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Author:   Harold L. Levin (Washington University, St. Louis) ,  David T. King, Jr. (Auburn University)
Publisher:   John Wiley & Sons Inc
Imprint:   John Wiley & Sons Inc
Edition:   11th Revised edition
Dimensions:   Width: 21.60cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 27.40cm
Weight:   1.225kg
ISBN:  

9781119228349

ISBN 10:   1119228344
Pages:   608
Publication Date:   21 June 2016
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Loose-leaf
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1 The Science of Historical Geology 3 Why Study Earth History? 4 Geology Lives in the Present and the Past 4 A Way to Solve Problems: The Scientific Method 5 Three Great Themes in Earth History 8 What Lies Ahead? 10 CHAPTER 2 Early Geologists Tackle History’s Mysteries 15 The Intrigue of Fossils 16 An Early Scientist Discovers Some Basic Rules 17 English and European Researchers Unravel the Succession of Strata 19 Neptunists and Plutonists Clash 20 An Eighteenth]Century Naturalist Recognizes that the Present is the Key to the Past 20 The Principle of Fossil Succession 22 The Great Uniformitarianism–Catastrophism Controversy 23 The Principle of Cross]Cutting Relationships 24 Evolution: How Organisms Change Through Time 26 Geological History—North America 27 CHAPTER 3 Time and Geology 33 Finding the Age of Rocks: Relative Versus Absolute Dating 34 A Scale of Geological Time 34 Absolute Geological Time: Clocks in the Rocks 39 Radioactivity Provides a Way to Date Rocks 40 What Occurs when Atoms Decay? 41 The Principal Radioactive Timekeepers 44 How Old is Earth? 48 CHAPTER 4 Rocks and Minerals: Documents That Record Earth’s History 53 Minerals as Evidence of Earth History 54 Minerals and Their Properties 54 Common Rock]Forming Minerals 56 Earth’s Three Families of Rock and How They Form 61 Igneous Rocks: From Magma to Stone 62 Sedimentary Rocks: Layered Pages of History 70 Metamorphic Rocks: Changed without Melting 76 CHAPTER 5 The Sedimentary Archives 85 Tectonic Setting is the Greatest Factor in Sediment Deposition 86 Environments where Deposition Occurs 87 What Rock Color Tells Us 93 What Rock Texture Tells Us 95 What Sedimentary Structures Tell Us 98 What Four Sandstone Types Reveal about Tectonic Setting 102 Limestones and How they Form 103 Organizing Strata to Solve Geological Problems 107 Sea]Level Change Means Great Environmental Change 110 Stratigraphy and the Correlation of Rock Bodies 111 Unconformities: Something is Missing 113 Depicting the Past 116 Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona 122 CHAPTER 6 Life on Earth: What Do Fossils Reveal? 129 Fossils: Surviving Records of Past Life 130 Figuring Out How Life is Organized 135 Evolution: Continuous Changes in Life 136 Evidence of Evolution 145 Fossils and Stratigraphy 148 Fossils Indicate Past Environments 153 How Fossils Indicate Paleogeography 157 How Fossils Indicate Past Climates 160 An Overview of the History of Life 162 CHAPTER 7 Plate Tectonics Underlies All Earth History 169 Earthquake Waves Reveal Earth’s Mysterious Interior 170 Earth’s Internal Zones 171 Earth’s Two Types of Crust 174 Plate Tectonics Ties it all Together 175 Drifting Continents 178 Evidence for Continental Drift 179 Paleomagnetism: Ancient Magnetism Locked into Rocks 181 Today’s Plate Tectonics Theory 184 What Happens at Plate Margins? 188 What Drives Plate Tectonics? 195 Verifying Plate Tectonics Theory 196 Thermal Plumes, Hotspots, and Hawaii 200 Exotic Terranes 202 Broken, Squeezed, or Stretched Rocks Produce Geological Structures 204 Hawaii Volcanoes National Park 209 CHAPTER 8 The Earth’s Formative Stages and the Archean Eon 215 Earth in Context: A Little Astronomy 216 A Solar System Tour, From Center to Fringe 221 Following Accretion, Earth Differentiates 227 The Primitive Atmosphere—Virtually No Oxygen 229 The Primitive Ocean and the Hydrologic Cycle 230 Origin of Precambrian “Basement” Rocks 231 The Origin of Life 237 Voyageurs National Park 245 In Retrospect 246 CHAPTER 9 Proterozoic: Dawn of a More Modern World 251 Highlights of Paleoproterozoic (2.5 to 1.6 billion years ago) 252 Highlights of Mesoproterozoic (1.6 to 1.0 billion years ago) 258 Highlights of Neoproterozoic (1.0 to 541 million years ago) 259 Proterozoic Rocks of the United States 261 Proterozoic Life 262 CHAPTER 10 Early Paleozoic Events 275 Dance of the Continents 277 Some Regions Tranquil, Others Active 277 Identifying the Cambrian Base 281 Early Paleozoic Events 281 Cratonic Sequences: Seas Come In, Seas Go Out 283 Sauk and Tippecanoe Sequences 283 Way out West: Events in the Cordillera 287 Deposition in the Far North 290 Dynamic Events in the East 290 Jasper National Park 291 The Caledonian Orogenic Belt 295 Aspects of Early Paleozoic Climate 297 CHAPTER 11 Late Paleozoic Events 303 Seas Come in and Seas Go Out 304 Unrest Along the Western Margin of the Craton 312 To the East, A Clash of Continents 315 Sedimentation and Orogeny in the West 324 Europe During Late Paleozoic 326 Gondwana During Late Paleozoic 327 Climates of Late Paleozoic 328 Mineral Wealth in Upper Paleozoic Rocks 329 Acadia National Park 330 CHAPTER 12 Paleozoic Life 335 Animals with Shells Proliferate—and So Does Preservation 336 Cambrian Explosion of Life: Amazing Fossil Sites in Canada and China 336 The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event 343 A Variety of Living Strategies 343 Protistans: Creatures of a Single Cell 344 Marine Invertebrates Populate the Seas 345 Advent of the Vertebrates 359 The Rise of Fishes 361 Conodonts: Valuable but Enigmatic Fossils 369 Advent of Tetrapods 369 Paleozoic Plants 373 Mass Extinctions 375 CHAPTER 13 Mesozoic Events 383 The Breakup of Pangea 384 Mesozoic in Eastern North America 385 Mesozoic in Western North America 388 Zion National Park 392 The Tethys Sea in Europe 404 Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument 405 Gondwana Events 408 Global Events and Trends 410 CHAPTER 14 Mesozoic Life 415 Climate Controls it All 416 Mesozoic Invertebrates 419 Mesozoic Vertebrates 424 Dinosaurs: “Terrifying Lizards” 427 Dinosaur National Monument 428 Dinosaurs: Cold-Blooded, Warm-Blooded, or Both? 442 Dinosaur Parenting 443 Flying Reptiles 443 Dragons of the Seas 445 The Rise of Modern Birds 447 The Mammalian Vanguard 449 Sea Plants and Phytoplankton 452 Land Plants 454 The End-Cretaceous Catastrophe 456 CHAPTER 15 Cenozoic Events 465 The Tectonics–Climate Connection 466 Stability and Erosion Along the North American Eastern Margin 468 Gulf Coast: Transgressing and Regressing Sea 471 The Western Cordillera 471 Creating the Basin and Range Province 475 Badlands National Park, South Dakota 476 Colorado Plateau Uplift 477 Columbia Plateau and Cascades Volcanism 477 Sierra Nevada and California 482 The New West Coast Tectonics 483 Cenozoic Tectonics Elsewhere 483 Cenozoic Climates: Global Warming then Cooling 486 Big Freeze: The Pleistocene Ice Age 488 What Caused the Ice Age? 496 CHAPTER 16 Cenozoic Life 503 Grasslands Expand, Mammals Respond 505 Plankton 506 Marine Invertebrates 506 Vertebrates 510 Mammals 514 Monotremes 517 Marsupials 517 Placental Mammals 518 Demise of the Pleistocene Giants 536 CHAPTER 17 Human Origins 541 Primates 542 Modern Primates 544 Primate Beginnings 545 Early Anthropoids 548 Australopithecine Stage and the Emergence of Hominins 550 A Species in Transition: Australopithecus Sediba 552 Homo Erectus Stage 554 Final Stages of Human Evolution 555 Humans Arrive in the Americas 561 Human Population: 7 Billion and Growing 563 What Lies Ahead? 564 GLOSSARY 566 INDEX 576 APPENDICES — Available online at www.wiley.com/college/levin APPENDIX A Classification of Living Things APPENDIX B Physiographic Provinces of the Contiguous United States APPENDIX C Periodic Table and Symbols for Chemical Elements APPENDIX D Convenient Conversion Factors APPENDIX E Exponential or Scientific Notation APPENDIX F Rock Symbols APPENDIX G Bedrock Geology of North America and Central America

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"Harold (""Hal"") Levin began his career as a petroleum geologist in 1956 after receiving bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Missouri and a doctorate from Washington University. His fondness for teaching brought him  back to Washington University in 1962, where he is currently professor of geology and paleontology in  the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. His writing efforts include authorship of seven edition of The Earth Through Time, four editions of Contemporary Physical Geology; Essentials of Earth Science and co-authorship of Earth: Past and Present, as well as eight editions of Laboratory Studies in Historical Geology; Life Through Time, and more recently, Ancient Invertebrates and Their Living Relatives.   For his courses in physical geology, historical geology, paleontology, sedimentology, and stratigraphy, Hal has received several awards for excellence in teaching. The accompanying photograph was taken during a lecture on life of the Cenozoic Era. The horse skull serves to illustrate changes in the teeth and jaws of grazing animals in response to the spread of prairies and savannahs during the Miocene and subsequent epochs."

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