The Changing Earth Exploring Geology and Evolution / Изменяющаяся Земля. Изучение геологии и эволюции

Earth is a dynamic planet that has changed continuously during its 4.6 billion years of existence. The size, shape, and geographic distribution of the continents and ocean basins have changed through time, as have the atmosphere and biota. As scientists and concerned citizens, we have become increasingly aware of how fragile our planet is and, more importantly, how interdependent all of its various systems and subsystems are.
We also have learned that we cannot continually pollute our environment and that our natural resources are limited and, in most cases, nonrenewable. Furthermore, we are coming to realize how central geology is to our everyday lives. For example, on March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck Japan, killing more than 20,000 people and generating a tsunami that wreaked destruction along the coast of northeastern Japan, as well as damaging three nuclear power plants and causing radioactive leakage in one of them.A major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 resulted in much ecological damage along the shorelines of the Gulf Coast of the United States, as well as to the biota in the Gulf of Mexico. And, finally, Hurricane Sandy caused tremendous damage and major flooding along the Eastern Seaboard o the United States in October 2012.
All of these events point out how much geology affects our lives, as well as the global economy. For these and other reasons, geology is one of the most important college or university courses that a student can take.
The seventh edition of The Changing Earth: Explorin Geology and Evolution is designed to be an introductory course in geology that can serve both majors and nonmajors in geology and the Earth sciences. One of the problems with any introductory science course is that students are overwhelmed by the amount of material that must be learned. Furthermore, most of the material does not seem to be linked by any unifying theme and does not always appear to be relevant to their lives. This book, however, is written to address that problem in that it shows, in its easy-to-read style, that geology is an exciting and ever-changing science in which new discoveries and insights are continually being made.

The goals of this book are to provide students with a basic understanding of geology and its processes and, most importantly, with an understanding of how geology relates to the human experience—that is, how geology affects not only individuals, but society in general. It is also our intent to present the geologic and biologic history of Earth, not as a set of encyclopedic facts to memorize, but rather as a continuum of interrelated events reflecting the underlying geologic and biologic principles and processes that have shaped our planet and life upon it. <...>