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Earth as an Evolving Planetary System presents the key topics and questions relating to the evolution of the Earth's crust and mantle over the last four billion years. It examines the role of plate tectonics in the geological past via geological evidence and proposed plate reconstruction.Kent Condie synthesizes data from the fields of oceanography, geophysics, planetology, and geochemistry to examine the key topics and questions relating to the evolution of the Earth's crust and mantle. This volume provides a substantial update to Condie's established text, Plate Tectonics and Crustal Evolution, 4E. It emphasizes the interactive nature of various components of the Earth system on time scales of tens to hundreds of millions of years, and how these interactions have affected the history of the atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere.* New insight on interaction and evolution of Earth system* Examines the role of castrophic events in Earth's history* New section on the evolution of the mantle
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EARTH AS AN EVOLVING PLANETARY SYSTEM
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Earth as an Evolving Planetary System Kent C. Condie
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Elsevier Academic Press 200 Wheeler Road, Burlington, MA 01803, USA 525 B Street, Suite 1900, San Diego, CA 92101-4495, USA 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8RR, UK This book is printed on acid-free paper Copyright © 2005, Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Cover image courtesy of Tasa Graphic Arts, Inc., Taos, NM http://www.tasagraphicarts.com No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in wr