Это полностью пересмотренное и расширенное издание "Морской геологии" В нём внимательно изучается взаимосвязь между водой ее формами жизни и геологических структур. Здесь рассматривается несколько идей о происхождении Земли, континентов, океанов, и каким образом эти процессы укладываются в происхождении Вселенной. Эта книга охватывает все области подводных ландшафтов и форм жизни, от гигантских подводных каньонов до океанских вулканов.
Oceans cover approximately two-thirds of the Earth’s surface, yet we have explored less of the ocean’s depths and mysteries than the surfaces of several nearby planets. The oceans have inspired myths and legends and have been the sources of intrigue, fear, and hope for thousands of years. They have hindered migration of peoples and biota between distant continents yet paradoxically now serve as a principal means of transportation. Oceans provide us with incredible mineral wealth and renewable food and energy sources yet also breed devastating hurricanes. Life on Earth may have begun in environments around hot volcanic events on the seafloor, and we are only beginning today to explore the diverse and unique fauna that thrive in deep, dark waters around similar vents. In the revised edition of Marine Geology, Jon Erickson explores several ideas hypothesizing the origin of the Earth, continents, and oceans and how these processes fit into the origin of the universe.The role of oceans and water in the development of plate tectonics is discussed in detail, while the reader isgiven essential information on how plate tectonics works. Ocean basins have continually expanded and contracted on Earth, and the continents have alternately converged into large single supercontinents and then broken apart by the formation of new ocean basins.The appearance, evolution, and extinction of different life-forms are inextricably linked to the expansion and contraction of ocean basins, partly through the changing environmental conditions associated with tectonic processes.The history of several different ocean basins over the past billion years is discussed in Marine Geology, as well as the changing life-forms in each successive ocean basin.
