How does life on our planet respond to--and shape--climate? This question has never been more urgent than it is today, when humans are faced with the daunting task of guiding adaptation to an inexorably changing climate. This concise, accessible, and authoritative book provides an unmatched introduction to the most reliable current knowledge about the complex relationship between living things and climate.Using an Earth System framework, David Schimel describes how organisms, commu...

The remarkable scientific story of how Earth became an oxygenated planetThe air we breathe is twenty-one percent oxygen, an amount higher than on any other known world. While we may take our air for granted, Earth was not always an oxygenated planet. How did it become this way? Donald Canfield—one of the world's leading authorities on geochemistry, earth history, and the early oceans—covers this vast history, emphasizing its relationship to the evolution of life an...

In November 12, 2002, Dr. John Chambers of the NASA Ames Research Center gave a seminar to the Astrobiology Group at the University of Washington. The audience of about 100 listened with rapt attention as Chambers described results from a computer study of how planetary systems form. The goal of his research was to answer a deceptively simple question: How often would newly forming planetary systems produce Earth-like planets, given a star the size of our own sun? By “Earth-like” Chambers ...

This new edition of Biological Oceanography has been greatly updated and expanded since its initial publication in 2004. It presents current understanding of ocean ecology emphasizing the character of marine organisms from viruses to fish and worms, together with their significance to their habitats and to each other.The book initially emphasizes pelagic organisms and processes, but benthos, hydrothermal vents, climate-change effects, and fisheries all receive attention. T...

This modern climatology textbook explains those climates formed near the ground in terms of the cycling of energy and mass through systems.

A must-have introduction to this fundamental driver of the climate systemThe Global Carbon Cycle is a short introduction to this essential geochemical driver of the Earth's climate system, written by one of the world's leading climate-science experts. In this one-of-a-kind primer, David Archer engages readers in clear and simple terms about the many ways the global carbon cycle is woven into our climate system. He begins with a concise overview of the subj...

A critical examination of James Lovelock's controversial Gaia hypothesisOne of the enduring questions about our planet is how it has remained continuously habitable over vast stretches of geological time despite the fact that its atmosphere and climate are potentially unstable. James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis posits that life itself has intervened in the regulation of the planetary environment in order to keep it stable and favorable for life. First proposed in th...

The new revised edition of a classic Earth science textThis newly revised edition of Global Environment discusses the major elements of the geochemical cycles and global fluxes found in the atmosphere, land, lakes, rivers, biota, and oceans, as well as the human effects on these fluxes. Retaining the strengths of the original edition while incorporating the latest discoveries, this textbook takes an integrated, multidisciplinary, and global approach to geo...

Mapping closely to how ore deposit geology is now taught, this textbook systematically describes and illustrates the major ore deposit types, linking this to their settings in the crust and the geological factors behind their formation. Written for advanced undergraduate and graduate students with a basic background in the geosciences, it provides a balance of practical information and coverage of the relevant geological sciences, including petrological, geochemical, hydrological and tecto...

In 1936 a German chemist identified certain organic molecules that he had extracted from ancient rocks and oils as the fossil remains of chlorophyll--presumably from plants that had lived and died millions of years in the past. It was another twenty-five years before this insight was developed and the term "biomarker" coined to describe fossil molecules whose molecular structures could reveal the presence of otherwise elusive organisms and processes. Echoes of Life is the story of...

Fundamentals of Ecosystem Science provides a compact and comprehensive introduction to modern ecosystem science. This book covers major concepts of ecosystem science, biogeochemistry, and energetics. It addresses, contrasts, and compares both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. It combines general lessons, concepts, frameworks, and challenges in highly accessible synthesis chapters. It presents firsthand case studies, written by leaders in the field, offering personal insights into how ado...

The Earth that sustains us today was born out of a few remarkable, near-catastrophic revolutions, started by biological innovations and marked by global environmental consequences. The revolutions have certain features in common, such as an increase in complexity, energy utilization, and information processing by life. This book describes these revolutions, showing the fundamental interdependence of the evolution of life and its non-living environment. We would not exist unless these uphea...