ZIRCONS. Early Oceans and Life? Evidence in a Grain of Sand

Kapitel in diesem Buch

1. Frontmatter i
2. CONTENTS vii
3. PREFACE ix
4. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi
5. Volcanic Tuff Vulcan’s Wrath: The Eruption of Vesuvius 1
6. Native Copper. The Iceman and the Island of Copper 11
7. Cassiterite. The “Isles of Tin” and the Bronze Age 23
8. Angular Unconformity. “No Vestige of a Beginning”: The Immensity of Geologic Time 35
9. Igneous Dikes. The “Earth’s Great Heat Engine”: The Origin of Magmas 47
10. Coal. The Rock That Burns Fires the Industrial Revolution 56
11. Jurassic WORLD. The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Rocks of Britain 67
12. Radioactive Uranium. CLOCKS IN ROCKs: Arthur Holmes and the Age of the Earth 79
13. Chondritic Meteorites. Messengers From Space: The Origin of the Solar System 89
14. Iron-Nickel Meteorites. The Cores of Other Planets 98
15. Moon Rocks. Green Cheese or Anorthosite? The Origin of the Moon 112
16. ZIRCONS. Early Oceans and Life? Evidence in a Grain of Sand 124
17. Stromatolites. Microbial Condos: Cyanobacteria and the Oldest Life 134
18. Banded Iron Formation. Mountains of Iron: The Earth’s Early Atmosphere 144
19. Turbidites. Archean Sediments and Submarine Landslides 154
20. Diamictites. Tropical Glaciers and the Snowball Earth 166
21. Exotic Terranes. Paradox in Rocks: Wandering Fossils and Traveling Landmasses 180
22. Jigsaw-Puzzle Bedrock. Alfred Wegener and Continental Drift 194
23. Chalk. The Cretaceous Seaway and the Greenhouse Planet 208
24. The Iridium Layer. The Death of the Dinosaurs 216
25. Lodestones. How Paleomagic Launched Plate Tectonics 229
26. Blueschists. The Puzzle of Subduction Zones 249
27. Transform Faults. Earthquake! The San Andreas Fault 271
28. Glacial Erratics. A POET, A PROFESSOR, A POLITICIAN, A JANITOR, AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE ICE AGES 316
29. Index 339