A system is an entity composed of diverse but interrelated parts that function as a whole (Kump et al., 1999a). The individual parts, often called components, interact with each other as the system evolves with time. Components include reservoirs of matter or energy, described by mass or volume, and subsystems, which behave as systems within a system. In recent years, the Earth has been considered a complex planetary system that evolved over 4.6 billion years of time. It includes reservoirs, such as the crust, mantle, and core, and subsystems, such as the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere. Because many of the reservoirs in the Earth interact with each other and with subsystems, such as the atmosphere, there is an increasing tendency to consider most or all of the Earth’s reservoirs as subsystems. <...>

Over the past two decades, many curriculum changes have occurred in geology, Earth science, and environmental science programs in universities. Many of these have involved the compression of separate one-semester courses in mineralogy, optical mineralogy, and petrology into a singlesemester offering that combines mineralogy and petrology, commonly called Earth Materials. Such a course is a challenge to the instructor (or a team of instructors) and the students. This is especially so when few, if any, textbooks for such a one-semester course have been available.

We may be faced with natural and anthropogenic environmental changes never found in instrumental observation records, not only locally but also globally. Generally, it is comparatively easy to find the cause and effect of local and shortterm changes, whereas it is difficult to establish causal relationships for global and long-term environmental issues. One of the most significant issues in environmental changes to be discussed is knowing how earth surface environments responded to the changes in the past, because that knowledge is required in order to estimate future environmental responses to changes. We have only limited short-term observational data in the instrumental observation period to provide some clues to find causal relations for the estimation. Most areas lack past quantitative records, especially data available for quantitative discussion, although data on earth surface responses to large and long-term global changes are included in past proxy records. <...>

Earth is a very small part of a vast universe, but it is our home. It provides the resources that support our modern society and the ingredients necessary to maintain life. Knowledge of our physical environment is critical to our well-being and vital to our survival.