The year 2000 ushered in a major sunspot maximum period. Occurring every eleven years, spectacular sporadic solar outbursts of particles and fields bombard our Earth's space and continue at a high level for several years. In this time of majestic auroras and satellite-destroying magnetic storms, global interest focuses upon the curious Earth magnetism that guides the solar particles, with fields that penetrate our environment and affect our lives. <...>

The environment is the sum of all the features and conditions surrounding an organism that may infl uence it. An individual’s physical environment encompasses rocks and soil, air and water, such factors as light and temperature, and other organisms. One’s social environment might include a network of family and friends, a particular political system, and a set of social customs that affect one’s behavior.

Carbonate petrography — the study of limestones, dolomites and associated deposits under optical or electron microscopes —greatly enhances field studies or core observations and can provide a frame of reference for geochemical studies. Petrography is an especially powerful tool because it enables the identification of constituent grains, the detailed classification of sediments and rocks, the interpretation of environments of deposition, and the determination of the often complex history of post-depositional alteration (diagenesis).

Fossil. The mere word kicks most people’s imagination into high gear. It mostly evokes dinosaurs, of course—the stars of the Mesozoic era. And yet, because those famous reptiles are already the focus of many other books, in this book we will discuss different but no less fascinating kinds of animals: the ones that many people refer to incorrectly as “marine dinosaurs.

This book discusses new insights concerning the influence of the climate upon the earth’s relief, in particular upon the continents. It has been found that this climatic, this exogenic influence is much stronger than any endogenous influence. Endogenous forces, as any geologic map will show, are distributed randomly over the entire earth, while the exogenic influence of climate follows strict rules in its distribution from the pole to the equator, both today as in the past. Their distribution and intensity make climatic influences the best basis upon which to found a system of geomorphology, such as the one presented here.

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. A basic geology course can help a person gain such an understanding, and can also take advantage of the interest and curiosity many of us have about our planet—its landscapes and the processes that create and alter our physical environment.

Книга о географических наэваниях гор Урала от северных отрогов Пай Хоя до теряющихся в каэахстанских степях Мугоджар.

Why do earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, and landslides happen? What causes mountains to rise? How do beautiful landscapes develop? How have climate and life changed through time? When did the Earth form, and by what process? Where do we dig to find valuable metals, and where do we drill to find oil? Does sea level change?