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| Preface | |
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| How Has Earth Evolved? | |
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| The Birth of Planet Earth | |
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| From Meteorites to Earth | |
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| The Formation of the Moon | |
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| Early Earth Organizes Itself | |
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| The Emergence of an Atmosphere and an Ocean | |
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| Learning the Age of Earth | |
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| The Seeds of Doubt | |
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| The Emergence of the Revolutionary Concept of an Old Earth | |
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| Radioactivity and the Age of Earth | |
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| The Evolution of the Continents | |
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| Earth: The Only Planet with a Continental Crust | |
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| The Continents and Continental Crust | |
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| The First Continental Crust | |
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| The Assembly of the Continents | |
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| Life and Conditions on Early Earth | |
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| Ancient Microbes | |
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| Banded Iron Formations and Oxygenation of the Atmosphere and Ocean | |
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| A Warm Early Earth? | |
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| The Appearance of Animals and Explosion of Life in the Cambrian | |
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| Reading Rocks: The Story of the Grand Canyon | |
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| How Sedimentary Rocks Describe Ancient Environments | |
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| Evidence of Missing Rock | |
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| How Old Is the Grand Canyon? | |
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| Why Are There Ocean Basins, Continents, and Mountains? | |
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| Internal Earth | |
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| The Core | |
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| The Magnetic Field | |
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| Convection in the Core and Origin of the Geomagnetic Field | |
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| Earth's Internal Heat | |
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| The Mantle | |
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| Convection in the Mantle | |
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| Plate Tectonics | |
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| Continental Drift: An Idea Proposed Before Its Time | |
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| Wegener's Theory of Continental Drift | |
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| From Continental Drift to Plate Tectonics | |
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| Plate Boundaries: Where the Action Is | |
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| Plate Motions and Continental Reconstruction | |
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| Lavas from the Depths of Earth | |
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| Hawaii | |
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| Kilauea Volcano | |
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| Volcanoes of the Mid-Ocean Ridges | |
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| Great Lava Floods and the Columbia River Basalts | |
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| Great Explosive Volcanoes | |
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| The Nature of Explosive Volcanism | |
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| How Gases Drive Explosive Eruptions | |
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| Vesuvius: The Anatomy of an Explosive Eruption | |
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| Tambora: Volcanoes and Climate Change | |
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| Krakatau: An Explosion that Reverberated Around the World | |
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| Great Prehistoric Eruptions | |
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| Granite | |
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| Earthquakes | |
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| Why Do Earthquakes Occur? | |
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| How Earthquakes Are Measured | |
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| How Earthquakes Destroy | |
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| Fault Behavior and Calculating the Odds | |
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| Short-term Prediction | |
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| The San Andreas Fault Zone, California | |
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| The Great Alaska Earthquake | |
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| Mountains | |
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| The Shape of Earth and Why Mountains Are High | |
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| The Importance of Erosion | |
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| The Folding of Rocks | |
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| The Metamorphism of Rocks | |
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| The Alps | |
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| The Beginnings of Alpine Research | |
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| The Formation and Structure of the Alps | |
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| What Causes Earth's Climate and Climate Change? | |
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| The Atmosphere | |
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| The Structure of the Atmosphere | |
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| Global Atmospheric Circulation | |
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| Greenhouse Earth: The Troposphere Story | |
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| Ozone: The Stratosphere Story | |
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| The Importance of Clouds | |
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| The World Ocean | |
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| The Important Properties of Water | |
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| Why Is the Ocean Salty? | |
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| The Global Ocean Conveyor System | |
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| Ocean Surface Currents | |
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| Upwelling and Downwelling | |
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| El Nino and La Nina | |
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| The Geological Record of Climate Change | |
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| Climate Forcing Factors | |
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| The Climate Record in Greenland Ice | |
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| Some Other Indicators of Past Climate | |
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| The Ice Age | |
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| Why Is Earth Habitable? | |
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| Conditions for Life | |
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| Water: The Essential Ingredient | |
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| The Carbon Cycle | |
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| Earth, Venus, and Mars | |
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| Earth's Intangible Shields | |
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| Black Smokers from the Deep | |
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| How Hydrothermal Vent Fields Form | |
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| Life at Hydrothermal Vents | |
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| Did Life Originate in Deep-Sea Vents? | |
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| Heat and Water: What Goes In, and What Goes Out | |
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| Some Natural Resources and How They Form | |
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| What Salt, Gold, and Coal Have in Common | |
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| Ore Deposits from Hot Water | |
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| An Ancient Analogue of Black Smokers | |
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| Ore Deposits from Magmas | |
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| Notes | |
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| Glossary | |
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| Bibliography | |
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| Index | |