How the Earth Works

[1] Geology's impact on history [2] Geologic history: dating the Earth [3] Earth's structure: journey to the Earth's center [4] Earth's heat: conduction and convection [5] The basics of plate tectonics [6] Making matter: the Big Bang and big bangs [7] Creating Earth: recipe for a planet [8] The rock cycle: matter in motion [9] Minerals: the building blocks of rocks [10] Magma: the building mush of rocks [11] Crystallization: the rock cycle starts [12] Volcanoes: lava and ash [13] Folding: bending blocks, flowing rocks [14] Earthquakes: examining Earth's faults [15] Plate techtonics: why continents move [16] The Ocean seafloor: unseen lands [17] Rifts and ridges: the creation of plates [18] Transform faults: tears of a crust [19] Subduction zones: recycling oceans [20] Continents collide and mountains are made [21] Intraplate volcanoes: finding the hot spots [22] Destruction from volcanoes and earthquakes [23] Predicting natural disasters [24] Anatomy of a volcano: Mount St. Helens [25] Anatomy of an earthquake: Sumatra [26] History of plate motions: where and why [27] Assembling North America [28] The Sun-driven hydrologic cycle [29] Water on Earth: the Blue Planet [30] Earth's atmosphere: air and weather [31] Erosion: weathering and land removal [32] Jungles and deserts: feast or famine [33] Mass wasting: rocks fall downhill [34] Streams: shaping the land [35] Groundwater: the invisible reservoir [36] Shorelines: factories of sedimentary rocks [37] Glaciers: the power of ice [38] Planetary wobbles and the last Ice Age [39] Long-term climate change [40] Short-term climate change [41] Climate change and human history [42] Plate tectonics and natural resources [43] Nonrenewable energy sources [44] Renewable energy sources [45] Humans: dominating geologic change [46] History of life: complexity and diversity [47] The Solar System: Earth's neighborhood [48] The lonely planet: Fermi's paradox