The Little Book of Planet Earth - 9781441929242

The Little Book of Planet EarthAuthor(s): Rolf Meissner\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Springer-Verlag New York Inc., United States\nImprint: Springer-Verlag New York Inc.\nISBN-13: 9781441929242, 978-1441929242\nSynopsis\nAcknowledgments chapter 1 The Roots of Earth Sciences 1 Classical Scientific Thought 1 The Copernican Revolution 2 From Physics and Philosophy to Geology 4 The Age of the Earth 6 chapter 2 The Earth in the Context of Our Solar System 9 The Origins of the Solar System The Elements of the Solar System The Planets Circling the Sun chapter 3 The Formation of Earth and Moon 21 Similarities and Differences 21 Exploring the Moon chapter 4 The Interior of the Earth and the Role of Seismology Seismic Waves 28 The Earths Interior 36 chapter 5 Rotation and Shape, Gravity and Tides 41 Describing the Earths Shape Tides 44 Rotation [tel] xiii xi chapter 6 The Earths Magnetic Field 47 Establishing a Physical Concept Reversals of the Magnetic Field 51 Paleomagnetism chapter 7 Atoms