Earth as an Evolving Planetary System, Second Edition
"I have found Kent Condie's book to be a masterpiece, very interesting and truly enjoyable to read. Upon completion of this book, the reader will likely realize how exciting and important the interdisciplinary work is that has lead scientists to understand most of the unknown features of our unique planet."--Pure and Applied Geophysics,August 2, 2013".a masterpiece, very interesting and truly enjoyable to read. Upon completion of this book, the reader will likely realize how exciting and important is the interdisciplinary work that has lead scientists to understand most of the unknown features of our unique planet."--Pure and Applied Geophysics,April 2013Praise for the first edition:"What we can find in this book is a snapshot of current knowledge regarding the Earth's components and how these consituent parts challenge Earth scientists to integrate their sub-disciplines into a holistic view of our home. The book is an excellent textbook for either an upper class undergraduate course or a graduate course in Earth history."--Eos (Bulletin of the American Geophysical Union), 2005"Author Kent Condie synthesizes data from the fields of oceanography, geophysics, planetology, and geochemistry to examine the key topics and questions relating to the evolution of Earth's crust and mantle. This volume provides a substantial update to Condie's established text,Plate Tectonics and Crustal Evolution, Fourth Edition. It emphasizes the interactive nature of various components of the Earth system on timescales of tens to hundreds of millions of years, and how these interactions have affected the history of the atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere."--Linda Chappell,Information and Research Services, Lunar and Planetary Institute"Condie (earth and environmental science, New Mexico Tech) synthesizes data and research from a wide variety of fields<-->geophysics, planetology, oceanography, paleoclimatology, geology<-->to present a systematic view of the Earth as a singular planetary system of animate and inanimate processes. This book started decades ago as an overview of plate-tectonics, and in the last two editions has been published under a new name as plate-tectonics became no longer the focus. Written for advanced undergraduate or graduate students in the Earth sciences, the majority of the text considers the geology and geochemistry of the inner Earth clear up to the mantle. The last few chapters consider Earth history over all, the origins and impact of life, and comparative planetary evolution throughout the solar-system. This second edition includes not only new seismic tomography data and high resolution U/Pb zircon dating, but also new chapters on the super-continent cycle and great events in Earth history. Academic Press is an imprint of Elsevier."--Reference and Research Book News, October 2012