# Planet Earth
## Table of Contents
### Front Matter

* Introduction
* About the Book

### Section 1: EARTH’S SIZE, SHAPE, AND MOTION IN SPACE

* a. Science: How do we Know What We Know?
* b. Earth System Science: Gaia or Medea?
* c. Measuring the Size and Shape of Earth
* d. How to Navigate Across Earth using a Compass, Sextant, and Timepiece
* e. Earth's Motion and Spin
* f. The Nature of Time: Solar, Lunar and Stellar Calendars
* g. Coriolis Effect: How Earth’s Spin Affects Motion Across its Surface
* h. Milankovitch cycles: Oscillations in Earth’s Spin and Rotation
* i. Time: The Invention of Seconds using Earth’s Motion

### Section 2: EARTH’S ENERGY

* a. Energy and the Laws of Thermodynamics
* b. Solar Energy
* c. Electromagnetic Radiation and Black Body Radiators
* d. Daisy World and the Solar Energy Cycle
* e. Other Sources of Energy: Gravity, Tides, and the Geothermal Gradient

### Section 3: EARTH’S MATTER

* a. Gas, Liquid, Solid (and other states of matter)
* b. Atoms: Electrons, Protons and Neutrons
* c. The Chart of the Nuclides
* d. Radiometric dating, using chemistry to tell time
* e. The Periodic Table and Electron Orbitals
* f. Chemical Bonds (Ionic, Covalent, and others means to bring atoms together)
* g. Common Inorganic Chemical Molecules of Earth
* h. Mass spectrometers, X-Ray Diffraction, Chromatography and Other Methods to Determine Which Elements are in Things

### Section 4: EARTH’S ATMOSPHERE

* a. The Air You Breathe
* b. Oxygen in the Atmosphere
* c. Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere
* d. Green House Gases
* e. Blaise Pascal and his Barometer
* f. Why are Mountain Tops Cold?
* g. What are Clouds?
* h. What Makes Wind?
* i. Global Atmospheric Circulation
* j. Storm Tracking
* k. The Science of Weather Forecasting
* l. Earth’s Climate and How it Has Changed

### Section 5: EARTH’S WATER

* a. H2O: A Miraculous Gas, Liquid and Solid on Earth
* b. Properties of Earth’s Water (Density, Salinity, Oxygen, and Carbonic Acid)
* c. Earth’s Oceans (Warehouses of Water)
* d. Surface Ocean Circulation
* e. Deep Ocean Circulation
* f. La Nina and El Nino, the sloshing of the Pacific Ocean
* g. Earth‘s Rivers.
* h. Earth’s Endangered Lakes and the Limits of Freshwater Sources
* i. Earth’s Ice: Glaciers, Ice Sheets, and Sea Ice

### Section 6: EARTH’S SOLID INTERIOR

* a. Journey to the Center of the Earth: Earth’s Interior and Core
* b. Plate Tectonics: You are a Crazy Man, Alfred Wegener
* c. Earth’s Volcanoes: When Earth Goes Boom!
* d. You Can’t Fake an Earthquake: How to Read a Seismograph
* e. The Rock Cycle and Rock Types (Igneous, Metamorphic and Sedimentary)
* f. Mineral Identification of Hand Samples
* g. Common Rock Identification
* h. Bowen’s Reaction Series
* i. Earth’s Surface Processes: Sedimentary Rocks and Depositional Environments
* j. Earth’s History Preserved in its Rocks: Stratigraphy and Geologic Time

### Section 7: EARTH’S LIFE

* a. How Rare is Life in the Universe?
* b. What is Life?
* c. How did Life Originate?
* d. The Origin of Sex
* e. Darwin and the Struggle for Existence
* f. Heredity: Gregor Mendel’s Game of Cards
* g. Earth’s Biomes and Communities
* h. Soil: Living Dirt
* i. Earth’s Ecology: Food Webs and Populations

### Section 8: EARTH’S HUMANS AND FUTURE

* a. Ötzi’s World or What Sustainably Looks Like
* b. Rise of Human Consumerism and Population Growth
* c. Solutions for the Future
* d. How to Think Critically About Earth's Future