A Brief History of Geology
Cambridge University Press, 4/19/2018
EAN 9781107176188, ISBN10: 1107176182
Hardcover, 290 pages, 23.6 x 15.9 x 1.7 cm
Language: English
Geology as a science has a fascinating and controversial history. Kieran D. O'Hara's book provides a brief and accessible account of the major events in the history of geology over the last two hundred years, from early theories of Earth structure during the Reformation, through major controversies over the age of the Earth during the Industrial Revolution, to the more recent twentieth-century development of plate tectonic theory, and on to current ideas concerning the Anthropocene. Most chapters include a short 'text box' providing more technical and detailed elaborations on selected topics. The book also includes a history of the geology of the Moon, a topic not normally included in books on the history of geology. The book will appeal to students of Earth science, researchers in geology who wish to learn more about the history of their subject, and general readers interested in the history of science.
Preface
1. Major nineteenth-century players
2. Towards a geologic time scale
3. A vestige of a beginning
the age of the Earth
4. The origin of Igneous rocks
5. Tectonics in crisis
6. Continental drift
7. Plate tectonics
8. Isotope and trace element geology
9. Ice ages and ice cores
10. Geology and evolution of the Moon
11. Welcome to the anthropocene
a man-made epoch?
12. The structure of geological revolutions
Index.