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Harold ("Hal") Levin began his career as a petroleum geologist in 1956 after receiving bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Missouri and a doctorate from Washington University. His fondness for teaching brought him back to Washington University in 1962, where he is currently professor of geology and paleontology in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. His writing efforts include authorship of seven edition of The Earth Through Time, four editions of Contemporary Physical Geology; Essentials of Earth Science and co-authorship of Earth: Past and Present, as well as eight editions of Laboratory Studies in Historical Geology; Life Through Time, and more recently, Ancient Invertebrates and Their Living Relatives.
For his courses in physical geology, historical geology, paleontology, sedimentology, and stratigraphy, Hal has received several awards for excellence in teaching. The accompanying photograph was taken during a lecture on life of the Cenozoic Era. The horse skull serves to illustrate changes in the teeth and jaws of grazing animals in response to the spread of prairies and savannahs during the Miocene and subsequent epochs.
CHAPTER 1 The Science of Historical Geology 3
Why Study Earth History? 4
Geology Lives in the Present and the Past 4
A Way to Solve Problems: The Scientific Method 5
Three Great Themes in Earth History 8
What Lies Ahead? 10
CHAPTER 2 Early Geologists Tackle History’s Mysteries 15
The Intrigue of Fossils 16
An Early Scientist Discovers Some Basic Rules 17
English and European Researchers Unravel the Succession of Strata 19
Neptunists and Plutonists Clash 20
An Eighteenth]Century Naturalist Recognizes that the Present is the Key to the Past 20
The Principle of Fossil Succession 22
The Great Uniformitarianism–Catastrophism Controversy 23
The Principle of Cross]Cutting Relationships 24
Evolution: How Organisms Change Through Time 26
Geological History—North America 27
CHAPTER 3 Time and Geology 33
Finding the Age of Rocks: Relative Versus Absolute Dating 34
A Scale of Geological Time 34
Absolute Geological Time: Clocks in the Rocks 39
Radioactivity Provides a Way to Date Rocks 40
What Occurs when Atoms Decay? 41
The Principal Radioactive Timekeepers 44
How Old is Earth? 48
CHAPTER 4 Rocks and Minerals: Documents That Record Earth’s History 53
Minerals as Evidence of Earth History 54
Minerals and Their Properties 54
Common Rock]Forming Minerals 56
Earth’s Three Families of Rock and How They Form 61
Igneous Rocks: From Magma to Stone 62
Sedimentary Rocks: Layered Pages of History 70
Metamorphic Rocks: Changed without Melting 76
CHAPTER 5 The Sedimentary Archives 85
Tectonic Setting is the Greatest Factor in Sediment Deposition 86
Environments where Deposition Occurs 87
What Rock Color Tells Us 93
What Rock Texture Tells Us 95
What Sedimentary Structures Tell Us 98
What Four Sandstone Types Reveal about Tectonic Setting 102
Limestones and How they Form 103
Organizing Strata to Solve Geological Problems 107
Sea]Level Change Means Great Environmental Change 110
Stratigraphy and the Correlation of Rock Bodies 111
Unconformities: Something is Missing 113
Depicting the Past 116
Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona 122
CHAPTER 6 Life on Earth: What Do Fossils Reveal? 129
Fossils: Surviving Records of Past Life 130
Figuring Out How Life is Organized 135
Evolution: Continuous Changes in Life 136
Evidence of Evolution 145
Fossils and Stratigraphy 148
Fossils Indicate Past Environments 153
How Fossils Indicate Paleogeography 157
How Fossils Indicate Past Climates 160
An Overview of the History of Life 162
CHAPTER 7 Plate Tectonics Underlies All Earth History 169
Earthquake Waves Reveal Earth’s Mysterious Interior 170
Earth’s Internal Zones 171
Earth’s Two Types of Crust 174
Plate Tectonics Ties it all Together 175
Drifting Continents 178
Evidence for Continental Drift 179
Paleomagnetism: Ancient Magnetism Locked into Rocks 181
Today’s Plate Tectonics Theory 184
What Happens at Plate Margins? 188
What Drives Plate Tectonics? 195
Verifying Plate Tectonics Theory 196
Thermal Plumes, Hotspots, and Hawaii 200
Exotic Terranes 202
Broken, Squeezed, or Stretched Rocks Produce Geological Structures 204
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park 209
CHAPTER 8 The Earth’s Formative Stages and the Archean Eon 215
Earth in Context: A Little Astronomy 216
A Solar System Tour, From Center to Fringe 221
Following Accretion, Earth Differentiates 227
The Primitive Atmosphere—Virtually No Oxygen 229
The Primitive Ocean and the Hydrologic Cycle 230
Origin of Precambrian “Basement” Rocks 231
The Origin of Life 237
Voyageurs National Park 245
In Retrospect 246
CHAPTER 9 Proterozoic: Dawn of a More Modern World 251
Highlights of Paleoproterozoic (2.5 to 1.6 billion years ago) 252
Highlights of Mesoproterozoic (1.6 to 1.0 billion years ago) 258
Highlights of Neoproterozoic (1.0 to 541 million years ago) 259
Proterozoic Rocks of the United States 261
Proterozoic Life 262
CHAPTER 10 Early Paleozoic Events 275
Dance of the Continents 277
Some Regions Tranquil, Others Active 277
Identifying the Cambrian Base 281
Early Paleozoic Events 281
Cratonic Sequences: Seas Come In, Seas Go Out 283
Sauk and Tippecanoe Sequences 283
Way out West: Events in the Cordillera 287
Deposition in the Far North 290
Dynamic Events in the East 290
Jasper National Park 291
The Caledonian Orogenic Belt 295
Aspects of Early Paleozoic Climate 297
CHAPTER 11 Late Paleozoic Events 303
Seas Come in and Seas Go Out 304
Unrest Along the Western Margin of the Craton 312
To the East, A Clash of Continents 315
Sedimentation and Orogeny in the West 324
Europe During Late Paleozoic 326
Gondwana During Late Paleozoic 327
Climates of Late Paleozoic 328
Mineral Wealth in Upper Paleozoic Rocks 329
Acadia National Park 330
CHAPTER 12 Paleozoic Life 335
Animals with Shells Proliferate—and So Does Preservation 336
Cambrian Explosion of Life: Amazing Fossil Sites in Canada and China 336
The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event 343
A Variety of Living Strategies 343
Protistans: Creatures of a Single Cell 344
Marine Invertebrates Populate the Seas 345
Advent of the Vertebrates 359
The Rise of Fishes 361
Conodonts: Valuable but Enigmatic Fossils 369
Advent of Tetrapods 369
Paleozoic Plants 373
Mass Extinctions 375
CHAPTER 13 Mesozoic Events 383
The Breakup of Pangea 384
Mesozoic in Eastern North America 385
Mesozoic in Western North America 388
Zion National Park 392
The Tethys Sea in Europe 404
Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument 405
Gondwana Events 408
Global Events and Trends 410
CHAPTER 14 Mesozoic Life 415
Climate Controls it All 416
Mesozoic Invertebrates 419
Mesozoic Vertebrates 424
Dinosaurs: “Terrifying Lizards” 427
Dinosaur National Monument 428
Dinosaurs: Cold-Blooded, Warm-Blooded, or Both? 442
Dinosaur Parenting 443
Flying Reptiles 443
Dragons of the Seas 445
The Rise of Modern Birds 447
The Mammalian Vanguard 449
Sea Plants and Phytoplankton 452
Land Plants 454
The End-Cretaceous Catastrophe 456
CHAPTER 15 Cenozoic Events 465
The Tectonics–Climate Connection 466
Stability and Erosion Along the North American Eastern Margin 468
Gulf Coast: Transgressing and Regressing Sea 471
The Western Cordillera 471
Creating the Basin and Range Province 475
Badlands National Park, South Dakota 476
Colorado Plateau Uplift 477
Columbia Plateau and Cascades Volcanism 477
Sierra Nevada and California 482
The New West Coast Tectonics 483
Cenozoic Tectonics Elsewhere 483
Cenozoic Climates: Global Warming then Cooling 486
Big Freeze: The Pleistocene Ice Age 488
What Caused the Ice Age? 496
CHAPTER 16 Cenozoic Life 503
Grasslands Expand, Mammals Respond 505
Plankton 506
Marine Invertebrates 506
Vertebrates 510
Mammals 514
Monotremes 517
Marsupials 517
Placental Mammals 518
Demise of the Pleistocene Giants 536
CHAPTER 17 Human Origins 541
Primates 542
Modern Primates 544
Primate Beginnings 545
Early Anthropoids 548
Australopithecine Stage and the Emergence of Hominins 550
A Species in Transition: Australopithecus Sediba 552
Homo Erectus Stage 554
Final Stages of Human Evolution 555
Humans Arrive in the Americas 561
Human Population: 7 Billion and Growing 563
What Lies Ahead? 564
GLOSSARY 566
INDEX 576
APPENDICES — Available online at www.wiley.com/college/levin
APPENDIX A Classification of Living Things
APPENDIX B Physiographic Provinces of the Contiguous United States
APPENDIX C Periodic Table and Symbols for Chemical Elements
APPENDIX D Convenient Conversion Factors
APPENDIX E Exponential or Scientific Notation
APPENDIX F Rock Symbols
APPENDIX G Bedrock Geology of North America and Central America
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