Living earth : a short history of life and its home

목차 (Table of Contents)

• CONTENTS
• Preface page = xiii
• Acknowledgements = xv
• PART 1-IN THE ABYSS OF TIME = 1
• 1 In the beginning = 3
• The earliest Earth = 3
• The water crisis = 8
• A planet fit for life = 15
• The constitution of the solid Earth : plate tectonics = 16
• The importance of water = 25
• Further reading = 29
• 2 The beginn ing of life = 30
• What is life? = 30
• The making of life = 31
• The chicken or the egg? = 33
• The birthplace of life : Darwin's 'if' = 39
• The hydrothermal possibility = 43
• Other ideas = 45
• An opinion = 45
• Further reading = 46
• 3 The Archaean planet = 47
• The beginning of the geological record = 47
• Examples from the geological record : the nature of the evidence = 49
• The physical environment = 59
• Further reading = 64
• PART 2 THE OCCUPATION OF THE PLANET = 65
• 4 The variety of life = 67
• Discovering life's history : stasis or change? = 67
• The interdependence of life = 73
• The Gaia hypothesis = 74
• Further reading = 75
• 5 Life in the Archaean = 76
• The early record of life = 76
• The doings of Archaean life : the creation of the biosphere = 87
• Building an ecosystem = 92
• Further reading = 96
• 6 The surface of the Proterozoic Earth = 97
• The middle age = 97
• Building the continents = 98
• The sedimentary basins of the late Archaean and Proterozoic = 101
• Proterozoic igneous activity = 105
• The Proterozoic world = 105
• Further reading = 107
• 7 The birth of the eukaryotes = 108
• Proterozoic life = 108
• The ancestry of the eukaryotes = 109
• Reproduction and death = 111
• The early eukaryotes = 114
• The metazoa = 117
• The end of the Proterozoic : the Ediacirian record = 118
• The environment at the end of the Proterozoic = 119
• Further reading = 122
• PART 3 THE SPREAD OF THE EUKARYOTES = 123
• 8 The early Palaeozoic explosion and its aftermath = 125
• The survival of the fittest = 125
• The Burgess shale : life in the Cambrian Sea = 127
• More diversification = 134
• Fishes and plants = 136
• Further reading = 145
• 9 Thechangingland = 146
• The dance of the continents = 146
• The mechanism of continental drift = 153
• The arrival of the land animals = 155
• Eggs = 158
• The early reptiles = 159
• Food = 163
• Further reading = 166
• 10 The rule of the reptiles = 167
• The reign of the archosaurs = 167
• The Saurischia = 169
• The Ornithischia = 171
• The domestic economy of the dinosaurs = 172
• Flying reptiles - pterosaurs and birds = 173
• Painting the land : the arrival of colour = 175
• The dinosaurs, science and dinner = 178
• The late Cretaceous disaster = 180
• Further reading = 186
• PART 4 THE MODERN WORLD = 187
• 11 The new world = 189
• A world in turmoil = 189
• The split of the continents = 190
• The changing climate = 192
• The carbon budget = 194
• The spread of the mammals = 195
• The explosion of the placentals = 199
• The C$$_3$$ and, C$$_4$$ Plants = 202
• The birds = 203
• Further reading = 205
• 12 Humanity = 206
• The evolution of the primates = 206
• The early humans = 211
• Hoino sapiens = 212
• The ice ages = 214
• Further reading = 218
• 13 Inhabiting an island = 219
• Conquering the Earth = 219
• The rats at work = 222
• The management of our Earth = 224
• Further reading = 226
• Index = 227