Earth System History

Fourth Edition

Publication Date: September 18, 2019

Paperback ISBN: 9781319154028

Pages: 624

Historical geology from a widely trusted author team.

Steven Stanleys classic textbook, now co-authored with John Luczaj, remains a trusted textbook for any historical geology course written from a truly integrated earth systems perspective. This edition includes important new coverage on mass extinctions, climate change, and Proterozoic history, plus

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Part I Materials, Processes, and Principles.-

CHAPTER 1 Earth as a System

CHAPTER 2 Rock-Forming Minerals and Rocks

CHAPTER 3 The Diversity of Life

CHAPTER 4 Environments and Life

CHAPTER 5 Sedimentary Environments

CHAPTER 6 Correlation and Dating of the Rock Record

CHAPTER 7 Evolution and the Fossil Record

CHAPTER 8 The Theory of Plate Tectonics

CHAPTER 9 Continental Tectonics and Mountain Chains

CHAPTER 10 Major Geochemical CyclesPart II The Story of Earth

CHAPTER 11 The Hadean and Archean Eons of Precambrian Time

CHAPTER 12 The Proterozoic Eon of Precambrian Time

CHAPTER 13 The Early Paleozoic World

CHAPTER 14 The Middle Paleozoic World

CHAPTER 15 The Late Paleozoic World

CHAPTER 16 The Early Mesozoic Era

CHAPTER 17 The Cretaceous World

CHAPTER 18 The Paleogene World

CHAPTER 19 The Late Cenozoic World Before the Holocene

CHAPTER 20 The Retreat of Glaciers and the Holocene

Clear structure and organisation of the text reflects the geologic time scale ensuring students receive a coherent and chronological understanding of the subject.
Chapter objectives, visual overview exercises and related questions provide students with a closer view of the chapter and keep them on track to achieve their goals.
Updated Coverage of all major extinctions and iron formations in the section on Proterozoic history ensures the students receive a through and up-to-date introduction to the subject.
Includes modern pictures of the general phylogeny and classification of life on Earth so students receive current information.

Interactive Timeline of Earth and Life Through Time, available at the Book Companion Site, traces important aspects of Earth or its biota through history demonstrating how these topics are interrelated and underscoring important connections for students.
Exercises, Flashcards, and Animations help students review the important concepts introduced throughout the text.
Quizzes, available at the Book Companion Site, help students assess their current knowledge of a chapter.

Steven M. Stanley

Steven M. Stanley  is a research professor in Paleobiology at the University of Hawaii.  His research includes such areas as functional morphology; macroevolution; effects of changing seawater chemistry on biomineralization, reef growth, and lime sediment production; and the role of  climate change in mass extinctions.  He received an A.B from Princeton University in 1963 and a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1968.  Before moving to the University of Hawaii he was on the faculty of the University of Rochester for two years and the faculty of Johns Hopkins University for thirty-six years.
Dr. Stanley has written three previous editions of Earth System History and a total of three editions of its predecessors, Earth and Life Through Time and Exploring Earth and Life Through Time.  His other books include Principles of Paleontology (with David M. Raup), Macroevolution: Pattern and Process, The New Evolutionary Timetable, Extinction (nominated for an American Book Award), and Children of the Ice Age: How a Global Catastrophe Allowed Humans to Evolve.  He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and numerous awards, including the Paleontological Society Medal, the James H. Shea Award of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (for books authored), the Mary Clark Thompson Medal of the National Academy of Sciences, the Twenhofel Medal of the Society of the Society for Sedimentary Geology, and the Penrose Medal of the Geological Society of America.
Dr. Stanley has taught courses in Earth History, Paleontology, Paleoecology, Macroevolution, Marine Ecology, Biodiversity, and Darwin and Darwinism.

John A. Luczaj

John Luczaj is a field geologist interested in sedimentology, geochemistry, and hydrogeology, specializing in diagenesis in sedimentary systems.  He has conducted research on hydrothermal dolomitization, fluid-inclusions in minerals, groundwater geochemistry and aquifer recovery, geologic mapping, geomorphology, and Holocene cave deposits.  One of his important contributions was the first successful dating of diagenetic dolomite using the U-Pb method.
He received a B.S. in geology from the University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh in 1993, an M.S. in geology from the University of Kansas in 1995, and a Ph.D. in geology from Johns Hopkins University in 2000.  He worked as a USGS-NAGT Summer Trainee at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory in 1993, as a visiting assistant professor at Towson University (1999-2000) and Western Michigan University (2000-2002), and as an environmental consultant from 2002-2005 before joining the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.  He is currently chair of the Geoscience unit in the Department of Natural & Applied Sciences at UW-Green Bay.  In conjunction with the Wisconsin Geological & Natural History Survey, he completed a county-wide bedrock geologic mapping project in 2011.
Dr. Luczaj teaches courses in physical geology, historical geology, sedimentology & stratigraphy, glacial geology, regional field geology, and radioactivity.  His current research focuses on the groundwater chemistry of confined aquifer systems in eastern Wisconsin, the diagenesis of sedimentary rocks, including petroleum reservoirs, and he has recently completed a review article on the geology of the Niagara escarpment in Wisconsin.  He received the Vincent E. Nelson Award in 2001 from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists for his work on hydrothermal dolomitization.