Reading the Archive of Earth’s Oxygenation: Volume 3: Global Events and the Fennoscandian Arctic Russia - Drilling Early Earth Project (Frontiers in Earth Sciences) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 3662522039 ISBN 13: 9783662522035

Publisher: Springer, 2016

Synopsis

Earth’s present-day environments are the outcome of a 4.5 billion year period of evolution reflecting the interaction of global-scale geological and biological processes. Punctuating that evolution were several extraordinary events and episodes that perturbed the entire Earth system and led to the creation of new environmental conditions, sometimes even to fundamental changes in how planet Earth operated. 
Volume 3: Global Events and the Fennoscandian Arctic Russia - Drilling Earth Project represents another kind of illustrated journey through the early Palaeoproterozoic, provided by syntheses, reviews and summaries of the current state of our understanding of a series of global events that resulted in a fundamental change of the Earth System from an anoxic to an oxic state. The book discusses traces of life, possible causes for the Huronian-age glaciations, addresses radical changes in carbon, sulphur and phosphorus cycles during the Palaeoproterozoic, and provides a comprehensive description and a rich photo-documentation of the early Palaeoproterozoic supergiant, petrified oil-field. Terrestrial environments are characterised through a critical review of available data on weathered and calichified surfaces and travertine deposits. Potential implementation of Ca, Mg, Sr, Fe, Mo, U and Re-Os isotope systems for deciphering Palaeoproterozoic seawater chemistry and a change in the redox-state of water and sedimentary columns are discussed. The volume considers in detail the definition of the oxic atmosphere, possible causes for the oxygen rise, and considers the oxidation of terrestrial environment not as a single event, but a slow-motion process lasting over hundreds of millions of years. Finally, the book provides a roadmap as to how the FAR-DEEP cores may facilitate future interesting science and provide a new foundation for education in earth-science community. Welcome to the illustrative journey through one of the most exciting periods of planet Earth!

About this title

About the Author:

"Lee R. KumpGeology" and is now editor of the "Virtual Journal of Geobiology" and associate editor of "Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta." He is a fellow of the Geological Society of America, and received the Distinguished Service Medal from the Geological Society of America in 2000. Dr. Kump's research interests include the behavior of nutrient and trace elements in natural environments, the evolution of ocean and atmosphere composition on geologic time scales, biogeochemical cycling in aquatic environments, and environmental change during extreme events (mass extinctions, extreme warm periods, glaciations) in Earth history.

"James F. Kasting" is a Professor at Penn State University, where he holds joint appointments in the Departments of Geosciences and Meteorology and is an affiliate of the NASA Astrobiology Institute and Penn State's ESSC. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University in Chemistry and Physics and did his PhD in Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Michigan. Prior to coming to Penn State in 1988, he spent 7 year in the Space Science Division at NASA Ames Research Center. Dr. Kasting is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life. His research focuses on the evolution of planetary atmospheres, particularly the question of why the atmospheres of Mars and Venus are so different from that of Earth. Dr. Kasting is also interested in the question of whether habitable planets exist around other stars and how we might look for signatures of life by doing spectroscopy on their atmospheres.

"Robert G. Crane" received his PhD in Geography from theUniversity of Colorado, Boulder. After working as a Research Associate in the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the World Data Center-A for Glaciology in Boulder, he spent a year teaching at the University of Saskatchewan before moving to Penn State in 1985. Dr. Crane's research has been on microwave remote sensing of sea ice, ice-climate interactions, and, more recently, regional-scale climate change, climate downscaling techniques, and climate change and variability in southern Africa. He is coeditor of a text on the applications of artificial neural networks in geography. Currently Dr. Crane holds the position of Professor in the Department of Geography and an affiliate of the ESSC. He also serves as the Associate Dean for Education in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at Penn State.

Review:

“The third volume of the three-volume set dedicated to this outstanding project comprises major theoretical contributions reviewing the planetary dynamics at the times of the so-called ‘Great Oxidation Event. ... strongly recommended to all Precambrain geologists (including stratigraphers, geochemists, and economic geologists) and palaeontologists (including palaeobiologists and geo-(astro-)biologists) ... . This volume will be both interesting and enjoyable to not only professionals, but also many students specialized in the Precambrian geology.” (Zentralblatt für Geologie und Paläontologie, Issue 5-6, 2014)

About this edition

• Publisher: Springer
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 3662522039
• ISBN 13: 9783662522035
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 528
• Editor: Melezhik Victor, Prave Anthony R., Hanski Eero J., Fallick Anthony E., Lepland Aivo, Kump Lee R., Strauss Harald