The Origin and Evolution of Earth: From the Big Bang to the Future of Human Existence

For someone who has read scores of books on cosmology, astronomy, evolution and quantum/relativity sciences, iI would have thought it impossible to come across something so refreshingly new on a critically important subject matter. This lecture series is far different and new knowledge-packing than anything I have read or listened to in years.Two evolutions are well covered - the cosmic story from the big bang to our planet and a separate Darwinian story of life on earth. This book sheds some new lights on those two topics but the real subject are all the particles here and now (not atoms, quarks or light particles) that come together and diverge to create various cycles on earth. While the subject of earth evolution is possibly only mildly new, the tools used allow the course to talk about everything in an astoundingly new manner.As we all have been conditioned never to forget, all minerals or even particles on our planet are star dusts in a way. The book traverses paths of these minerals from the formation of hydrogen at the Big Bang to now. In Somewhat new and one of the more interesting parts of these particles' journey from the time when they have been tagged to being a part of the solar cloud is possibly in their coming together as clunks to form astroids, meteors or planets including earth. Cosmology books - compared to the discussions here - clearly do not pay sufficient attention to this.The more interesting part is when the lectures talk about changes in earth - and evolution of all the minerals here on earth from the simple group of less than one hundred at the beginning - in the last 4.5bn years. One is almost forced to give a serious thought to earth being a living, breathing and evolving entity. The last one is definitely true as is made evidently clear in the title of the book!The most interesting part by far - more than anything else - is the coevolution of earth and life. The coevolution that proves how the current atmosphere or earth structure is so deeply linked to the biosphere - almost as much as the way life or biosphere is linked to the atmosphere.For instance, this reviewer had no idea - despite many readings on photosynthesis - that the oxygen we breathe is because of the life formed before and not one of the gases that came along when earth began to exist. The CO2/oxygen cycles since the first days, the cyclical ocean levels and also the cyclical splitting and coming together of earth's land planets contain rich historic information on where/why we are at this juncture of earth's life. The book also shows the role played by life on many of the earth's atmospheric cycles.The conclusions are equally staggering. No matter we do or not do, we are destined to alter our planet the way every other form of life before us has. May be that's why we exist. All species will go extinct and a lot before us have gone extinct because of the changes brought by other species' activities. We are abusing it for sure, but the conclusion that no matter what we do, we can not destroy life ourselves and we cannot prevent its and earth's general journey are still highly heart-warming.A must listen for anyone who is interested in any of the connected sciences.

Excellent!

This is an utterly fascinating survey of how life and geology are inextricably intertwined. If you're a fan of hard science fiction, this series will give you new insights into all those terraforming projects you love to read about.Hazen is an excellent lecturer. Clear and concise. You won't regret listening and you'll be looking for more lectures just like it.

NJ's review (read it, i cannot improve on it) is outstanding and accurate. Focus on the co-evolution theme he describes, he is right on; the lectures will change how you view geology as a subject. It will amaze you how different these perspectives are from the recent past, you likely will feel enlighten as you listen from the first lectures One of my favorite Great Courses of which I own many. I listen to the lectures and then also read the transcript because it is filled with so much valuable content I want to absorb and retain. I was so impressed, I looked at the other courses from the same author expecting him to have insights I was blown away by. It will be interesting what readers think of it decades into the future, whether it will one day be challenged or seen as a foundation for further progress in theories. Finally I would add that as I follow NASA and other exploration probes that are recently producing incredible pictures out to Pluto and beyond, these lectures have me see them with increased awe.

FROM A TO Z IN OUR RECENT PAST, BACK TO 5 MILLION YEARS AGO. WELL WRITTEN AND INTERESTING. COULD HARDLY PUT IT DOWN. WORTH SEVERAL READS, AS IT BRING COHESIVENESS TO OUR HISTORY AND SOCIAL ORGINAZATION.