From Stardust to Living Planet - The First 4.5 Billion Years

Covered the evolutionary process thoroughly from day one to today. I learned of eras I had no idea existed. Seems like our schools can't go back beyond dinosours. I had no idea of the formation of the moon and its relationship with earth. I listened to the story as an audio book, then I had to get an ebook copy.

If you really like rocks, you'll like this book. Lots of geology. However, most of Earth's history is about rocks and minerals, so not that surprising. Good book, even for those who can't tell the difference between basalt and limestone.

This widely pupblished author writes well fro the popular audience. Much of his information was new to me, although it may have been available ingeological and astrophysical circles for years. Originally this book was on a class syllabus, but it may be a keeper.

The best overview of the formation and development of earth and the solar system I have read. Easily understood by those of us with limited science backgrounds - and complete enough for those with it. I would highly recommend this book.

There is one insight after another in this story of our amazing planet and its cycles from inhospitable to hospitable to life. The author shows how minerals evolved from elementary atoms from the formation of the solar system into hundreds of thousands of unique minerals due to the metabolism of life forms. This was a great ride into the minds of earth scientists, and history of their recent collaboration across disciplines: minerology, paleontology, geology, chemistry, volcanology and so forth. For a geek like me, it deserves a second read.

I have long been fascinated by the earth sciences, although I never took a high school or college course in the field. In the past, I have picked up geology or earth sciences textbooks but the academic writing has always seemed as dry on the subject matter itself. Robert Hazen's The Story of Earth is a wonderful introduction for the general reader. The writing is engaging, the overall vision is broad, the topic is handled as a historical narrative, and Hazen leaves the reader even more curious about the earth sciences than when s/he picked up the book. Like all good popular science, the author forges new connections for the reader - between mineralogy and biology, astronomy and chemistry, meteorology and bacteriology - that stimulate you to learn more. In fact, my one criticism of the book is that Hazen offers no suggestions for further reading or exploration. Regardless, The Story of Earth is a marvelous contribution.

Generally amazing and very enlightening. Some chapters were hard to wade through because of the emphasis on detail. These details are probably good for the technical reader, but a bit to much for the casual reader.

I had a friend recommend this book to me and I'm so glad he did. This book is written extremely well and moves through the fascinating history of Earth's formation at a quick pace. Still, with the quick pace, the book is packed with really interesting information that is layered on sentence after sentence. I always recommend this book to anyone who is remotely interested in Science.

Comprehensive review of the earliest Hadean history of the planet. The weak sun puzzle explained by a combination of dense greenhouse atmosphere and enhanced heat flow from interior. Insightful portrayal of the Hadean earth with a transition from chaotic vertical convection to the organization of horizontal gyres that lead to continental drift sometime after 3.5 billion years ago. Life may well have been present by 3.5 by but only existing as part of the slow oxidation process (surface rusting) and not creating any new chemistry at all. There is the suggestion that all of the five major extinction events of the Phanerazoic times are associated with massive volcanic eruptions – a continuing form of vertical convection where large bubbles of magma arise as plumes from pools of magma at the core-mantle boundary. The pulse of change is measured by the assembly and break-up of mega-continents at 2.7, 1.8, and 1.0 by. Creation of Rodinia at 1.0 leads to a period without such thick sediments since there are no basins. From the initial oxidation at 2.5, atmospheric O2 is low (2% or less) and seas are excruciatingly slow to oxidize, taking a full billion years to complete. Plus the oxidation is accomplished by a sulfate to sulfide reaction that leaves a chemical environment hostile to life with no way to metabolize N2. Hints of early microbe mat colonies of photosynthesizing algae where photons are used as an energy source but O2 not generated by these primitive reactions. New minerals are shown to appear in pulses that must be associated with certain phases of the content assembly and breakup cycle. The Boring Billion otherwise shows little sign of dramatic changes from a combination of negative climate feedback and limited presence of living organisms. Then the full oxidation occurs in the wild climate oscillations of the Iceball Earth stage. Here there is no specific explanation, just hints that the breakup of Rodinia after 800 mya resulted in a new positive feedback mechanism with massive algal blooms in new shallow seas, access to NH3 by available catalysts in oxidized oceans, and interaction with methane hydrates cycling in and out of super greenhouse conditions. This is my main reason for down-rating the book a bit because it is so "soft" on specific causes of this event. Phosphorus availability may also have been a factor, with major phosphate deposits dating from this time. Deep carbon may also be involved in the generation of methane as well as CO2. Compared to chondrites, earth’s crust is greatly depleted of C, so there may be deep mineral reservoirs. After Cambrian explosion the story is pretty much the standard course through paleontology we see in all of the older textbooks. The one specific insight is in the role of hard shells as a major part of diversification as an armor war erupts in myriads of new hard mineral defense structures for life forms. A little extra stress placed on the impact of land plants and their mycorrhizal roots on the creation of a soil–based ecosystem, and then on the third great oxidation event produced by the Coal Age. The last part is a series of nested projections into the future. Ultimate destruction by a solar red giant, evaporated oceans 2 by hence, novopangea by 250 my, mega impact within 50 my, megavolcano in the next 100 ky. Colonization of space the only option for long-term survival. Human impact on climate not likely worse than much larger changes in the past so life will survive, just maybe not us and some of our favorite fellow species.

A review in my newspaper alerted me to this book. It's the history of our planet since it's beginning and it's fascinating. It explains for instance where all the water on our planet comes from. If you are into stuff like this( and I am) you will like this book. It's very well written and an interested lay-man can get a lot out of it.

Very good book. I do find it interesting how Hazen is so sold on AGW. Yet he presents no evidence for it like he does for his other conclusions. Most intelligent geologists I know understand there is no proof for AGW. But I guess when you work with NASA you have to tow the line for funding. Unless you are Roy Spencer.

To tell a story spanning 4.5 billion years in one book? It's a hard ask, but Robert Hazen does it and does it well, striking the right balance between too little detail and too much. The section on how competition for rock surfaces drove the organisation and concentration of complex biomolecules, the building blocks of life, was intellectually stunning. That natural selection might have been at work before life even existed came as a profound revelation, as is the thought that the same processes may have laid the foundations for life on other planets and moons (Europa for example).

Would that all those mired in superstition, fear, and ignorance might read this book with open, enquiring, and rational minds.

I am gathering books together to create a "big history". This book looked to be a likely fit for earth geologic history. I am compelled to object to some things in the early part of the book. He uses words which seem odd for a science book. He inserts religionist style phrasing. He speaks of creation, miraculous events and the unknowable aspects of thinks. He even suggests looking for a creator god in the big bang. I don't know if he is actually believes in a god or is trying to attract others who do. But it degrades my enthusiasm. I will update this as I get further into the book.

Addendum: I am abandoning this book. I do not know if the author is an old earth creationist or he's promoting the book to old earth creationists. But he has already made too many references to a creator god and "design" just in the first chapter before he even gets to Earth. He indicates that people looking for a creator god might start with the big bang. He later says that supernovas are a good place to look for design in the cosmos. I wanted a book about the physical history of the earth and I get one which also makes suggestions to a supernatural origin. The suggestions are thrown in with no validation or explanation. It's like the author is trying to subtly make suggestions which don't otherwise fit in the structure of the book.

Presents Geology and Mineralogy from a refreshing new perspective. Seemed like an open minded scientist for most of the book until he wanders off into the quicksand of global warming. That tends to diminish his credibility.

In this excellent volume, Robert Hazen tells us the story of how earth came to be, a real story that is grander than any creation myth. He starts with the Big Bang and then leads us through the formation of stars, galaxies, the solar system and finally to the evolution of earth. Hazen is a geologist by training so he especially excels in recounting the the formation of the planet from minerals and elements and their subsequent differentiation into the core, magma and crust that define the structure of our planet.

But this is where the story is just getting warmed up. The upheavals that earth faced during the next 4.5 billion years have been tremendous and Hazen documents them exceedingly well. Earth has seen huge transitions that crucially contributed to the evolution and extinction of life. These included massive tectonic shifts, the famous continental drifts, intense periodic cycles of thawing and freezing, the waxing and waning of oxygen levels in the atmosphere and the constant churning and renewing of earth's raw materials through volcanic, oceanic and tectonic activity. The magnitude of these events is illustrated for instance by the fact that at one point in time the Appalachians were submerged in the ocean. The movement of entire continents across thousands of miles, the rise and fall of imposing mountain ranges and the obliteration of thousands of species and landscapes by the impact of meteorites is almost impossible to imagine. But the evidence is incontrovertible.

The real strength of the book is in describing the influence of this grand geological drama on the evolution of life, and how this evolution would have been impossible without the crucial interplay between geology and biology. Hazen describes the key scientific methods that told us about the massive changes in earth's history; most of these methods involve isotopic studies of one kind or another and have been paramount in revealing for instance how changes in oxygen levels decisively impacted the evolution of the shapes, sizes and ecological niches of living organisms. These studies combined with meticulous classification of fossils have provided a vision of a planet whose supposed tranquility conceals game changing events like asteroid impacts and mass extinctions. Yet where there is death there is life, and it was these catastrophes that greatly influenced the evolution of species; for instance, the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs opened up all kinds of ecological niches for mammals, a key evolutionary step without which humans may likely have not seen the light of day. Similar geological phenomena shaped the structure, function, life and death of countless species, with at least five major mass extinctions documented in the planetary record. In addition the periodic ice ages further sculpted the distribution of resources and the fate of creatures which fed on these resources.

The last part of the book struck me as especially poignant. In it Hazen dispels the silly notion that we need to "save the planet". Whatever the impacts of climate change are, the fact is that earth has always been in flux and the changes it has undergone have been so massive that although humans can affect its makeup to some extent, our planet will go on cycling between these gargantuan alterations with or without our intervention. Its history indicates that ultimately the earth does not really care what we do. As Hazen puts is, the earth will assuredly survive; what we really need to save is ourselves.

This has to be about the most coherent and readable book about the formation of our planet that I have read. It made the processes that formed Earth make sense in ways that no other book has (and I've read some good ones). But it also reads like a family album, or the biography of a beloved friend. For those reasons alone I recommend it.

The bonus of the book (and the area most likely up for debate) is the fresh viewpoint that the author brings to the symbiotic connection between biological life and geology. We all understand that without the basic elements that were gathered from the cosmos by the Earth, life could not have begun. But it also appears that it was life itself that then began to alter "lifeless" geology, mainly in the form of minerals that then became the further building blocks of ever-evolving life forms.

Life exists in many forms and in many places on and in the earth. We tend to think of the things that live and crawl on the surface, or swim in the sea, but the roots of living plants facilitate chemical reactions in rocks and soil to a degree that their actions must be considered a significant shaper of landscape -- more so than erosion by wind and rain.

It is a way to see our planet that has an elegant and fascinating complexity to it. Our life story is not one of life simply springing up on a watery planet that just happened to be the right distance from an energy-supplying sun, but of an interplay between chemistry, environment, time and chance that has played out over and over and over again through extinctions and near extinctions, changes in atmosphere and the chemical composition of the oceans as well as the surface of the planet to arrive at the biologically-rich world that we know today.

As one might expect, there is a final-chapter discussion of our current climate issue, but it is set firmly within a recognition of the dynamic nature of our planet:

"In the midst of these forces, our species has proved to be resilient, clever, and adaptable. We have learned technological tricks to shape our world to our will: we mine and refine its metals, fertilize and cultivate its soils, divert and exploit its rivers, extract and burn its fossil fuels. Our actions are not without consequences. Every day, if we are attuned to the dynamic process of our planetary home, we can experience every facet of its intertwined creative forces. And we can then understand how devastatingly changeable the world can be, and how utterly indifferent it is to our fleeting aspirations."

I highly recommend this book both as a fine tale of our home planet, and as a reminder of how many important scientific discoveries about it have come in our lifetimes.

The book got good reviews in Physics Today so I ordered it. As a retired professional astronomer, I noticed a lot of blunders in the early section on the formation of the Earth. The rest read OK, interesting sidelights on the evolution of the Earth (but not my expertise, of course).

I enjoyed this book. Robert Hazen starts from the beginning and describes how the Earth formed from starstuff, its crust and minerals crystallizing from cooling magma. He covers the planet's storied relationship with its moon, the importance of tectonic plates, the formation of the seas, and the magnetosphere. We learn about the chemistry that provided a basis for proto-life-as-we-know-it, and, eventually, the real deal. We learn about the complex feedback loops that govern the climate system, the revelation that the entire planet may have once been covered in ice.

Hazen emphasizes the interdependence of the planet's features and life itself: "geology influences life and life influences life". Eons of metabolizing, respiring, and dying plants and animals have unquestionable altered the features and chemical makeup of the Earth's surface, and, more importantly, the climate. Hazen also takes some time to identify instances of past natural climate change, triggered by imperfections in the Earth's rotation, changes in the sun, volcanic activity, feedback loops caused by clouds/ocean/ice, and the emissions of the biosphere. Deniers of man-made climate change often refer to such events (usually with limited understanding of what caused them) to minimize the idea that human activity makes any difference, but Hazen points to the past as evidence that the equilibrium is delicate and *can* be changed, sometimes with catastrophic consequences for the ecosystem.

Finally, I've often wondered how scientists *know* about things that happened millions or billions of years ago -- I mean, I was aware that they had methods, but I couldn't have explained them in much depth. Well, this book provides some good answers.

A worthwhile read. Informative and sweeping without being too dense.

"Earth has always been a restless, evolving planet. From core to crust, it is incessantly mutable. Even today the air, the oceans, and the land are changing, perhaps at a pace unequaled in our planet's recent past." In his introduction, Hazen warns us of the impermanence of the rocks beneath our feet.

Starting 13.7 billion years ago with the Big Bang he shows the reader how the stars formed and how this led to the birth of our solar system and the Earth. From there he takes the reader on a journey of 4.5 billion years and on into the speculative future. The chapter titles are signposts that a reader can follow. Some are descriptive of what an observer would see from space -" Black Earth, the First Basalt Crust", "Blue Earth, the Formation of the Oceans" on to "White Earth, The Snowball-Hothouse Cycle". A few are guaranteed to get our attention, such as "The Big Thwack, The Formation of the Moon" and "The Future, Scenarios of a Changing Planet".

Geology used to be a field that progressed as slowly as its subjects - the tortoise compared to the hares of biology and physics. Within the last half century, geology has joined biology and a host of other rapidly evolving fields to apply technology to the story of the evolving earth influencing and influenced by the evolution of life.

Hazen presents his material in a way that captures the imagination and lets the reader share the excitement of new discoveries. And when we come to the end of the story as it is currently known, he shows us how that story can be used to predict what may be ahead on various time scales.

The thesis brought forth by Professor Robert Hazen in this work is literally earth shattering: he describes how minerals evolve and, in particular, how life on Earth has had a major role on the composition of current rocks. Of course, he insists on the fact that this evolution still goes on.

This is a major shift in the field of mineralogy, specialists implicitly assuming until very recently that minerals were timeless.

Many other elements brought up in the book are mind boggling: the Moon is (relatively quickly) moving away from the Earth, our planet’s rotation is slowing down, an amazing quantity of material from outer space collides with us yearly, etc.

Sadly, though the text itself is quite well written and lively, the book’s presentation is dismally outdated. Except a very modest timeline at the beginning of each chapter, there is not a single illustration in the whole book: no graphs, no photos, no diagrams, nothing.

In our current day and age, this ill serves the contents and certainly explains why there has been very limited coverage by general media of the revolutionary contents.

Nevertheless, despite its lack of glamour, those even vaguely interested in the topic will find it worthwhile to invest money, time and energy in reading this book.

Hazen is a practicing scientist, and a more than adequate science writer. This book discusses some of the most interesting aspects of geology: how the earth and the moon formed, what the earth is currently like from surface to core, plate tectonics, what rocks can tell us about the evolution of life, and how life influenced the earth. In some cases Hazen discusses discredited theories as well as the current theory, and this tends to be some of the most interesting material. Still not totally resolved is whether the formation of oil first requires life; a number of sponsors, including an oil company, are contributing to the expensive development of a new instrument which will take years to develop, and may finally resolve the issue. This instrument relates to measuring relative abundance of isotopes of oxygen, and it turns out that isotope abundance has been critical in resolving other issues. While biology is not Hazen's primary expertise, he does a very good job in discussing the alternative explanations of how life originated (and of course rocks probably played an important role in concentrating molecules). He does perpetuate the discredited idea that only "runty" mammals existed during the era of the dinosaurs. Some things that caught my eye follow (keeping in mind I already knew a fair amount about evolution and something about snowball earth and plate tectonics).

The first 26 elements of the periodic table, up to iron, are created by fusion inside a star, but a supernova explosion is required to create the others. All the planets and moons in our solar system are on the same plane. There is a 26 mile walk just south of Annapolis, between Chesapeake Bay and "stately, undulating" fossil packed cliffs. Since the moon was formed, it has continuously moved farther from earth (it was once close), and has slowed the earth's rotation, lengthening the day. 98% of earth's mass consists of oxygen, silicon, aluminum, magnesium, calcium and iron. When the earth started cooling and surface water became possible, one ocean covered almost the entire earth with just small volcanic islands. Convection is the primary form of earth's cooling, and driver of plate tectonics as magma rises in some spots, and cooler heavier rock falls back toward the core in other spots. It is the plates under the crust that are moving: granite cannot subduct, it is too light, but rides on the plates. Both the moon and Mars have subsurface water. For the first 1.5 billion years of earth's history, the sun was 25 to 30 percent less bright than today (but more heat arose from earth's core). That amino acids are "left handed" and sugars "right handed" is probably due to the chiral surfaces of rocks and which organic molecules have affinity for which rocks. Organic molecules, formed by non-biological events, are everywhere in the universe.

While the "Great Oxidation Event" occurred around 2.4 billion years ago, there is good evidence that microbial photosynthesis (or at least photochemistry using sunlight for energy) began by 3.5 billion years ago. Around 65 million years ago, when the dinosaurs and many other species went extinct, there appears to have been a significant drop in sea level, yet there was no ice age and the cause is not known: one speculation is that midocean ridges became less active, causing cooling, contraction and sinking of the entire ocean floor.

Author Robert M. Hazen makes the case that we don't necessarily have to look into space to find out how we got here. All we have to do is study the geological record right at home. And what a tale it tells. For most of the 4.5 billion years of Earth's existence, (99.9% of it), man was nowhere in sight. We are hardly a blip on the radar. And, in spite of our best efforts to destroy the planet, (through pollution, overheating and nuclear war), the Earth will survive, (even if we don't. That would, of course, be contingent on the Sun not burning out; which will indeed happen in about five billion years; so you don't have to get your affairs in order quite yet).
You see, according to Mr. Hazen, the planet has been through it all before; from meteorites, (which will again strike us); to ice ages, to great floods, to volcanoes, and events which have not yet been deciphered. Life has been on the brink of extinction many times. In fact, for over 2 billion years the planet did not really support life at all, (as we have come to understand it). The author presents the case for a multiplicity of possible scenarios, but one thing he makes clear, our existence is dependent on the minerals and the chemistry of the planet. Our unique biological footprint is only made possible by our ability to survive our environment.
Of course it didn't have to turn out like this, (contrary to what the creationists will tell you). You know how it goes, the victors, (in the biological war), mankind, get to write the history; and, up until now, we wrote it to favor ourselves. So of course our myths involve the creation of a species, (more often a particular race, made in the likeness of a particular god), who are chosen and put here to rule the planet. But there were many epochs in Earth's history that paved the way for our ascension, (including the destruction of the dinosaurs by meteorite and possible volcanic poisoning).
So, if one day we do the ultimate thing and push the nuclear button, or continue to allow China and other manufacturing "exporters", (who really work for our corporations), to pollute at will, (with no environmental regulation), we may indeed join Tyrannosaurus Rex in the Paleontological graveyard. Maybe a future, and as yet unformed species, will dig a few of us up for inspection, and remove the better specimens for mounting in a future natural history museum. We will probably be put near the back of the building because the dinosaurs will still put on the best show. I mean, come on, would you rather look at the species that willingly tried to destroy the planet, (in spite of their large brains and "culture"); or a Brontosaurus?

Do you know whence you came? We are all lightning bolts in the tapestry of time, and Robert Hazen reveals how to interpret the pattern over the vast history of Earth. He shows how to unravel the threads hidden in the rocks to describe the geologic evolution that had to occur to allow the formation of living cells and the biological evolution of which we are part. The narrative is fascinating, beginning with the glowing ember that first coalesced during the formation of the solar system. The key to understanding the story written in the rocks is chemistry, and Hazen does a masterful job of explaining what you need to know and what it means without getting bogged down so the details spoil the drama.

The story is fascinating, as he traces the different phases of Earth's surface. From the bleak, lunar like feldspar coating that was wrenched by tides of magma the folded and remelted the crust again and again, to reshape the composition of the land surface. The liberation of water to create the seas, the evolution of granite cratons, and, eventually the liberation of oxygen form a panoramic overview of the billions of years it took to create an atmosphere. The essential role that mineral surfaces played, allowing organic molecules to assemble into complex, self-replicating cells.

The pace is fast because there is so much to cover. Hazen presents it well, and weaves some of the personalities of the people who contributed to revealing the mysteries. It is a great detective story. Not only does it trace the patterns through the billions of years that have passed, you'll also learn how the trajectories are going to impact the future into the wild blue yonder.

I give this book five stars even though it is not perfect because it is by far the best introduction to geology I have ever had the pleasure to read. What is missing which had it not been would make it perfect? The book is so good it excites the reader to want to know more and explore its ideas further. Alas there are no footnotes nor bibliography to assist such further exploration. I would also have liked more charts, tables, photographs to illustrate its many fine points. This latter desire would have increased the cost of the book, so that is a compromise. Having read it though I feel the absence of a bibliography, or suggested further reading list, acutely. Overall, though, the best intro to geo extant!

Everything is there: from astrophysics to biology, from geology to climate change, from plate tectonics to mineralogy, from chemistry to evolution, this book links all these disciplines, and more, together to tell an exciting and captivating story of how we end up having our earth this present way. Additionally, it includes brief descriptions of ingenious methods that scientists employ to understand how our earth was like billions of years ago. That we are here is nothing short of miraculous. Saying that, the book also reminds us that we are just "an eyeblink in our planet's history". The topical issue of man made global warming is also put in the context, and is at once sobering and poignant. A most fascinating read.

As a science lover, I loved this book. It brings together astronomy, chemistry, biology and geology in a very interesting way. Until I read this book I was largely ignorant of, and uninterested, in geology. I learned a lot from this book.

I recommend this book to anyone who is curious about the world they live in and how it came to be.

The author is earnest, and gets to the point. But he is trying to cover too much history in such a short book. I liked, it, but wish he had spent 10 years researching and developing his ideas before writing the book. Not a lot of new ideas for those who are students of earth's geology, climatology and evolution of the biosphere.

I'm only half-way through but already the inaccuracies I have found make me wonder what else in this book is wrong. My field is gemology so, of course, anything that has to do with gem materials caught my attention. For instance, on page 12, Dr. Hazen mentions "... olivine, the semiprecious birthstone of August." That's incorrect; that distinction goes to peridot, the gem variety of the mineral olivine. ( Besides, this is the kind of information that has no place in a short book about the origins of the earth - not to mention that the whole birthstone thing is just a marketing gimmick.) Still on page 12, the author makes a confusing allusion to "moissanite, a silicon carbide often sold these days as a cheap synthetic substitute for diamond." I just want to clear up a couple of things. Moissanite is a naturally occurring mineral and indeed a silicon carbide; it is however synthetic moissanite (meaning that it's man-made) that is sometimes used as a diamond simulant (a more accurate designation than "substitute"); synthetic moissanite is cheaper than diamond but more expensive than synthetic cubic zirconia, the other all-time favorite diamond simulant; moissanite is doubly-refractive whereas diamond is singly refractive (please note that there are lots of stupidities written about gemstones out there so beware!) Now, back to the book review: I like it. It contains some wonderful information, particularly when Dr. Hazen delves into chemistry and geochemistry. I have learned a lot of new things thus far but the book needs some serious editing. I'd give three and a half stars if I could.

The book reads so easily - like a whodunit - I couldn't put it down. There were only two short sections so technical that I sped over them. As his story is earth, and not living organisms on earth, I was sad when he didn't use his wonderful story telling ability to go much into the development, and demise, of living creatures.

I am very interested in the history of the earth. I remember years back when Carl Sangan mentioned on his TV show Cosmos that oak trees and humans have almost identical DNA and that we are certainly made out of the same stuff. I was amazed. Now reading Robert Hazen I find that a major catalyst for life was rocks and that life has had its own profound effect on the "evolution" of minerals. Again I am in awe of the interrelationship of geology and biology. Just like we humans are a collection of amoeba like cells all working for a common purpose, it appears the earth is a collection of rocks, water, atmosphere, and life all contributing to geo-evolution. It is fascinating how all earth stuff is connected and have profound effects on each other. I highly recommend this book.

Despite my love of earth sciences I, with great relief, eventually discontinued this book at 61% due to multiple inadequacies. At 61% the author compares planetary weather to that of a solitary house - not only a poor metaphor but directed to the intelligence of a 7th grader ... an insult to the reader.

The author drills so deep into multiple topics he loses context of greater story and drags the reader into endless (irrelevant) minutia.

Grammatically this book is written with sloppy English. The very nature of early earth history is speculative yet the author misuses the conditional tense repeatedly. The author is in love with prepositional verbs and invariably misuses them - "swallows up" .. "burns up" etc. Errrrgh! The text is both repetitive and tangential.

After two weeks of fighting this book I eventually deleted it from my Kindle with no regrets other than a waste of $8.

As a science lover, I loved this book. It brings together astronomy, chemistry, biology and geology in a very interesting way. Until I read this book I was largely ignorant of, and uninterested, in geology. I learned a lot from this book.

I recommend this book to anyone who is curious about the world they live in and how it came to be.

The author is earnest, and gets to the point. But he is trying to cover too much history in such a short book. I liked, it, but wish he had spent 10 years researching and developing his ideas before writing the book. Not a lot of new ideas for those who are students of earth's geology, climatology and evolution of the biosphere.

I'm only half-way through but already the inaccuracies I have found make me wonder what else in this book is wrong. My field is gemology so, of course, anything that has to do with gem materials caught my attention. For instance, on page 12, Dr. Hazen mentions "... olivine, the semiprecious birthstone of August." That's incorrect; that distinction goes to peridot, the gem variety of the mineral olivine. ( Besides, this is the kind of information that has no place in a short book about the origins of the earth - not to mention that the whole birthstone thing is just a marketing gimmick.) Still on page 12, the author makes a confusing allusion to "moissanite, a silicon carbide often sold these days as a cheap synthetic substitute for diamond." I just want to clear up a couple of things. Moissanite is a naturally occurring mineral and indeed a silicon carbide; it is however synthetic moissanite (meaning that it's man-made) that is sometimes used as a diamond simulant (a more accurate designation than "substitute"); synthetic moissanite is cheaper than diamond but more expensive than synthetic cubic zirconia, the other all-time favorite diamond simulant; moissanite is doubly-refractive whereas diamond is singly refractive (please note that there are lots of stupidities written about gemstones out there so beware!) Now, back to the book review: I like it. It contains some wonderful information, particularly when Dr. Hazen delves into chemistry and geochemistry. I have learned a lot of new things thus far but the book needs some serious editing. I'd give three and a half stars if I could.

The book reads so easily - like a whodunit - I couldn't put it down. There were only two short sections so technical that I sped over them. As his story is earth, and not living organisms on earth, I was sad when he didn't use his wonderful story telling ability to go much into the development, and demise, of living creatures.

I am very interested in the history of the earth. I remember years back when Carl Sangan mentioned on his TV show Cosmos that oak trees and humans have almost identical DNA and that we are certainly made out of the same stuff. I was amazed. Now reading Robert Hazen I find that a major catalyst for life was rocks and that life has had its own profound effect on the "evolution" of minerals. Again I am in awe of the interrelationship of geology and biology. Just like we humans are a collection of amoeba like cells all working for a common purpose, it appears the earth is a collection of rocks, water, atmosphere, and life all contributing to geo-evolution. It is fascinating how all earth stuff is connected and have profound effects on each other. I highly recommend this book.

Despite my love of earth sciences I, with great relief, eventually discontinued this book at 61% due to multiple inadequacies. At 61% the author compares planetary weather to that of a solitary house - not only a poor metaphor but directed to the intelligence of a 7th grader ... an insult to the reader.

The author drills so deep into multiple topics he loses context of greater story and drags the reader into endless (irrelevant) minutia.

Grammatically this book is written with sloppy English. The very nature of early earth history is speculative yet the author misuses the conditional tense repeatedly. The author is in love with prepositional verbs and invariably misuses them - "swallows up" .. "burns up" etc. Errrrgh! The text is both repetitive and tangential.

After two weeks of fighting this book I eventually deleted it from my Kindle with no regrets other than a waste of $8.

A really really interesting and well written book explaining in broad strokes the history of planet earth from a collection of planetesimals to now and even to the future. If you are at all interested in the topic - consider buying this one. Does require some basic understanding of science, but it is very much written for the intelligent novice.

Hazel is particularly good at making geological history a "story" as the title hints. He takes a geological/long view of the earth's prospects, so do not expect charged polemics about climate change. The book is fun, informative, sobering, and very readable. If you enjoy geology, history, and a little bit theory, reading this book will be time well spent.

This book would be greatly improved by having diagrams to show things like the transition peridotite->basalt->granite, the tectonic plates and subduction, and perhaps things like a tally of the elements and minerals in the Earth with their estimated amounts. And a pronouncing glossary would be helpful: a short description of peridotite to glance at while reading is simpler than having to look up in the index the first occurrence of the word peridotite (and I would have liked to know how to pronounce peridotite). Unfortunately for the reader who forgets what shale is, this term does not appear in the index. Also, Hazen uses terms like Ediacaran and Paleozoic without explanation, and this could be explained just by having a table of the different geological periods at the start or end of the book.

Hazen takes space to write about academic drama in which I was not interested. He tells us about his paper published in the American Mineralogist, and other papers published in Nature and Science, and how members of the National Academy of Science can publish papers in the Proceedings without peer review. Perhaps this was done to make geology seem like an exciting human activity. Or perhaps it was done because it's easy to gush about your colleagues and the book wasn't edited severely enough. In general I believe that the quality of editing in science books is low, because there are few people with both an interest and knowledge in science and and an interest and knowledge of writing.

And I'm not sure why Hazen states the modern value for the equatorial circumference of the Earth when discussing Eratosthenes, who measured the meriodinal circumference. Indeed these are almost the same, but it's confusing to the reader who doesn't have a firm understanding of what Eratosthenes did.

I don't like Hazen's writing. A particular bad practice of his was to use the phrase "cosmic insult" (or just "insult") several times to refer to a body hitting the Earth. I also found his use of the phrase "boring billion" to refer to the mesoproterozoic era strange: he spends time explaining why this era was not boring, and since most readers had no idea about this era when starting his book they weren't expecting it to be boring. Judging just from a Google Books search, it is certainly a less common term than mesoproterozoic.

The most memorable thing Hazen has to say is the following: because of life that turns water into oxygen, there is oxygen in the atmosphere and water and this reacts with things to make minerals that wouldn't exist if we didn't have oxygen. This is the coevolution of minerals with life. I came to this book not knowing anything about geology or tectonics or why the Earth has so much surface water. I got answers to these questions but I still understand them much less well than I would like to understand them after reading a book, and I suspect there are better places to start than here.

I loved the coherent story that Robert Hazen told about the earth. As a non-scientist, it made sense to me. Maybe the book lacked glitzy pictures but the explanation more than made up for this deficiency.

I loved the book as it pulled together some of the latest theories on evolution, the creation of the moon, geology and space. Dr. Hazen is certainly a brilliant individual and skillfully lays out the history of earth from a geologists point of view. The only caution I would give is that the book ends with global warming theories that are not backed up with good scientific evidence. I have studied global warming for about 8 years and find it is driven more by money and politics, than good science. If you haven't looked at the data, I would highly recommend you visit many of the websites that provide earth warming data. Dr. Hazen seems to be influenced by grants that he may have received or being surronded by University Profressors who have milked the global warming gravy train.
Hazen's comments about tipping points should not be ignored, however, we should not be killing the golden goose of cheap, plentiful energy based on unproven theories.
That being said, I'm sure you will enjoy the book.

This is an enjoyable book to read - but - there are mistakes in here that an author with his credentials should not make. I am on page 62, and have found 3 so far. 1) He states "all galaxies are moving away from us". No, most are, but some, such as Andromeda, are approaching. 2) "Saturn is endowed with almost 2 dozen moons". Saturn has over 50, not almost 24. 3) He feeds the falsehood that "oxygen-poor blood is blue-green". Veinous blood is dark red - not bright red like nice, fresh from the lungs arterial blood is, but still red.
I spotted these because they are in areas of knowledge I already have. Do I trust the material to teach me new things, when I find mistakes like these?
A nice read, but I wouldn't cite it.

A treatise of quite a fascinating theory of the earth's origins... Is the reader
quite prepared? Some will agree! Many will look to something else.
This is written with personal thoughts and may be cosidered the summation of a body of information.

Robert Hazen has done a great favour!

Greatly appreciated...

Dag Stomberg

This book covers an extremely interesting topic and might have become a great book if it had been produced in a less slipshod manner. Anything relating to our history in the widest sense, from the Big Bang to the history of mankind and everything in between including the making of Earth to the evolution of life is bound to raise our curiosity. The Story of Earth in the last 4.5 billion years is such a topic and it would have merited a better treatment.

It starts on page 1. In the context of Eratosthenes' measurement of the size of Earth we are told that the Egyptian city of Syene is an equatorial town. Actually Syene of Antiquity, modern Aswan, is close to the Tropic of Cancer, not quite 24° to the north of the Equator. That was the point of Eratosthenes' observation and calculation (he certainly never got into equatorial Africa).

On page 3 we are told that the author has studied the molecular structures of rock-forming minerals. Actually practically all rock-forming minerals are crystal structures, that are not composed of molecules. Once one is confronted with such howlers on the first pages of a book one becomes very skeptical about accepting all of the details on the following pages. It is unlikely that the author did not know any better, but it means that he probably never reread his own book after writing it and that the editing was not very thorough either. One could record more of such instances, but I am going to mention only one additional case. In the context of discussing continental drift, the forerunner to plate tectonics, it is stated on page 110 that Alfred Wegener's drift hypothesis appeared in print first in 1915. Actually it was published in the Geologische Rundschau and in Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen already in 1912 as is usually mentioned in the various editions of his book, the first edition of which was printed in 1915.

Concerning the editing: Before the title of each chapter there is a diagram defining the particular Eon being covered in that chapter. There the beginning of Earth is marked properly as the year zero, and the present is at 4.567 billion years. So far so good, but in the body of the text reference is often made to years before the present, so the beginning is 4.567 billions of years ago and the present is at zero. The reader has to be constantly on the lookout whether the counting is forward from the beginning or backward from now (as for historical reasons geologists usually do). It would have been nice if this had been consistent. Also the various Eons are identified as to their individual colors. It would have been eye-catching if that color would have been displayed at the beginning of the chapter. Alas, it is not, possibly as a cost saving measure in the production of the volume.

Cost might also have played a role in the decision to forego any use of photographs. The topic of the book of course demands the use of all kinds of illustrations. As it happens almost none are supplied. There are no photographs, no maps, no diagrams and no figures of any kind except for the diagrams at the top of each chapter. There even are no tables, which would have served to organize the subject matter and which would have not been very expensive either. Imagine a science book essentially devoid of any visual help!

What is also missing at the end of the book is a literature list referring the reader to material useful for further study. There are also no references at the end of the chapters disclosing the sources of the subject matter. There are a few incomplete (no volume number, no page number) hidden in-text references, often to the author's or his collaborators' own work. At least Carl Sagan is acknowledged on page 283 on the "pale blue dot", but Charles Darwin's grandeur of life on page 282 is not (it is from the last sentence of the "Origin of Species").

After having said all that it may be picayune to complain about the language of the text. One of its peculiar features is the frequent use of the word "epic". English vocabulary is richer than that. Otherwise it attempts unsuccessfully to rise to the heights of Sagan's or Darwin's eloquence but then you read on page 281 "...Earth will continue to whirl daily on its axis in its annual odyssey about the sun". Well, even the simile is wrong. There was no repetition in Odysseus' voyage. It was highly irregular and it lasted only ten years, no comparison there to Earth's orbit around the sun. But that certainly was an epic.

You can read much of the meat and potatoes content of this book in the review paper by Hazen et al. in the American Mineralogist, volume 93, pages 1693-1720, 2008 (and referenced incompletely on pages 4 and 201 of the book). It has photographs, tables and a Figure 1 which condenses very nicely most of "The Story of Earth" on one page. Almost a quarter of the length of the paper (not quite 7 pages) is devoted to a very useful list of references. The only thing lacking there as well are maps showing the distribution of the continents in past Eons of Earth's development. Unfortunately the paper is behind a paywall at [...] Last time I looked it costs you all of $ 15.00 at [...]. But that is a much better deal than the book. You might also try a nearby college or university library and when they let you onto the premises you can have it for free including, possibly, the exciting feeling of handling an actual paper volume of a scientific journal.

Unfortunately the store does not allow to grant zero stars to a book.

In brief: Congratulations humans! Eons ago you began as various chemicals floating along a rock face. You slowly learned to interact, assemble, extract energy from your surroundings and make copies of yourselves, and somewhere along the way you became "life". Throw in some mutations, selection, a favorable environment, lots of trial and error and tons of crazy dumb luck and here you are, the top of the pyramid! But sooner or later (maybe even tomorrow), catastrophic asteroid impacts, erupting volcanoes, earthquakes or climate change are going to alter the planet and wipe out most species, including yours, thereby making room for new ecosystems and lifeforms to emerge. That's how the cosmos works, scientifically interesting but essentially random, accidental and ultimately meaningless.

Robert Hazen presents an elaborate edifice of data, observations, theories, extrapolations, conjecture and imagination to tell the story of how we got here and what lies ahead. But is it a sound structure or a house of cards, and does science alone have all the answers? This is no doubt a concise, readable overview of the current state of origins science. But don't be satisfied with just this point of view, keep searching, because one way or another we all have to pick a worldview, and the implications are huge.

Another grossly overwritten book, forcing one to read considerable dribble to get tidbits of information. The gratuitous personal anecdotes add nothing but a sense of the author's narcissism.

But this was better than many popular science books, as it actually had some useful information. And the author, for all his self-indulgence, has some skill with prose.