Frozen Earth: The Once and Future Story of Ice AgesIn this engrossing and accessible book, Doug Macdougall explores the causes and effects of ice ages that have gripped our planet throughout its history, from the earliest known glaciation—nearly three billion years ago—to the present. Following the development of scientific ideas about these dramatic events, Macdougall traces the lives of many of the brilliant and intriguing characters who have contributed to the evolving understanding of how ice ages come about. As it explains how the great Pleistocene Ice Age has shaped the earth's landscape and influenced the course of human evolution, Frozen Earth also provides a fascinating look at how science is done, how the excitement of discovery drives scientists to explore and investigate, and how timing and chance play a part in the acceptance of new scientific ideas. Macdougall describes the awesome power of cataclysmic floods that marked the melting of the glaciers of the Pleistocene Ice Age. He probes the chilling evidence for "Snowball Earth," an episode far back in the earth's past that may have seen our planet encased in ice from pole to pole. He discusses the accumulating evidence from deep-sea sediment cores, as well as ice cores from Greenland and the Antarctic, that suggests fast-changing ice age climates may have directly impacted the evolution of our species and the course of human migration and civilization. Frozen Earth also chronicles how the concept of the ice age has gripped the imagination of scientists for almost two centuries. It offers an absorbing consideration of how current studies of Pleistocene climate may help us understand earth's future climate changes, including the question of when the next glacial interval will occur. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 15 | |
Chapter 3 Glaciers and Fossil Fish | 25 |
Chapter 4 The Evidence | 45 |
Chapter 5 Searching for the Cause of lce Ages 6s | 65 |
Chapter 6 Defrosting Earth | 89 |
Chapter 7 The Ice Age Cycles | 115 |
Chapter 8 Our Planets Icy Past | 141 |
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Common terms and phrases
amount Antarctic astronomical atmosphere Bretz carbon dioxide Channeled Scablands climate change continents cooling current ice age cycles drift drilling Earth’s orbit eccentricity effects erratic boulders especially Europe eventually evidence evolution floods flow geological geologists glacial deposits glacial periods glacial-interglacial glaciers global graph greenhouse gases Greenland Harlan Bretz heat hominids ice age climate ice age theory ice cores ice sheets ideas important interglacial interval James Croll kilometers Köppen Lake Missoula land Late Proterozoic latitudes layers Little Ice Age Louis Agassiz magnetic melting meters methane Milankovitch million years ago Milutin Milankovitch Missoula floods moraines mountain Neuchâtel North America North Atlantic Northern Hemisphere observations occurred oxygen isotope past Permo-Carboniferous Permo-Carboniferous glaciation planet Pleistocene Ice Age Pole regions rocks scientists scratched seafloor seawater sediment cores snow Snowball Earth solar energy surface temperature thousand tilt timescale tion tropical valleys variations volcanic warm periods weather Younger Dryas