In this post, we will see the book Origin and Chemical Evolution of the Earth by G.V. Voitkevich. Earlier, we had seen Origin and Development of Life on Earth by the same author, which can be seen as a companion volume to the one in this post.
This is a book in the Science for Everyone Series. With this post, we have almost completed this series. As of now, we have updated all the dead links with Internet Archive ones. Next, we will update the Little Mathematic Library.
Now only ONE book in this series remains (Earth, Sweet Earth by Ekaterina Radkevich (1990)). Many people contributed to this collection becoming almost complete, a big thanks to all those who have contributed to making this possible.
About the book
One of the most important problems in modern science is the origin of the Earth and formation of its shell. Modern views on the chemical composition of meteorites, planets and other bodies of the Solar System are presented in this book. On the basis of recent achievements in cosmochemistry, the author, who is one of the leading scientists in the field of geochemistry, geophysics, describes the most probable processes that determined the chemical composition of the Earth in the remote past. Prof. George Voitkevich is also a winner of the Karpinsky Prize, which is given to a scientist for outstanding work in geology by the USSR Academy of Sciences. (From the back cover)
In this book the author attempts to describe in popular form some problems of the Earth’s origin and its chemical changes over its long geological history on the basis of cosmochemical, geochemical and geophysical data obtained in recent years. The chemical evolution of the Earth is part of the chemical evolution of Space. Modern cosmochemical and geochemical data reveal that the chemical history of the Earth as well as of other bodies of the Solar System is associated not only with preserved stable and nonstable isotopes but also with extinct radioactive isotopes, including the isotopes of transuranium elements. (From the Introduction)
The book was translated from the Russian by V. F. Agranat and V. F. Pominov and was first published by Mir in 1988.
Contents
Preface 5
The Distribution of Elements in the Solar System and Their Geochemical Properties 9
Evidence of the Early History of the Solar System 31
The Nature and Chemical Composition of Planets 45
Composition and Constitution of the Earth 71
The Present and Past Radioactivity of the Earth 87
The Birth of Atoms in Space 97
Chemical Evolution of the Protoplanetary Material 112
Formation of the Earth’s Principal Shells 136
Origin and Evolution of the Ocean and Atmosphere 152
Principal Trends in the Chemical Changes in the Earth’s Crust and Biosphere 181
The Chemical Evolution of the Earth’s Crust 202
Conclusion 223
Bibliography 232
Mir Books 