Building Planet Earth: Five Billion Years of Earth History

Building Planet Earth superbly illustrates and describes the geology of Earth; how it formed, became structured, and evolved into the planet as we know it, with its present distribution of continents, oceans, and dazzling diversity of life. This 4.6 billion-year history of the third rock from the sun is an extraordinary story, and understanding Earth's main geological processes has become increasingly important for ensuring our future on this crowded planet.

Designed for the general reader, Building Planet Earth explains these fundamental Earth processes: how the atmosphere interacts with the oceans to produce our changing climates; how the heat from the Earth's central core drives surface processes, such as plate tectonics with its related earthquakes, fault movements, and volcanism; how mountains are formed and sediments deposited to form layers of strata, including the economically important hydrocarbons that fueled the industrial revolution; and how life prospered and declined through evolution and extinction, sometimes being abruptly terminated by catastrophic events from outer space. The combination of good graphics, artwork, and photographic illustration makes this a visually attractive, accessible read, complete with short bibliography, glossary, and index. --Douglas Palmer, Amazon.co.uk