Earth History

Peter Copeland is Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Houston, Texas. His expertise lies in thermochronology, geochemistry and continental tectonics, with a particular emphasis on the evolution of the continental crust. In recent years, his research has focused on the formation of the Rocky Mountains and Himalaya. From 2001–2004 he was co-editor of the Geological Society of America Bulletin. Janok P. Bhattacharya is the Susan Cunningham Research Chair in Geology at McMaster University (Canada). His research interests are in sedimentary rocks of the western interior of North America. Prior to becoming a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas and subsequently at the University of Houston, Bhattacharya worked in the petroleum industry. He is an American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) Grover Murray Distinguished Educator (2007), AAPG Distinguished Lecturer (2005–2006), and the 2023 SEPM, Francis J. Pettijohn Medalist for excellence in sedimentology and stratigraphy.

Preface, Acknowledgements, 1. The Grand Canyon: reading the rocks; 2. The philosophies of geology: assumptions steer interpretations; 3. The origin of Earth: from the beginning of the universe to the early Earth; 4.The Age of Earth: historical versus modern dating approaches; 5. Plate tectonics: our unifying geological concept; 6. Evolution: natural selection and the organization of life; 7. The origin of life: our early atmosphere and the rise of early life; 8. Snowball Earth: a Neoproterozoic frozen planet; 9. An explosion of life: Ediacaran experimentation, the Cambrian explosion, and Ordovician biodiversity; 10. Iapetus and Pangea: the lost ocean and the assembly of a Paleozoic supercontinent; 11. Environmental change in the late Paleozoic: the greening of Earth, climate change, and the great dying; 12. The age of dinosaurs: the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous world; 13. The Cretaceous extinction: the end of the age of dinosaurs; 14. Tectonics of western North America: a dynamic Cretaceous and Cenozoic landscape; 15. The Indo-Asian collision: the formation of the Himalayas; 16. The Messinian crisis: the great drying of the Mediterranean Sea; 17. Out of Africa: human evolution; 18. Ice ages and sea level: quaternary environmental change; 19. A human world: our impact in the Holocene; Glossary, Index.