Physical Description:
306 pages : one illustration ; 21 cm.
Publication Date:
2013
Campbelltown Public Library Adult Non Fiction 550 HAZ C0475459545 Book
Adult Non Fiction
The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet
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The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet
by Robert M. Hazen
4.23 · Rating details · 2,246 ratings · 234 reviews
Hailed by The New York Times for writing “with wonderful clarity about science . . . that effortlessly teaches as it zips along,” nationally bestselling author Robert M. Hazen offers a radical new approach to Earth history in this intertwined tale of the planet’s living and nonliving spheres. With an astrobiologist’s imagination, a historian’s perspective, and a naturalist ...more
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Paperback, 320 pages
Published July 30th 2013 by Penguin Books (first published April 26th 2012)
Original TitleThe story of Earth
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Max
Apr 08, 2017Max rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: science
Hazen views earth’s 4.5 billion year history through his unique lens as a mineralogist. He explains how the earth was built from cosmic dust and transformed into continents, oceans, atmosphere, and life. We find out why earth was primed for life and the many ways it could have started. We learn how minerals and living organisms evolved together shaping the future of each other. This very readable book is packed with fascinating insights. Following are my notes.
Hazen puts time in perspective. If on a walk every step equaled 100 years after a mile you would have travelled back 175,000 years, about the time anatomically modern humans first appeared. If you made it twenty miles that day, you would have travelled three million years into the past. At 100 years per step and twenty miles per day how long would it take to travel back to the formation of the earth? Four years! That was 4.5 billion years ago. Here we begin our story as a nebula of dust and gas form our sun and the leftovers accrete to build the planets.
A nascent earth is hit by a smaller sibling, Theia, which disintegrates. Theia’s denser material is drawn into the earth and the lighter material thrust into earth orbit where it coalesces into our moon. At only 15,000 miles up (today it is 239,000 miles) the young moon appeared 16 times larger than today’s sun. A full moon illuminated the night providing more than enough light to read by. But night turned to day quickly with the earth rotating completely every five hours. The moon orbited every 84 hours. What a spectacle it would have been watching the moon go through its phases! Unfortunately the earth’s 10,000 degree molten rock surface buffeted by huge tidal waves would have made observation pretty difficult.
As the earth cooled, chunks solidified based on their chemical composition, denser ones sank and lighter ones floated to the top. Within 100 million years a thin basalt crust formed floating on a molten mantle. The crust was punctuated with mega volcanoes that would build an atmosphere and oceans as carbon dioxide and water from the interior were pumped out. It’s fortunate that the atmosphere was full of carbon dioxide and perhaps methane. For the first 1.5 billion years the sun was 25% less bright than today. Without the greenhouse effect the earth might have quickly become a snowball and life may not have developed.
By 200 million years granite Islands began forming in the basalt magma. Less dense than basalt, granite rose to the top poking above the crust like icebergs do in water. Water filled in over the surrounding basalt crust forming a single mega ocean. In another billion years the granite islands would grow and coalesce into the first super continent. Rain in the carbon dioxide atmosphere fell as carbonic acid breaking down rocks into clays and sending sediments into the ocean. Granite contains lots of quartz so as it weathered nice sandy beaches arose on the shores of the blue ocean. Still the land was stark and gray and devoid of life.
The solar system and earth were rich in the carbon molecules required for life such as amino acids, sugars and lipids. Whether it was the nutrient rich ocean, a hot undersea vent, the sun drenched dense atmosphere or even rocks, somewhere the ingredients combined in the right way and life took off around 4 billion years ago. Predictably the author’s favorite birthplace of life is on rocks. Consider that as much as half of the biomass on earth today is found in the cracks and crevices of rocks penetrating well underground and living off minerals. Hazen uses the chirality (handedness) of amino acids and sugars to make his point. Minerals also have chirality and electric charge, another component of biologic molecules. An article published in Scientific Reports I read on phys.org on 4/4/17 as I wrote this, showed how the zinc clay sauconite can metabolize using the sun’s energy to synthesize new clay particles. Biofilms naturally stick to rocks and clays, which could have provided templates for the first life. Take a planet full of chemically diverse rocks covered with biomolecules; mix, heat and squeeze for five hundred million years. A lot can happen.
Around 2.5 billion years ago, cyanobacteria began producing oxygen as a byproduct of photosynthesis and the first Great Oxidation Event unfolded. The earth’s anoxic atmosphere would be transformed. By 2.2 billion years ago atmospheric oxygen had risen to 1%. This was enough to oxidize the iron in granite, the soil and oceans. The earth’s land surface changed from gray to red. Over the next 1.4 billion years oxygen levels would gradually increase in the atmosphere and the oceans. During that same time plate tectonics would slam granite islands together forming continents, mountains and shallow seas. A cycle of supercontinent creation and destruction would begin.
Oxygen under these conditions would combine with preexisting minerals to create thousands of new minerals. Minerals evolved just as their animate offspring. Free oxygen created by photosynthesis was critical. Two-thirds of known minerals would not have existed on an earth without life including human favorites such as turquoise and malachite. From 15 minerals in the dust of the original nebula the earth now has 4,500 different minerals, our neighboring planets without life at most 1,500.
Between 850 and 750 million years ago the supercontinent Rodina broke up dramatically increasing the shoreline and shallow seas setting the stage for the Second Great Oxidation Event 740 million years ago. Erosion flooded the new algal friendly coastal waters with nutrients. Oxygen producing algae thrived, setting off a cycle of extreme cold and hot periods after a billion years of stability. Reduced carbon dioxide and increased free oxygen disrupted the greenhouse atmosphere and earth turned into a snowball or perhaps just a slush ball. This killed the algae and the oxygen levels declined. Volcanoes pumped carbon dioxide back into the air melting the ice. Minerals subject to extreme weathering released large amounts of manganese, molybdenum and especially phosphorous into coastal waters resulting in massive algal blooms. After 150 million years of repeating cycles oxygen levels reached 20%. This would be the first earth where you could breathe and the first where your skin wouldn’t be quickly torched by UV rays. The degree to which methane was trapped and released as part of these cycles is uncertain, but critical to know in light of our current situation.
These events led to the Cambrian explosion 540 million years ago. New multicellular life forms appeared that evolved into the diverse flora and fauna of today. The ensuing half billion years would be punctuated with calamitous extinctions caused by extreme volcanic activity and asteroid strikes. Each extinction led to new life forms filling vacated niches. 430 million years ago plants and animals conquered the land breaking up rocks and forming more mineral deposits. 300 million years ago in the Third Great Oxidation Event oxygen levels rose to 30% supporting mammoth insects such as dragon flies with two foot wing spans. Much of this was due to carbon sequestration as increasing amounts of biomass were buried, a process which had also contributed to prior atmospheric oxygen increases. The fragments from Rodina collided to form a new supercontinent Pangea. The impact formed the Appalachian mountains then as high as the Himalayas are today. 250 million years ago oxygen levels sank to 15% before eventually recovering to today’s 21%. 175 million years ago Pangea broke up forming the Atlantic Ocean. Plate tectonics would move the fragments (our continents) to their present position.
250 million years from now, the continents will once again collide to form a new supercontinent. Life on earth should last another billion years perhaps two. By that time the sun, continually getting hotter, will evaporate the oceans and extinguish life on earth. We can expect ice ages to recur. We can expect many mega volcanoes and devastating asteroid impacts. Just as in past extinctions many vulnerable life forms will be lost, but others will survive and evolve just as in the past. However, humans along with many other species may not survive long enough to worry about these things. The immediate danger is human driven global warming that is proceeding at an unprecedented rate. We don’t know how it will end. There could be another calamitous extinction and we could well be casualties. But the earth and life will survive, reset and evolve as in the past.
If you got this far I hope you put this well written book on your list. Hazen offers informative discussions of plate tectonics and continent formation. He details theories of the beginning of life. He explains the many ways in which minerals influenced life and in turn life influenced minerals, both working together to shape the environment. He explores the critical role of the abiotic in the ecosystem. We’re all in this together and that includes the minerals.
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Becky
Nov 22, 2014Becky rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: 2015, audiobook, yay-science, highly-recommended, i-want-this, non-fiction, reviewed
It is time for my sorta-yearly scientifical audiobook! Last year, kinda around this time, I was listening to A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing, which was good but quite a ways over my head technically. This time, I shifted the focus a bit closer to home and just focused on Earth, rather than the whole of universal existence. (Listen to me talking as though I plan what I read... Funny! You all know that the books choose me, right?)
Anyway, this was really interesting and informative, and at times disturbing and saddening. Still technical, but not quite so mind-bogglingly technical that I feel like I missed big points. I don't know if that's because Hazen does better at explaining than Krauss, or if maybe it's just easier for me to wrap my mind around geology rather than existential physics.
But what's funny is that I didn't know that I'd be learning about geological-based origin theory when I picked up this book from Audible. I just like origin stories, and I like science, even if I'm not smart enough to understand a lot of it. Plus I think the cover is pretty. Always an important consideration.
So anyway, I did really enjoy this one and I learned quite a lot, both about the earth, as expected, but also about geology - a realm of science that I almost never think about. I'd always kind of thought that geology was boring... If I was a scientist who was going to stare at rocks all day, I'd want to at least see some bones in there or something. But I've been shown that rocks don't have to be boring, they can be the keys to understanding our history. Which maybe isn't quite as cool as finding bones in things, but is still pretty cool.
I enjoyed how the book covered a lot of ground (heh, see what I did there?) from multiple different angles, and showed how in many different ways, the geology of the earth is central to this planet being the only one (that we know of) which sustains life. We're shown the patterns that have changed the earth over time - warming and cooling and shifting and crashing around - and how that has brought us to where we are now... and how we are affecting those changes as well. The patterns are bigger than we are - they span millions of years while most of us can barely plan for tomorrow. The earth will carry on once we're gone (for a while - until the sun dies, anyway). It doesn't need us, but we definitely need it. Mass extinctions aren't new to Earth. It just sucks that we might be listed among the participants of the next one.
Anyway... I'm glad that I didn't know that this was going to be geology-centric, because I'm afraid that I might've skipped it if I had. So, if that's something you might also think - put it out of your mind. This was interesting and well written and pretty damn fascinating. I highly recommend it. (less)
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Thi T.
Feb 03, 2013Thi T. rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: geology
I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Earth history, or Earth's future. My background: I'm a 2nd year master's student in geochemistry. I've been taking geology classes for 5+ years and I've never had the story of Earth explained in such a captivating way. I'm the type of person who doesn't claim to know a subject unless I could describe its processes from the ground up, without using much jargon. That's all you get in Hazen's book.
My reading pace and enthusiasm decelerated for a short while once life started popping up around p.230 , which is consistent with my rock-loving, life-ignoring geologist nature. Yet I really enjoyed Hazen's assertion that the geosphere and biosphere are intimately linked. Though I've taken my fair share of mineralogy/petrology classes, I've never heard anyone suggest that minerals were so closely related to the evolution of life. His extensive description of changes during the Boring Billion was also quite new to me, and I have come away with a new appreciation and curiosity about the "boring" years of Earth history (much like my fascination with the Middle/"Dark" Ages in the history of science).
This is a great read especially for a geology student, undergrad or graduate. His descriptions of still unanswered questions, proposed hypotheses, findings, etc. are concise and easily understood. The aspiring student who wishes to pursue geology in academia will find several debates that still need further research (e.g. chirality of biomolecules, abiotic methane origins, snowball vs. slushball earth). The last chapter is somber and such sentiments should sound familiar for fans of George Carlin, but it is such an important read and can really change your perspective on the climate change controversy.
Readers who enjoyed this book would probably enjoy Knoll's "Life on a Young Planet" as well. (less)
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Dr. Carl Ludwig Dorsch
May 27, 2012Dr. Carl Ludwig Dorsch rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: reality
Well constructed review of consensus earth science by one practicing in the field.
Embarrassingly I was halfway through “The Story of Earth” before recalling that I had only recently read Hazen’s “Genesis: The Scientific Quest for Life's Origins,” a volume covering recent experimental science in origins-of-life research, including, or rather emphasizing, Hazen’s own.
While in “The Story of Earth” Hazen largely resists the technical (though, appropriately for a practitioner, he can’t resist it altogether, often again reprising his own work) enough is included to illuminate the speculation he is reporting on, and, as a working scientist his technical descriptions are plainly more credible than those found in similar general readership volumes.
Hazen, by the way, is one of the authors of recent research suggesting a rather wide scale co-evolution of earth life and the ‘mineral kingdom’ (see, for instance: http://www.nature.com/news/2008/08111...), largely as the result of the “Paleoproterozoic “Great Oxidation Event” (~2.2 to 2.0 Ga [gigaannum]), when atmospheric oxygen may have risen to >1% of modern levels, and the Neoproterozoic increase in atmospheric oxygen, which followed several major glaciation events [and] ultimately gave rise to multicellular life,” a topic also touched on, with modesty, in “The Story of Earth.”
(Actual “Mineral evolution” paper, quoted above, from ‘American Mineralogist’ at: http://www.geo.umass.edu/petrology/Ha....)
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Kris Sellgren
Jul 10, 2019Kris Sellgren rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: reviewed
This was a fun read. The author has a talent for colorful and descriptive language that brings the science to life. I knew the broad sweep of the Earth’s history, so there were no surprises, but I enjoyed learning new details. The author’s biases show at times — he really dislikes Stanley Miller of the famous Miller-Urey experiment — but mostly he presents all the various approaches to understanding the origins of life as worthwhile and complementary. I particularly liked the experiment where someone put the contents of a carbonaceous chondrite meteorite in water and watched all the pre-biotic molecules (amino acids etc) assemble themselves into spheres with a membrane separating “inside” from “outside”. Not a cell but on the way to one. The author thinks that the hardest problem to solve in the origins of life is how chirality arose. Amino acids in meteorites are both right-handed and left-handed, but life on Earth only uses one of these.
It was interesting to see a geologist’s perspective on the Sixth Extinction, caused by humans. He feels confident that some microbes will survive the worst we could do (nuclear holocaust) and life will continue and evolve no matter what. He is very philosophical about the extinction of polar bears, gorillas, and tigers (all inevitable, he says) and possibly humans. I can’t feel that level of detachment. (less)
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Adam Conn
Oct 12, 2012Adam Conn rated it really liked it · review of another edition
I never liked geology in school. Learning about rocks and how they formed was a series of exercises in memorization.
It's hard to say what made me pick this book up at the library. Whatever the reason, I'm glad I did. Hazen has a way of making a topic I had always found dreadfully boring fascinating, interesting and exciting.
My layman's description is the book covers a bit of astronomy, geology, oceanography, meteorology, physics, biology, and even a little history. Not too much of any one, usually never too much at one time, the science and technical details are fit within a readable narrative of the recorded and speculated history of the planet from its formation to its eventual destruction.
Hazen provides descriptions of the latest experiments, theories and work being done to learn how the earth became what it is, and where it is headed. I found the part about the discovery of plate tectonics to be especially interesting. I didn't realize it was such a recent and transformative idea in the world of a science.
I can't say the entire book was enthralling. There were some parts I found less interesting, or a little too geeky and technical for general reading. But this was a well written, informative and, at times, engrossing book.
I am not interested in the subject, or at least didn't consider myself interested in it. But I found this book to be enjoyable and educational to read. I can only imagine how thoroughly enjoyable it might be for someone actually interested in the topic. (less)
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Chris
Mar 24, 2015Chris rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: science, evolution
A very good book on the evolution of our universe, solar system and Earth. Hazen chronologically walks the reader through 4.5 billion years of our earth's history, explaining the conditions at each stage of our planet's existence.
One aspect of this book that was very appealing to me was his frequent references to current work being done by scientists who are searching for answers to geological questions still unknown. His own theory, which he calls "Mineral Evolution", explains how minerals and life on earth co-evolved. He explains that the majority of minerals existing on our planet could have only arisen due to the existence of living organisms. Or to be more specific, the oxygen rich atmosphere and rain cycles that living beings created through photosynthesis directly led to the formation of a vast array of minerals. He states that a rich mineralogical aspect could be used as an indicator when searching for life on other worlds.
Highly recommended for those interested in geology and the evolution of our planet.
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Ben
Oct 01, 2018Ben rated it liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: science
A fairly well-written story of the 4.4 billion-year geologic history of Earth, with a chapter also extrapolating to the future 100 years to 4 billion years. I learned a bit—lots of highlights—but less than I would have liked given the length. Too much was review.
I enjoyed Hazen's emphasis on the methods by which scientists have learned the prehistory he relates, and also on the current hot topics, disagreements and open questions.
Flaws: Occasionally repetitive and unnecessarily verbose. (less)
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Bob R Bogle
Oct 05, 2020Bob R Bogle rated it it was amazing
This is not the book I thought it was when I bought it. I was expecting more of an evolutionary history of life on Earth. Probably a full 80-90% of this book is essentially a geological history of the planet, and I'm no geologist.
To my surprise, however, I found every page of this wonderful book to be of far more interest than I could ever have imagined. It seems seven or eight fascinating new facts ― new to me, anyway ― jump off of every page. And this doesn’t even begin to get at the implications that arise as all those facts pile up higher and higher.
Very easily, this book is extraordinary for putting geological time in its proper proportions. Most of us struggle with thinking about a few thousand years, much less millions and billions of years. I've never read another book that keeps all the temporal perspectives in such fine proportion.
One minor nuisance is the dual manner of dating events in this book. Sometimes the author reports key events in millions of years ago; at other times, however, he starts the clock running forward at the origin of the planet. Sometimes therefore a little mental subtraction is required to keep events in their appropriate chronological order.
One other issue perhaps is that Robert M Hazen's small book is from 2012: far less than an eye blink in geological time, but a long time indeed in science. I don't know whether an updated version is in the works.
Regardless, this is one of the most fascinating and most well-written science books I've ever read. This one will change your perspective about . . . all kinds of things.
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Prasanna Venkatesan
May 18, 2021Prasanna Venkatesan rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Absolutely captivating..
This is my first book on origin story and I am happy for having started with this book (because a strange sense of fullness and emptiness of knowledge after reading this book has made me wanting to explore more books towards this origin knowledge). I believe the author has covered everything from big bang to holocene, future probable scenarios, contribution of various factors from varied fields and how the stories/theories of origin have been proposed using various evidences by curious persons who have dedicated their lives towards establishing the known from the unknown. It was little heavy on geology side but then, given the author's support for the theory of co-evolution of geosphere and biosphere, it stands justified. Nevertheless the author has kept text simple and understandable. Recommended for everyone... A Big Thanks to the author for creating this beautiful ORIGIN STORY.
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Noah Goats
May 31, 2017Noah Goats rated it really liked it · review of another edition
From the creation of the universe to the eventual destruction of the planet, Hazen, emphasizing the relationship between geology and biology, sets out the entire history and future of the Earth. There are some boring bits. For example, in writing about the billion years generally considered the most boring in Earth's history (the "boring billion") he tries to sell the reader on the idea that these years were actually quite exciting... and fails. But for the most part he succeeds in making all this science both accessible and interesting. And I also appreciated the fact that when there were theories out there that were opposed the the one he preferred, he always gave them a fair shake. Even handed and well reasoned and generally enjoyable: nice book. (less)
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