Earth Science

(with chapter by chapter changes)

Introduction.
I. THE SOLID EARTH.

1. Minerals: Building Blocks of Rocks.


Expanded and reorganized to provide a better overview of the planet with greater emphasis on Earth as a system. Revised section on “A View of Earth”. New discussion of “Earth as a System”. Revised discussion on “The Nature of Scientific Inquiry”.

2. Rocks: Materials of the Lithosphere.


New special interest box on “United states per Capita Use of Mineral and Energy Resources”.

3. Weathering, Soil, and Mass Wasting.
4. Running Water and Groundwater.


New section on “Floods and Flood Control”. New box on “The 1997 Red River Floods”. New box on “The Ogalla Aquifer—How Long Will the Water Last?”

5. Glaciers, Deserts, and Wind.


Revised section with new title, “Glaciers: A Part of Two Basic Cycles”.

6. Earthquakes and Earth's Interior.


New section “Can Earthquakes Be Predicted?” Revised discussion of the structure of Earth's interior.

7. Plate Tectonics.


Substantially revised and rewritten discussions of “Divergent Boundaries,” “Convergent Boundaries,” and “Transform Fault Boundaries”. Revised discussion of “The Driving Mechanism”.

8. Igneous Activity.


New box on “Mount St. Helens: Anatomy of an Eruption”. Substantially revised section on “Calderas and Pyroclastic Flows,” “ Fissure Eruptions and Lava Plateaus,” and “Igneous Activity and Plate Tectonics”.

9. Mountain Building.


Revamped discussion of “Fault-Block Mountains”.

10. Geologic Time.
11. Earth's History: A Brief Summary.


Updated box on the extinction of the dinosaurs (Box 11.2).

II. THE OCEANS.

12. The Ocean Environment.


New section on “Mapping the Ocean Floor”. Substantial revision of sections on “Continental Margins,” “The Ocean Basin Floor,” and “Mid-Ocean Ridges”. New section on “Marine Life Zones,” and a new (related) special interest box (Box 12.2) on “Hydrothermal Vent Communities”. New box (12.1) “Sampling the Ocean Floor”. New outstanding two-page map of the ocean basins.

13. The Restless Ocean.


Revised discussion of “Shoreline Erosion Problems”. New box (13.1) on “Louisiana's Vanishing Coastal Wetlands”.

III. THE ATMOSPHERE.

14. Composition, Structure, and Temperature.


Rewritten section on “Weather and Climate”. New section “Heat and Temperature”. Revised discussion of “Mechanisms of Heat Transfer”. Revised section of “World Distribution of Temperature”. Revised box (Box 14.2) “Ozone Depletion—A Global Issue”. New box (14.3) “Showing Temperature Distribution Using Isotherms”.

15. Moisture, Clouds, and Precipitation.
16. Air Pressure and Wind.


Substantial new section on “El Niño and Global Weather” and a related new box (16.2) “Tracking El Niño from Space”. Updated box (Box 16.1) on “Wind Energy: An Alternative With Potential”.

17. Weather Patterns and Severe Storms.


Additional material on “Air Masses”. Updated discussion of “Tornadoes”.

18. Climate.


Substantially revised and updated sections on “Human Impact on Global Climate”. Revised box (Box 18.3) with new title “The Urban Heat Island”.

IV. ASTRONOMY.

19. Earth's Place in the Universe.
20. Touring Our Solar System.


New box on“Pathfinder: The First Geologist on Mars”. New box on “Is Pluto Really a Planet?”

21. Light, Astronomical Observations, and the Sun.


Revised and updated discussion of modern telescopes.

22. Beyond Our Solar Systems.
Appendix A. Metric and English Units Compared.
Appendix B. Earth's Grid System.
Appendix C. Topographic Maps.
Appendix D. Star Charts.
Appendix E. World Soils.
Appendix F. Landforms of the Conterminous United States.
Appendix G. Periodic Table of the Elements.