Earth Science History

Despite their cultural influence, the grand narrative of the dinosaur story is rarely told. Most of us have heard of Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus, but these two dinosaurs lived more than eighty million years apart—a greater span of time than the entire post-T. rex history of the planet. Furthermore, we often know even less about the environments these animals lived in. The Shortest History of the Dinosaurs tells the full story, a 230-million-year epic of small beginnings, spectacular golden periods, and eventual global domination.

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD NATIONAL BESTSELLER “A riveting feat of science writing that recasts that most familiar of celestial objects into something eerily extraordinary, pivotal to our history, and awesome in the original sense of the word.”—Ed Yong, New York Times...

We live at the bottom of an ocean of air - 5,200 million million tons, to be exact. It sounds like a lot, but Earth’s atmosphere is smeared onto its surface in an alarmingly thin layer - 99 percent contained within 18 miles. Yet, within this fragile margin lies a magnificent realm - at once gorgeous, terrifying, capricious, and elusive. With his keen eye for identifying and uniting seemingly unrelated events, Chris Dewdney reveals to us the invisible rivers in the sky that affect how our weather works and the structure of clouds and storms and seasons, the rollercoaster of climate.

Edward O. Wilson is one of the world’s preeminent biologists, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and the author of more than 25 books. The defining work in a remarkable career, The Social Conquest of Earth boldly addresses age-old questions (Where did we come from? What are we? Where are we going?) while delving into the biological sources of morality, religion, and the creative arts.

1816 was a remarkable year - mostly for the fact that there was no summer. As a result of a volcanic eruption at Mount Tambora in Indonesia, weather patterns were disrupted worldwide for months, allowing for excessive rain, frost, and snowfall through much of the Northeastern US and Europe in the summer of 1816.

The legendary explorer of the Titanic shares inside stories of danger, suspense, and discovery - plus previously untold stories about his own dyslexia and how it has shaped his life.

Are you puzzled by pulsars? Baffled by black holes? Bewildered by the big bang? If so, here are succinct, crystal-clear answers to more than 100 of the most significant questions about the essential nature of the universe - questions that have fired the imagination since the beginning of history. Over the course of this fantastic voyage, the origins, the discoveries, and the stunning achievements of astronomy will unfold before your eyes

Charles Darwin’s theories, first published more than 150 years ago, still set the paradigm of how we understand the evolution of life—but scientific advances of recent decades have radically altered that understanding. In fact the currently accepted history of life on Earth is flawed and out of date. Now two pioneering scientists, one already an award-winning popular author, deliver an eye-opening narrative that synthesizes a generation’s worth of insights from new research.

High in the Canadian Rockies is a small limestone quarry formed 530 million years ago called the Burgess Shale. It holds the remains of an ancient sea where dozens of strange creatures lived—a forgotten corner of evolution preserved in awesome detail. In this book, Stephen Jay Gould explores what the Burgess Shale tells us about evolution and the nature of history.

The conditions that allowed humans to live on this earth are fragile, incredibly so. Climate variability has at times created new niches that humans or their ancestors could potentially exploit, and challenges that at times have spurred innovation. But there’s a relatively narrow envelope of climate variability within which human civilization remains viable. And our survival depends on conditions remaining within that range. In this book, renowned climate scientist Michael Mann will arm listeners with the knowledge necessary to appreciate the gravity of the unfolding climate crisis.

Regardless of your Sun Sign, the magical art of transmuting aspiration to biographical fact starts with mastering the higher purposes and potentials of Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn. It continues as you learn to forge working alliances with their planetary rulers – Venus, Mercury, and Saturn. Finally, the rubber meets the road in the three Earth houses: the second, the sixth, and the tenth.

What’s in a cloud? Did you know that water vapor is invisible and actually lighter than dry air? What separates a tropical storm from a winter blizzard? And what exactly is El Niño? Elliot Rappaport, a professional captain of traditional sailing ships, has spent three decades at sea, where understanding weather is crucial to the safety of vessels and their crews. In Reading the Glass, he offers a sailor’s-eye view of the moving parts of our atmosphere and unveils the larger patterns it holds: global winds, storms, air masses, jet streams, and the longer arc of our climate.

Devastated by World War III, then an alien invasion coupled with "Danse Macabre", a deadly virus attack, Earth is almost completely depopulated. The land is devastated. The sky is dark with nuclear winter. Despite the swarm's invasion ultimately being defeated, billions of humans were taken on board the Battle Core, infecting it and then wiped out when it plunged into the sun to prevent further infecting the swarm.

San Francisco Earthquake that leveled a city symbolic of America's relentless western expansion. Simon Winchester has also fashioned an enthralling and informative informative look at the tumultuous subterranean world that produces earthquakes, the planet's most sudden and destructive force. In the early morning hours of April 18, 1906, San Francisco and a string of towns to its north-northwest and the south-southeast were overcome by an enormous shaking that was compounded by the violent shocks of an earthquake, registering 8.25 on the Richter scale.

Thousands of years in the future, Earth is a desolate ruin. The first human ship to return in millennia discovers an abandoned wasteland inhabited by only a few degenerate or mutated human outcasts. But among them is a boy of immense native intelligence and determination who grows up to become the force behind a plan to make Earth flower again.

In 1942, Hitler led the world's most savage military machine. Stalin ruled Russia while America was just beginning to show its strength in World War II. Then, in Harry Turtledove's brilliantly imagined Worldwar saga, an alien assault changed everything. Nuclear destruction engulfed major cities, and the invaders claimed half the planet before an uneasy peace could be achieved.

The eagerly awaited new book from the Emmy-winning, Oscar-hosting, Daily Show-anchoring Jon Stewart--the man behind the megaseller America (The Book). Where do we come from? Who created us? Why are we here? These questions have puzzled us since the dawn of time, but when it became apparent to...

The fascinating, often surprising story of how a simple black rock altered the course of history. Yet the mundane mineral that built our global economy, and even today powers our electrical plants, has also caused death, disease, and environmental destruction. In this remarkable book, Barbara Freese takes us on a rich historical journey that begins three hundred million years ago and spans the globe.

"Henry Gee presents a pithy, fascinating account of the stages of biological evolution. ... a meditative and friendly listening experience. —AudioFile on A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth Written and read by the award-winning author of A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth: a history...

Impossible Monsters reveals the central role of dinosaurs and their discovery in toppling traditional religious authority, and in changing perceptions about the Bible, history, and mankind's place in the world.