Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Charles H. Langmuir is the Higgins Professor of Geochemistry at Harvard University. Wally Broecker is the Newberry Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University and the author of Fixing Climate and The Great Ocean Conveyor (Princeton), among other books. Both are members of the National Academy of Sciences.

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"In this comprehensive and engaging tour of environmental science, world-leading authorities Charles Langmuir and Wally Broecker provide the residents of the only habitable planet we know with the essential knowledge of how we got here and where we might be going."--Richard Alley, Pennsylvania State University

"As NASA continues to assess the habitability of our planetary neighbor, Mars, this insightful and approachable book is a timely reminder of how important it is to understand the habitability of our own Earth. Comprehensive and up-to-date, it exposes how ideas, imperfect understanding, and controversies drive scientific knowledge forward."--Roger Everett Summons, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"This is a magnificent book, a successful and very worthwhile revision of its legendary and coveted first edition. The new edition offers more than a minor dusting off of the material. There are some completely new chapters and the authors have also done a good job of introducing newer discoveries. This book is more timely than ever, and I greet this revision with uncontained enthusiasm."--Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, University of Chicago

"This book is exceptionally well written and easy to read. The authors have taken a huge and complex topic and simplified it, removed the jargon, used analogies common to everyday experience, and as a result made a book that should be accessible and enjoyable to readers with little background in science."--Becky Alexander, University of Washington

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"In this comprehensive and engaging tour of environmental science, world-leading authorities Charles Langmuir and Wally Broecker provide the residents of the only habitable planet we know with the essential knowledge of how we got here and where we might be going."--Richard Alley, Pennsylvania State University

"As NASA continues to assess the habitability of our planetary neighbor, Mars, this insightful and approachable book is a timely reminder of how important it is to understand the habitability of our own Earth. Comprehensive and up-to-date, it exposes how ideas, imperfect understanding, and controversies drive scientific knowledge forward."--Roger Everett Summons, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"This is a magnificent book, a successful and very worthwhile revision of its legendary and coveted first edition. The new edition offers more than a minor dusting off of the material. There are some completely new chapters and the authors have also done a good job of introducing newer discoveries. This book is more timely than ever, and I greet this revision with uncontained enthusiasm."--Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, University of Chicago

"This book is exceptionally well written and easy to read. The authors have taken a huge and complex topic and simplified it, removed the jargon, used analogies common to everyday experience, and as a result made a book that should be accessible and enjoyable to readers with little background in science."--Becky Alexander, University of Washington

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HOW TO BUILD A HABITABLE PLANET

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Contents

PREFACE...............................................................................................................................xvChapter 1. Introduction: Earth and Life as Natural Systems............................................................................1Chapter 2. The Setting: The Big Bang and Galaxy Formation.............................................................................27Chapter 3. The Raw Material: Synthesis of Elements in Stars...........................................................................51Chapter 4. Preliminary Fabrication: Formation of Organic and Inorganic Molecules......................................................83Chapter 5. The Heavy Construction: The Formation of Planets and Moons from a Solar Nebula.............................................113Chapter 6. The Schedule: Quantifying the Timescale with Radionuclides.................................................................141Chapter 7. Interior Modifications: Segregation into Core, Mantle, Crust, Ocean, and Atmosphere........................................171Chapter 8. Contending with the Neighbors: Moons, Asteroids, Comets, and Impacts.......................................................209Chapter 9. Making It Comfortable: Running Water, Temperature Control, and Sun Protection..............................................249Chapter 10. Establishing the Circulation: Plate Tectonics.............................................................................285Chapter 11. Internal Circulation: Mantle Convection and Its Relationship to the Surface...............................................315Chapter 12. Linking the Layers: Solid Earth, Liquid Ocean, and Gaseous Atmosphere.....................................................349Chapter 13. Colonizing the Surface: The Origin of Life as a Planetary Process.........................................................383Chapter 14. Dealing with the Competition: The Roles of Evolution and Extinction in Creating the Diversity of Life.....................427Chapter 15. Energizing the Surface: Coevolution of Life and Planet to Create a Planetary Fuel Cell....................................453Chapter 16. Exterior Modifications: The Record of Oxidation of the Planetary Surface..................................................475Chapter 17. Planetary Evolution: The Importance of Catastrophes and the Question of Directionality....................................509Chapter 18. Coping with the Weather: Causes and Consequences of Naturally Induced Climate Change......................................539Chapter 19. The Rise of Homo Sapiens: Access to Earth's Treasure Chest Permits a Planetary Takeover...................................567Chapter 20. Mankind at the Helm: Human Civilization in a Planetary Context............................................................597Chapter 21. Are We Alone? The Question of Habitability in the Universe................................................................649GLOSSARY..............................................................................................................................669INDEX.................................................................................................................................687

Chapter One

Introduction

The origin and evolution of our inhabited world is both a single subject and a topic of enormous diversity. It is "natural science" in the sense the term was used hundreds of years ago—the understanding of nature—but with a vastly greater panorama of scientific fields and data. The fields include the fundamental sciences of physics, chemistry, and biology, and also the integrative and historical sciences of astronomy and earth science. Most subjects broached in this book could each occupy an entire term of study, so the task is daunting for all of us.

Our aim is to explore Earth's history in detail as an example of a habitable planet, and from that history try to deduce the likelihood of similar histories occurring elsewhere. Within this story there are large numbers of exciting scientific developments and outstanding questions. And the story is the grandest that can be told, the scientific creation story of the universe whose evolution has led to us, human beings who are able to question and investigate the origin of our existence and the universal laws that led to us and surround us.

One of the challenges we face is that the range of scales we will need to encompass is almost unfathomable, from the minute atoms of which we and our planet are made, to the grander scales of solar system and universe of which we are a minuscule part. The smallest scales pertain to how atoms are formed and how molecules combine. The smallest scale of concern to us is the size of the hydrogen nucleus—a starting point for all atoms—which is 0.000000000000001 meters (m) in size. Dealing with very small (or very large) numbers is obviously cumbersome, so we will use exponential notation and abbreviations (Table 1-1). The hydrogen nucleus has a diameter of 10^-15 m. At vastly larger scales, stellar distances are measured in light...