Building Planet Earth: Five Billion Years of Earth History

Continental plates, moving as fast as human hair grows, collide, mountains buckle, the ocean abyss sucks in the Earth's crust, and volcanos explode. Here is a story that Hollywood wished it could option: the dynamic cycle of geological destruction and renewal that has stretched across billions of years and shaped our planet in its current image. Scene by scene, this action-packed blockbuster can be experienced in Building Planet Earth. Peter Cattermole begins the story by describing a cloud of matter that surrounds a primitive Sun. Out of this the Earth was formed through compaction and internal heating to the point at which it became a stable, layered structure with a core, mantle, and crust. Using eye-catching images, artwork, and diagrams, Building Planet Earth presents this geological development and goes on to discuss what is happening to our planet now and what we can expect in the future. Cattermole covers in fascinating detail the impact of mass extinctions, global-warming, and ozone holes. The book features 241 illustrations--128 in full-color--and a number of useful appendices. For anyone who has ever wondered how this miraculous planet continues to thrive and surprise, this elegantly-written book will be an essential read. Peter Cattermole is a principal investigator with NASA's Planetary Geology and Geophysics Program. He has written several books on geology and astronomy as well as numerous articles for both scholarly and popular media, including Atlas of Venus (Cambridge University Press, 1997) and The Story of the Earth (Cambridge University Press, 1985).