Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
As just one example of the centrality of climatology to the field, leading American climatologist Michael E. Mann is the Director of one of the earliest centers for Earth System science research, the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, and its mission statement reads, "the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) maintains a ...
Earth system science – Scientific study of the Earth's spheres and their natural integrated systems; Extraterrestrial life – Life that does not originate on Earth; Information metabolism – Psychological theory of interaction between biological organisms and their environment; Organism – Individual living life form
Earth's complete condensation included a roughly 300 M E gas/ice shell that compressed the rocky kernel to about 66 percent of Earth's present diameter. T Tauri eruptions of the Sun stripped the gases away from the inner planets. Mercury was incompletely condensed, and a portion of its gases was stripped away and transported to the region ...
Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. [1] [2] It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations. [3]
This forms an important part of the evidence on which evolutionary theory rests, demonstrates that evolution does occur, and illustrates the processes that created Earth's biodiversity. It supports the modern evolutionary synthesis—the current scientific theory that explains how and why life changes over time.
The history of life on Earth traces the processes by which living and extinct organisms evolved, from the earliest emergence of life to the present day. Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago (abbreviated as Ga, for gigaannum) and evidence suggests that life emerged prior to 3.7 Ga. [1] [2] [3] The similarities among all known present-day species indicate that they have diverged through the ...
During the Permian all the Earth's major land masses, except portions of East Asia, were collected into a single supercontinent known as Pangaea. Pangaea straddled the equator and extended toward the poles, with a corresponding effect on ocean currents in the single great ocean ( Panthalassa , the universal sea ), and the Paleo-Tethys Ocean , a ...
The first eon in Earth's history, the Hadean, begins with the Earth's formation and is followed by the Archean eon at 3.8 Ga. [2]: 145 The oldest rocks found on Earth date to about 4.0 Ga, and the oldest detrital zircon crystals in rocks to about 4.4 Ga, [34] [35] [36] soon after the formation of the Earth's crust and the Earth