The interactive Earth system: biology in geologic, environmental and climate change throughout Earth history. Since life began it has continually shaped and re-shaped the atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere and the solid earth. This course introduces the concept of 'life as a geological agent' and examines the interaction between biology and the earth system during the roughly 4 billion years since life first appeared.


Course Topics

• Overview of Course; Time Scales; The Big Bang; Origin and Compositions of the Solar System, Earth and Moon; Creation and Distribution of the Chemical Elements
• Earth Segregation; Formation and Composition of Early Atmosphere; Characteristics of the 'Habitable Zone'
• Geologic Evidence for Antiquity of Life
• Theories about the Origin of Life
• Anaerobic Metabolism, Energy Yields, Deep Biosphere
• Oxygenic Photosynthesis; The Rise of Atmospheric O₂
• Life's Three Domains; Evolution of Algae; Fossil and Biogeochemical Evidence for their Presence and Evolution through Geological Time
• Biogeochemical Carbon Cycle
• Proterozoic Ocean Chemistry
• The Cambrian Explosion and the Evolution and Radiation of Metazoans
• Long-Term Climate Cycles #1
• Long-Term Climate Cycles #2
• Mass Extinctions #1
• Mass Extinctions and Re-radiation #2
• Biogeochemical Tracers #1
• Biogeochemical Tracers #2
• Biogeochemical Tracers #3
• The Fate of Buried Organic Carbon; Petroleum and Natural Gas Occurrence and Distribution
• Biogeomorphology: Plants and the Landscape
• Long-term Climate Cycles
• Methane Hydrates; Formation, Distribution, Potential Role in C-cylce and Subsurface Ecosystems Dependent upon Them
• Pleistocene Glaciations, Holocene Climate; Abrupt Climate Change; Anthropogenic Forcing of Climate
  

Grading

Stanley, Steven M. Earth System History. New York: W. H. Freeman & Co., 1999. (On reserve in Lindgren Library.)


Recommended Texts

Wills, Christopher, and Jeffrey Bada. The Spark of Life. Cambridge, MA: Perseus, 2000.

Kump, Lee R., James F. Kasting, and Robert G. Crane. The Earth System. Upper Saddle River, N. J.: Prentice Hall, 1999.