight: A World Apart 207

Select Bibliography 234

References 234

Glossary 235

Acknowledgements 236

Picture Credits 236

Index 237