Earth Science History

Since the publication of her prize-winning memoir, Craft for a Dry Lake, writer and artist Kim Mahood has been returning to the Tanami desert country in far north-western Australia where, as a child, she lived with her family on a remote cattle station. The land is timeless, but much has changed: the station has been handed back to its traditional owners, the mining companies have arrived and Aboriginal art has flourished.

On a snowy morning in January 1910, the Alaska Steamship Company's Farallon struck Black Reef in Cook Inlet. The vessel carried no wireless radio to broadcast an SOS. Thirty-eight men scrambled into lifeboats, to be cast up on the rugged shore where they huddled under make-shift tents constructed from the Farallon's sails. Exposed to a bitter northern winter with meager equipment and clothing, a disturbing awareness sank in-rescuers may arrive too late.

Geologists have amassed data that indicate that islands have disappeared in the Pacific, a phenomenon that oral traditions of many groups of Pacific Islanders also highlight. This book explores the issue of vanished islands in the Pacific by bringing together the geology and the myths.

Disaster relief as we know it did not exist when the deadliest tornado in U.S. history gouged a path from southeast Missouri through southern Illinois and into southwestern Indiana. The tri-state tornado of 1925 hugged the ground for 219 miles, generated wind speeds in excess of 300 miles per hour, and killed 695 people.

The past fifteen thousand years--the entire span of human civilization--have witnessed dramatic sea level changes, which began with rapid global warming at the end of the Ice Age, when sea levels were more than 700 feet below modern levels. Over the next eleven millennia, the oceans climbed in fits and starts. These rapid changes had little effect on those humans who experienced them, partly because there were so few people on earth, and also because they were able to adjust readily to new coastlines.

Antarctica, the ice kingdom hosting the South Pole, looms large in the human imagination. The secrets of this vast frozen desert have long tempted explorers, but its brutal climate and glacial shores notoriously resist human intrusion. Land of Wondrous Cold tells a gripping story of the pioneering 19th-century voyages, when British, French, and American commanders raced to penetrate Antarctica’s glacial rim for unknown lands beyond. These intrepid Victorian explorers laid the foundation for our current understanding of Terra Australis Incognita.

In 1947, a peaceful day at home for talented negotiator Ryan Wilcox is rudely interrupted by a phone call from the president. With the help of General Jones and Malcolm Dow, he’s to arrange an interplanetary alliance. It’s an opportunity that Earth can’t afford to miss. But as with any friendship, the beginning stages require a delicate approach. And there’s one issue of “delicacy” that threatens to turn their partnership into an outright war. Will Ryan the wordsmith rise to the challenge and find common ground? Or is it the end of life as we know it?

When Private Malcolm Dow went to clean up a crashed weather balloon, he came face-to-face with an alien instead. Being an alien of sorts in his own otherwise all-white regiment, Malcolm instantly took on the Alien’s plight - military help for his besieged planet, Zalma. And it’s not just Zalma; Earth will be next. But to do so, he must first overcome the obstacles he’s faced since childhood and find a voice for himself. The trouble is, he’s not the only one who knows they’re here.

What's sexy about saving the planet? Funny you should ask. Because that is precisely - or, perhaps, broadly - what Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens have spent many years bringing to light in their live art, exhibitions, and films. In 2008, Sprinkle and Stephens married the Earth, which set them on the path to explore the realms of ecosexuality as they became lovers with the Earth and made their mutual pleasure an embodied expression of passion for the environment.

The complete story of snow, this is the first book to fully examine snow as a historical, cultural, and scientific phenomenon. From "Winter Wonderland" to "Snowmageddon," we've had a long, love-hate relationship with snow. This entertaining look at snow in all its delightful and fearsome manifestations delves into science, history, economics, and popular culture to examine snow's enduring hold on the imagination. Through profiles and anecdotes, the author discusses the reactions throughout history to snowfall.

Published to coincide with the centenary of the first expeditions to reach the South Pole, An Empire of Ice presents a fascinating new take on Antarctic exploration. Retold with added information, it's the first book to place the famed voyages of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, his British rivals Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton, and others in a larger scientific, social, and geopolitical context.

The discovery of the Americas around AD 1500 was an extraordinary watershed in human experience. It gave rise to the modern period of human ecology, a phenomenon global in scope that set in motion profound changes in almost every society on Earth. This new period, which saw the depletion of the lands of the New World, proved tragic for some, triumphant for others, and powerfully affecting for all.

La apasionante historia de la evolución de la humanidad y sus procesos de adaptación en la Tierra, descritos en un resumen fascinante. Desde su primera aparición en el planeta hace millones de años y su fisonomía actual, mucha agua ha desembocado en el océano. Aprenda a conocerlas con nosotros. Le aseguramos, nuestra historia evolutiva y mental lo atrapará.

For almost 500 years, human beings have been finding ways to circle the Earth - by sail, steam, or liquid fuel; by cycling, driving, flying, going into orbit, even by using their own bodily power. The story begins with the first centuries of circumnavigation, when few survived the attempt: In 1519, Ferdinand Magellan left Spain with five ships and 270 men, but only one ship and 35 men returned, not including Magellan, who died in the Philippines. Starting with these dangerous voyages, Joyce Chaplin takes us on a trip of our own as we travel with Francis Drake, William Dampier, Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, and James Cook.

Volcanic Fury is a thrilling nonfiction book that delves into the destructive power of volcanoes and their impact on human civilization. The book explores the science behind volcanic eruptions, the different types of volcanoes, and the devastating consequences of their explosive eruptions.

La historia de las primeras formas de vivienda y cuáles de ellas sobreviven hasta hoy, referidas dentro de un audio-resumen de gran utilidad histórica. Desde las chozas, a las casas australianas, las viviendas sobre pilotes o las viviendas de hielos, el anhelo del hombre por guarecerse bien lo ha llevado a vencer todos los obstáculos posibles.

Each of those worlds - or continents - evolved, and continues to evolve, its own way of life. From the jungle of the Congo or the majestic Himalayas to the densely populated wilds of Europe or the comparatively isolated Australasia, Seven Worlds, One Planet explores the natural wonders that give each of our continents its distinct character. Following the animals that have made these iconic environments their home, it discovers spectacular wildlife stories that reveal what makes each of these seven worlds unique.

This is a summary and analysis of the book by Rachel Maddow and not the original book. In Blowout, Rachel Maddow explains how the oil and gas industry is experiencing a Renaissance thanks to fracking and horizontal drilling. The book tells the history of oil and gas over the last decade, and shows how all these pieces are interconnected and are affecting our lives, right now. In fact, it is argued by the author that the geopolitical impact of the oil and gas industry activities is the key explanatory variable of the current global chaos and democratic downturn.

Pioneering oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer unravels the mystery of marine currents, uncovers the astonishing story of flotsam, and changes the world's view of trash, the ocean, and our global environment. Curtis Ebbesmeyer is no ordinary scientist. He's been a consulting oceanographer for multinational firms and a lead scientist on international research expeditions, but he's never held a conventional academic appointment.

A young woman stuck in a rut. A mage caught between dimensions. A hardcore gamer and merciless raid leader. Piper’s life is full of stress and misery. She cannot envision any kind of future beyond the same dreariness she trudges through each day, but when a transparent stranger in a top hat and cape appears in her living room one day, her life is turned even more upside down than it was already.