Overview
- Offers the first comprehensive review on the Hadean Eon including the research of the last 16 years
- Covers an emerging interdisciplinary topic relevant to a range of study including planetary astronomy, the origin of life, and deep geological time
- Provides both an authoritative description of the state of the science and a scientific critique on historical views of the early earth
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Table of contents (12 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book consolidates the latest research on the Hadean Eon - the first 500 million years of Earth history - which has permitted hypotheses of early Earth evolution to be tested, including geophysical models that include the possibility of plate tectonic-like behavior. These new observations challenge the longstanding Hadean paradigm – based on no observational evidence - of a desiccated, lifeless, continent-free wasteland in which surface petrogenesis was largely due to extraterrestrial impacts. The eon was termed “Hadean” to reflect such a hellish environment. That view began to be challenged in 2001 as results of geochemical analyses of greater than 4 billion year old zircons from Australia emerged. These data were consistent with the zircons forming in a world much more similar to today than long thought and interpreted to indicate that sediment cycling was occurring in the presence of liquid water. This new view leaves open the possibility that life could have emerged shortlyafter Earth accretion. The epistemic limitations under which the old paradigm persisted are closely examined. The book is principally designed as a monograph but has the potential to be used as a text for advanced graduate courses on early Earth evolution.
Authors and Affiliations
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Hadean Earth
Authors: T. Mark Harrison
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46687-9
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental Science, Earth and Environmental Science (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-46686-2Published: 19 June 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-46689-3Published: 20 June 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-46687-9Published: 18 June 2020
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVI, 291
Number of Illustrations: 13 b/w illustrations, 52 illustrations in colour
Topics: Geochemistry, Structural Geology, Mineralogy, Geophysics/Geodesy, Cosmology