Origins: From the Beginning of All Things

ISBN-10: 1780460856
ISBN-13: 9781780460857
Series: Origins
Pages: 352
Language: English
Published: 2018-03-22
Author: David Harper

Description

Our Universe is estimated to be some 14 billion years old and within it our Solar System is a mere 5 billion years old. Life has been evolving on our planet for over 3.8 billion years on a surface that is probably 4.6 billion years old. Earth's long journey through deep time has been punctuated with the most amazing events. When and how did life originate? When did the continents take shape and move across the Earth? When did life colonize the land? Why was the evolution of life nearly halted by five great extinction events? Written by experts, Origins charts the progress of earth and life history through these critical events and many more that formed the foundations for the rich diversity of our planet today. We now have a greater understanding, through advances in a range of scientific disciplines, of the key episodes that shaped our past and will continue to dominate our future. The origins of planetary and terrestrial earth-life systems provide an unrivalled narrative on who we are and from whence we came. It is a vivid journey through deep time from the origin of our universe to the crowded planet that we live on today. The contributors to Origins mine a very wide range of scientific disciplines, ranging from cell biology to astrophysics, encouraging a multidisciplinary dimension to education in the Natural Sciences. Origins is a book for all who wish to know more about how we became as we are. Chapters covered include: the origin of the Solar System; estimating the age of the Earth; early Earth and the origin of life; origin of the microbial world; the continents and the shaping of Earth; complex organisms; the Cambrian Explosion and origin of animal-based ecosystems; the Mesozoic arms race; the Five Great extinctions; the Anthropocene; and more. [Subject: Earth Science, Natural Sciences]