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为你呈现精彩的地球肖像,来一次从地球深处开始的冒险。
内容简介
For generations, the ground beneath the feet of our ancestors seemed solid and unchanging. Around 30 years ago, two things happened that were to revolutionize the understanding of our home planet. First, geologists realized that the continents themselves were drifting across the surface of the globe and that oceans were being created and destroyed. Secondly, pictures of the entire planet were returned from space. As the astronomer Fred Hoyle had predicted, this 'let loose an idea as powerful as any in history'. Suddenly, the Earth began to be viewed as a single entity; a dynamic, interacting whole, controlled by complex processes we scarcely understood. It began to seem less solid. As one astronaut put it, 'a blue jewel on black velvet; small, fragile and touchingly alone'. Geologists at last were able to see the whole as well as the detail; the wood as well as the trees. This book brings their account up to date with the latest understanding of the processes that govern our planet.
目录
- COPYRIGHT
- Acknowledgements
- List of illustrations
- Chapter 1 Dynamic planet
- The view from above
- If rocks could talk
- Other worlds
- Signs of life
- Magnetic bubble
- The fragile veil
- Circles and cycles
- Solar cycles
- Hot air
- Sudden freeze
- Global greenhouse
- Climate change
- Web of life
- The carbon cycle
- Almost an onion
- Lava lamps
- The rock cycle
- Chapter 2 Deep time
- Flood and uniformity
- Dating creation
- The geological column
- Extinctions, unconformities, and catastrophes
- Threat from space
- The menace within
- Chaos reigns
- Deeper time
- Dawn of life
- Birth of Earth
- A chip off the block
- Chapter 3 Deep Earth
- Digging deep
- Messengers from the deep
- Slow flow
- A planetary body scan
- A diamond window on the mantle
- A double boiler?
- Message in a diamond
- The base of the mantle
- Super plumes
- How the Earth melts
- Free-fall
- The core
- The inner core
- Magnetic dynamo
- Taking the Earth's temperature
- Spinning core
- Chapter 4 Under the sea
- Hidden world
- Where did the water come from?
- Salty seas
- The living ocean
- Ocean margins
- The ocean floor
- Landslides and tsunamis
- Sea level
- Drilling the seas
- Messages in the mud
- Life underground
- The longest mountain chain on Earth
- Magnetic stripes
- Boundary of creation
- Black smokers
- Wealth from the sea
- Pushes, pulls, and plumes
- Where oceans go to die
- What's left on land
- Lost oceans
- Chapter 5 Drifting continents
- Scum of the Earth
- Drifting continents
- The Earth is not flat
- Frames of reference
- The continental waltz
- Continental pile-up
- The rise of Tibet
- Monsoon
- Swiss roll
- Cratons
- Profile of a continent
- The rise of granite
- Riches in the earth
- The search for lost continents
- Eternity in a grain of sand
- Super-continents of the future
- Chapter 6 Volcanoes
- How rocks melt
- Hawaii
- Plinean eruptions
- Ring of fire
- Mount St Helens
- Blasts from the past
- Anatomy of a volcano
- Volcanoes and people
- Chapter 7 When the ground shakes
- Earthquake magnitudes
- The most famous crack in the world
- Measuring the movement
- Mid-plate quakes
- The mystery of deep earthquakes
- Awaiting the inevitable
- Designing for earthquakes
- When the ground turns to liquid
- Fire
- Saving lives
- Chance and chaos
- Traditional signs
- Playing the odds
- Real time warnings
- Epilogue
- Further reading
- Index
出版方
牛津大学出版社
牛津大学出版社隶属牛津大学,以环球出版为志业,弘扬牛津大学卓于研究、博于学术、笃于教育的优良传统。 牛津大学出版社成立于1478年,是世界上历史最悠久的大学出版社之一,现也是世界上最大的大学出版社,雇员6000余名,遍布全球50多个国家。每年出版物超过6000种。除了出版发行最优质的教材以外,牛津大学出版社还力求创新,通过不断引进先进的教学法和积极发展电子出版来引领教育。 牛津在北京、上海、广州及成都的代表机构是牛津大学出版社的重要成员,在教科书、词典、学术合作出版方面成绩斐然。牛津以专业积极的姿态,积极引进先进的教育资源和教育方法来协助中国大陆英语教育市场的发展,关注教师职业发展与需求,引领行业创新与进步。
