PART I: OUR ISLAND IN SPACE

PROLOGUE: And Just What Is Geology?

CHAPTER 1. Introducing the Earth and Its Context

CHAPTER 2. The Way the Earth Works: Plate Tectonics

CHAPTER 3. What Is the Earth Made Of? Introducing Minerals and the Nature of Rock

CHAPTER 4. Up from the Inferno: Magma and Igneous Rocks

CHAPTER 5. The Wrath of Vulcan: Volcanic Eruptions

INTERLUDE A: Weathering, Sediment, and Soil: Key Components of the Critical Zone

CHAPTER 6. Pages of the Earth’s Past: Sedimentary Rocks

CHAPTER 7. A Process of Change: Metamorphism and the Rock Cycle

CHAPTER 8. Geologic Structures and Mountain Building

PART II: HISTORY AND RESOURCES OF THE EARTH

CHAPTER 9. A Violent Pulse: Earthquakes

INTERLUDE B: The Earth's Interior, Revisited: Insights from Geophysics

INTERLUDE C: A Record of the Biosphere: Fossils and Evolution

CHAPTER 10. Deep Time: How Old Is Old?

CHAPTER 11. A Biography of the Earth

 

PART III: PROCESSES AND PROBLEMS AT THE EARTH'S SURFACE

CHAPTER 12. Riches in Rock: Energy and Mineral Resources

CHAPTER 13. Climate and Global Change in the Earth System

INTERLUDE D: Introducing Landscapes

CHAPTER 14. Amazing Ice: Glaciers and Ice Ages

CHAPTER 15. Unsafe Ground: Landslides and Other Mass Movement

CHAPTER 16. Streams and Floods: The Work of Running Water

CHAPTER 17. Restless Seas: Oceans and Coasts

CHAPTER 18. The Hidden Reserve: Groundwater and Karst

CHAPTER 19. Hot and Dry: Deserts, Heat Waves, and Fires

EPILOGUE: What Does the Future Hold for the Earth?