The Story of Earth

The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet

p96 ZrSiO4 zircons durable, uranium atoms decay to lead with 4.5 GY halflife, dating the crystals
p97 Water lowers the temperature at which zircons grow, causes higher O₁₈ to O₁₆ ratio, surface water does also
- Jack Hills Australia, 4.4 GY old zircon, oldest known surviving solid fragment of Earth, so there were oceans then
p98 ~100 MY after Tethys, global mile-deep ocean
p126 smaller protocontinents 3 GYa
p177 2/3 of the current 4500 mineral types require oxygen (from life, in subsurface waters) to form
- i.e. turquoise, azurite, malachite
- minerals deriving from copper, uranium, iron, manganese, nickel, mercury, molybdenum, and others
- Mineral Evolution
p178 Mars does NOT have this mineral diversity, the scarce water is frozen
- surface oxidized iron is "like a coating of paint", oxidized by disassociated water and escaped hydrogen
p179 continents significantly smaller 2 GYa, also rusty red
p190 United Plates of America, Laurentian supercraton a conglomeration of > 6 large cratons
p226 Dominic Papineau, anoxic dead zones from fertilizer runoff
p263 10ppm chance of death by asteroid impact
- 300 meter Apophis will cross close by in 2029
- 8 meter rock every year
- 30 meter rock 1e-3 per year, Tunguska
- 800 meter 2e-6/y
- 5000 m rock 1e-7/y
- 10000 m Chixulub
p266 Mars colony as alternative (?), one way trip
- but where does the industry and minerals come from
p268 Loihi submerged 2 mile high southwest of Hawaii, emerging in a million years