Innovative and up-to-date-the number one Introduction to Geology textbook.
The Fourth Edition of Earth: Portrait of a Planet provides the perfect balance between an authoritative, yet accessible text and a stunning narrative art program. This makes it the book of choice for instructors and students, who all have their own diverse styles of both teaching and learning. The Fourth Edition of this best-selling text constitutes a major revision, packed with recent updates and new features such as beautiful and innovative narrative figures, stimulating inquiry-based pedagogy, a tightened core narrative, hundreds of new photographs, and coverage of hot topics, like the March 2011 earthquake/tsunami that devastated Japan, the rare element crisis, the shifting price of oil, and the recent tornado outbreaks.
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Preface Prelude. And just What is Geology?
PART I. Our Island in Space 1. Cosmology and the Birth of Earth 2. Journey to the Center of the Earth 3. Drifting Continents and Spreading Seas 4. The Way the Earth Works: Plate Tectonics
PART II. Earth Materials 5. Patterns in Nature: Minerals Interlude A. Rock Groups 6. Up from the Inferno: Magma and Igneous Rocks Interlude B. A Surface Veneer: Sediments and Soils 7. Pages of Earth's Past: Sedimentary Rocks 8. Metamorphism: A Process of Change Interlude C. The Rock Cycle
PART III. Tectonic Activity of a Dynamic Planet 9. The Wrath of Vulcan: Volcanic Eruptions 10. A Violent Pulse: Earthquakes Interlude D. The Earth's Interior-Revisited: Seismic Layering, the Magnetic Field, and Gravity 11. Crags, Cracks, and Crumples: Crustal Deformation and Mountain Building
PART IV. History before History Interlude E. Memories of Past Life: Fossils and Evolution 12. Deep Time: How Old Is Old? 13. A Biography of Earth
PART V. Earth Resources 14. Squeezing Power from a Stone: Energy Resources 15. Riches in Rock: Mineral Resources
PART V. Processes and Problems at the Earth's Surface Interlude F. Ever-Changing Landscapes and the Hydrologic Cycle 16. Unsafe Ground: Landslides and Other Mass Movements 17. Streams and Floods: The Geology of Running Water 18. Restless Realm: Oceans and Coasts 19. A Hidden Reserve: Groundwater 20. An Envelope of Gas: Earth's Atmosphere and Climate 21. Dry Regions: The Geology of Deserts 22. Amazing Ice: Glaciers and Ice Ages 23. Global Change in the Earth System
Appendix: Additional Maps and Charts See for Yourself Glossary Credits Index
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