The Earth’s Impact on Life and Life’s Impact on the Earth

2021 ◽  
pp. 229-256
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Ervin-Blankenheim
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Carbon Cycle ◽  
Solid Earth ◽  
Plate Tectonics ◽  
Time Perspective ◽  
Current Situation ◽  
Critical Systems ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Current Concerns

This chapter weaves together the three threads that make up the fundamental geologic principles: geologic time, plate tectonics, and evolution. The chapter examines their impact on life on the Earth and, in turn, biological life’s imprint on the planet. Each system, or sphere, of the Earth, water, air, solid Earth, and life, are interdependent. At the intersection of these spheres are critical systems, such as soil and the carbon cycle, both of which support life. The current situation on the planet, with diminishing resources and population numbers and changes in climate, are current concerns. The interrelated web of life in response to climate change and implications for the future benefits from a deep-time perspective with geology as a framework. Past hothouse times, tipping points, and understanding how the Earth works as well as the biography of the Earth through the lens of geology, can go far as a guide to future conditions on the planet—to listen to the song of the Earth.

Song of the Earth

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Ervin-Blankenheim
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Plate Tectonics ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Historical Maps ◽  
Mountain Building ◽  
Species Extinction ◽  
Geologic Time ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Relationship

This book is a scientific, historical, and philosophical narrative for general readers that explores the relationship between humans and the Earth and the geologic principles of time, plate tectonics, and change in life forms. Illustrated with striking historical maps, figures, and pictures, this comprehensive work can be read as a thrilling biography of the Earth itself, including narrative sections on the lives of pioneering geologists; the reality and sublimity of geologic time; the birth, destruction, and rebirth of the planet and its atmosphere over repeated cycles spanning some 4-plus billion years; the science underlying both mountain building and oceanic evolution; the influence of climate change and species extinction on the development of the Earth; and the interplay between not only how Earth has influenced life but how life, in turn, has distinctly shaped our planet.

Introduction

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Berner
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Carbon Cycle ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Quaternary Period ◽  
Geological Time Scale ◽  
The Earth

The cycle of carbon is essential to the maintenance of life, to climate, and to the composition of the atmosphere and oceans. What is normally thought of as the “carbon cycle” is the transfer of carbon between the atmosphere, the oceans, and life. This is not the subject of interest of this book. To understand this apparently confusing statement, it is necessary to separate the carbon cycle into two cycles: the short-term cycle and the long-term cycle. The “carbon cycle,” as most people understand it, is represented in figure 1.1. Carbon dioxide is taken up via photosynthesis by green plants on the continents or phytoplankton in the ocean. On land carbon is transferred to soils by the dropping of leaves, root growth, and respiration, the death of plants, and the development of soil biota. Land herbivores eat the plants, and carnivores eat the herbivores. In the oceans the phytoplankton are eaten by zooplankton that are in turn eaten by larger and larger organisms. The plants, plankton, and animals respire CO2. Upon death the plants and animals are decomposed by microorganisms with the ultimate production of CO2. Carbon dioxide is exchanged between the oceans and atmosphere, and dissolved organic matter is carried in solution by rivers from soils to the sea. This all constitutes the shortterm carbon cycle. The word “short-term” is used because the characteristic times for transferring carbon between reservoirs range from days to tens of thousands of years. Because the earth is more than four billion years old, this is short on a geological time scale. As the short-term cycle proceeds, concentrations of the two principal atmospheric gases, CO2 and CH4, can change as a result of perturbations of the cycle. Because these two are both greenhouse gases—in other words, they adsorb outgoing infrared radiation from the earth surface—changes in their concentrations can involve global warming and cooling over centuries and many millennia. Such changes have accompanied global climate change over the Quaternary period (past 2 million years), although other factors, such as variations in the receipt of solar radiation due to changes in characteristics of the earth’s orbit, have also contributed to climate change.

scholarly journals The Archean atmosphere

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (9) ◽  
pp. eaax1420 ◽  
Author(s):  
David C. Catling ◽  
Kevin J. Zahnle
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Cycle ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Solid Earth ◽  
Atmospheric Composition ◽  
Detailed Understanding ◽  
Average Surface ◽  
Substantial Loss ◽  
Mass Fractionation ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Surface Temperatures

The atmosphere of the Archean eon—one-third of Earth’s history—is important for understanding the evolution of our planet and Earth-like exoplanets. New geological proxies combined with models constrain atmospheric composition. They imply surface O2 levels <10−6 times present, N2 levels that were similar to today or possibly a few times lower, and CO2 and CH4 levels ranging ~10 to 2500 and 102 to 104 times modern amounts, respectively. The greenhouse gas concentrations were sufficient to offset a fainter Sun. Climate moderation by the carbon cycle suggests average surface temperatures between 0° and 40°C, consistent with occasional glaciations. Isotopic mass fractionation of atmospheric xenon through the Archean until atmospheric oxygenation is best explained by drag of xenon ions by hydrogen escaping rapidly into space. These data imply that substantial loss of hydrogen oxidized the Earth. Despite these advances, detailed understanding of the coevolving solid Earth, biosphere, and atmosphere remains elusive, however.

scholarly journals A Theory of the Earth

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Leeder
Keyword(s):  
Plate Tectonics ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
The Earth

In 1788, James Hutton described his geological observations and resulting theory for the age of the earth. His conclusion was startling: “We find no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end.” At that time, it was a unique perspective, free from scriptural constraints. Now centuries later, Hutton’s ideas are recognizable in our concepts of deep time and geodynamic cycling by plate tectonics.

The archaeology of climate change in Late and Post-Glacial North-west Europe

Antiquity ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 94 (374) ◽  
pp. 536-538
Author(s):  
James Walker
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Ecological Stability ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
North West ◽  
Club Of Rome ◽  
Global Sea Level ◽  
Current Concerns

Climate change regularly made the news in 2019. In the face of numerous protests around the globe, and increasingly frequent natural disasters, we appear to be entering a (perhaps overdue) stage of heightened awareness with regard to the fragility of the Earth and our impact upon it. Current concerns over the fate of our planet, and species, look set to stay, but for deep-time prehistorians, who have long contended with records of environmental change on a scale relatively unparalleled in historic times, business continues as usual. In the opening to Resilience and reorganisation of social systems during the Weichselian Lateglacial in North-west Europe, Sonja Grimm makes reference to the importance of the Club of Rome (a non-profit, non-governmental organisation) in highlighting socio-ecological stability as an issue for public concern, and one that archaeological studies such as this can contribute to and bolster. Meanwhile, Peter Moe Astrup, in his introduction to Sea-level change in Mesolithic southern Scandinavia, notes that Mesolithic people from this area would have been exposed to the consequences of global sea-level rise on a far greater scale than those predicted for our own future generations. What these volumes share is an emphasis on the importance of adaptive flexibility and the human experience in shaping our response to climate change.

scholarly journals Emergent Constraints on Climate-Carbon Cycle Feedbacks

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 275-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter M. Cox
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Carbon Cycle ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Model Errors ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Future ◽  
Emergent Constraints

Abstract Purpose of Review Feedbacks between CO2-induced climate change and the carbon cycle are now routinely represented in the Earth System Models (ESMs) that are used to make projections of future climate change. The inconclusion of climate-carbon cycle feedbacks in climate projections is an important advance, but has added a significant new source of uncertainty. This review assesses the potential for emergent constraints to reduce the uncertainties associated with climate-carbon cycle feedbacks. Recent Findings The emergent constraint technique involves using the full ensemble of models to find an across-ensemble relationship between an observable feature of the Earth System (such as a trend, interannual variation or change in seasonality) and an uncertain aspect of the future. Examples focussing on reducing uncertainties in future atmospheric CO2 concentration, carbon loss from tropical land under warming and CO2 fertilization of mid- and high-latitude photosynthesis are exemplars of these different types of emergent constraints. Summary The power of emergent constraints is that they use the enduring range in model projections to reduce uncertainty in the future of the real Earth System, but there are also risks that indiscriminate data-mining, and systematic model errors could yield misleading constraints. A hypothesis-driven theory-led approach can overcome these risks and also reveal the true promise of emergent constraints—not just as ways to reduce uncertainty in future climate change but also to catalyse advances in our understanding of the Earth System.

scholarly journals In Pursuit

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Inez Fung
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Carbon Cycle ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Earth Science ◽  
Formal Training ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Cement Production ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Global Carbon

The atmosphere is the synthesizer, transformer, and communicator of exchanges at its boundaries with the land and oceans. These exchanges depend on and, in turn, alter the states of the atmosphere, land, and oceans themselves. To a large extent, the interactions between the carbon cycle and climate have mapped, and will map, the trajectory of the Earth system. My quest to understand climate dynamics and the global carbon cycle has been propelled by new puzzles that emerge from each of the investigations and has led me to study subdisciplines of Earth science beyond my formal training. This article sketches my trek and the lessons I have learned. ▪  About half the CO2 emitted from combustion of fossil fuels and from cement production has remained airborne. Where are the contemporary carbon sinks? To what degree will these sinks evolve with, and in turn accelerate, climate change itself? ▪  The pursuit of these questions has been propelled by the integration of in situ and satellite observations of the atmosphere, land, and oceans, as well as by advances in theory and coupled climate–carbon cycle modeling. ▪  The urgency of climate change demands new approaches to cross-check national emission statistics.

Analysing the tidal state of a pre-plate tectonic Earth during the Archean Eon (3.9 Ga)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Davies ◽  
Mattias Green ◽  
João Duarte
Keyword(s):  
Plate Tectonics ◽  
Early Time ◽  
Open Ocean ◽  
Day Length ◽  
Plate Tectonic ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Tidal State ◽  
Tidal Energetics ◽  
Tectonic Features

&lt;p&gt;Deep time investigations of the Earth have revealed a relationship between plate tectonic motion and the intensity of the tide. Tidal energetics change as continental plates disperse and aggregate in the supercontinent cycle, altering ocean basins around them. The question is, could enhanced tides occur on Earth before plate tectonics started e.g., during the Archean? &amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Here we have coupled an established tidal model with an ensemble of potential topographies of the Archean Earth to establish a statistically significant approximation of Archean tidal energetics. Land area is restricted to 5 &amp;#8211; 15% with the rest representing primordial ocean &amp;#8211; containing no major plate tectonic features i.e., trenches and ridges. Ocean volume is preserved at close to present-day which means oceans are on average 1 km shallower than present-day oceans. Archean day length is set at 13.1 hours with the semi-diurnal tide occurring every 6.8 hours. Equilibrium tide is around 3.4x the present-day value due to the proximity of the Moon.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The aim of this study is to assess the relationship of the Earth Moon system during this primordial stage to better understand the potential role tides had in the origin of life, and to quantify the tidal state of a primordial rocky planet with a young, nearby moon. Understanding the tidal state of Earth at this early time is important for exoplanetary studies as it broadens our scope of planets which may be hospitable to life.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We found coastal and open ocean resonance in many of the ensemble topographies. Total global dissipation in the ensembles varies from 75 &amp;#8211; 150% of present-day dissipation rates due to elevated equilibrium tide and greater area where the tide can dissipate. When regional and open ocean resonance does occur, it can raise total global dissipation to &gt;150% of present-day values and can cause regional macrotidal amplitudes (&gt;2m).&lt;/p&gt;

scholarly journals Theatricality and Drifting in the Anthropocene

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-178
Author(s):  
Carl Lavery
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Plate Tectonics ◽  
Site Specificity ◽  
Text And Image ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Theatre Production ◽  
Restricted Sense ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Anonymous Processes ◽  
Ecological Potential

This essay proposes a new way of reading the Situationist notion of dérive (drift) in the Anthropocene by thinking of it as an operation that is geological in impetus, a sense of movement caused by an agentic earth. Equally, it looks to offer an alternative and expanded theory of theatricality in which the theatrical is no longer associated with theatre per se. On the contrary, it is now seen as a mode of representation that deterritorializes spectators by placing them in the midst of groundless flows and anonymous processes. In the same way that the earth in the Anthropocene is figured as a dynamic and unstable planet, so drifting and theatricality, when brought together, radicalise our extant understandings of the stage by allowing it to become motile, a terrestrial force. Here, the ecological potential of theatre is not found in staging plays about climate change or insisting on site-specificity, but in thinking through the geological power of theatricality, its capacity to exist as a type of plate tectonics. Such an expanded understanding of theatricality explains why instead of paying attention to a specific theatre production or even to the medium of theatre in a restricted sense, I examine how, in their 1958 text and image collaboration Mémoires, the Danish artist Asger Jorn and his friend Guy Debord were able to transform the page into a stage – to theatricalize and geologize reading. In an attempt, simultaneously, to expand and undo itself, the article is not content to conceptualize its argument, it looks to theatricalize itself, to become a kind of drift, a geology of writing.

scholarly journals Earth Catastrophes and their Impact on the Carbon Cycle

Elements ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 301-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Celina A. Suarez ◽  
Marie Edmonds ◽  
Adrian P. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Cycle ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Carbon Fluxes ◽  
Energy Sources ◽  
Mass Extinctions ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
Large Igneous Provinces ◽  
Greenhouse Climate ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Igneous Provinces

Carbon is one of the most important elements on Earth. It is the basis of life, it is stored and mobilized throughout the Earth from core to crust and it is the basis of the energy sources that are vital to human civilization. This issue will focus on the origins of carbon on Earth, the roles played by large-scale catastrophic carbon perturbations in mass extinctions, the movement and distribution of carbon in large igneous provinces, and the role carbon plays in icehouse–greenhouse climate transitions in deep time. Present-day carbon fluxes on Earth are changing rapidly, and it is of utmost importance that scientists understand Earth's carbon cycle to secure a sustainable future.

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