Planetary Crusts: Their Composition, Origin and Evolution (Cambridge Planetary Science, Series Number 10) - Hardcover

Taylor, S. Ross; McLennan, Scott

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521841860 ISBN 13: 9780521841863

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2009

Synopsis

This is the first book ever published to explain how and why solid planets and satellites develop crusts. Written by two leading authorities on the subject, it presents a geochemical and geological survey of the crusts of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, the asteroid Vesta, and several satellites such as Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. After describing how solar system bodies are formed, the authors compare the different planetary crusts and discuss current controversies on the subject. They introduce the theory of stochastic processes dominating crustal development, and debate the possibility of Earth-like planets existing elsewhere in the cosmos. Extensively referenced and annotated, this book presents an up-to-date survey of the scientific problems of crustal development, and is a key reference for researchers and students in geology, geochemistry, planetary science, astrobiology, and astronomy.

About this title

Book Description

This 2009 book explains how and why solid planets and satellites develop crusts. It presents a comprehensive survey and comparative analysis of crustal development on different planetary bodies, and is a key reference for researchers and students in geology, geochemistry, planetary science, astrobiology and astronomy.

About the Author

Ross Taylor was born in New Zealand and is now an Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University. He is a trace element geochemist and carried out the initial analysis of the first lunar sample returned to Earth at NASA, Houston in 1969. He has a D.Sc. from the University of Oxford, is a Foreign Member of the US National Academy of Sciences. and has received the Goldschmidt Medal of the Geochemical Society, the Leonard Medal of the Meteoritical Society and the Bucher Medal of the American Geophysical Union. He is the author of six other books including Solar System Evolution, Second edition (Cambridge University Press, 2001). Asteroid 5670 is named Rosstaylor in his honour. Scott M. McLennan is Professor of Geochemistry at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He conducts research into the geochemistry of sedimentary rocks, and has published 140 papers in the fields of geochemistry, planetary science and sedimentology. Since 1998, he has applied laboratory experiments and data returned from missions to Mars to understand the sedimentary processes of that planet, and is on the science teams of the 2003 Mars Exploration Rover and 2001 Mars Odyssey missions. He received a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation in 1989 and a NASA Group Achievement Award as part of the Mars Exploration Rover Science Operations Team in 2004.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521841860
• ISBN 13: 9780521841863
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 402