Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T01:02:55.267Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Our Home, the Planet Earth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

A.M. Celâl Şengör
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The earth, the abode of the only form of intelligent life in the universe of which we are aware, is a minor member of a system of nine planets, 40 or so moons and about 100 billion asteroids orbiting around the Sun, an average-size member of the 100-billion-star community making up our galaxy, the Milky Way. It is the third planet to the Sun, which it orbits, following an almost circular elliptical path maintaining an average distance of 1.5×108 km, with the longest and the shortest radii now being 1.53×108 km and 1.47×10 km respectively (Fig. 1). This orbit is subject to changes in its “eccentricity” (i.e., in how much it deviates from a circle) with periods of 105 and 4×10 years5 years (Fig. 2A). In addition, the elliptical orbit itself slowly rotates as shown in Fig. 2B, in what we call the precession.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 39 , Issue 155 , September 1991 , pp. 25 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

Anderson, Don L., “The Earth as a Planet: Paradigms and Paradoxes,” Science, 223 (1984), pp. 347–355.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Anderson, Don L., “Theory of the Earth,” Oxford, Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1989.Google Scholar
Broecker, Wallace S., How to build a Habitable Planet, Palisades, New York, Eldigio Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Burke, Kevin, and Wilson, J. Turo, “Hot spots on the earth's surface,” Scientific American, 235 (1976), pp. 46–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Condie, Kent C., Plate Tectonics & Crustal Evolution, 3rd ed. Oxford, Pergamon Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Cox, Allan, and Hart, Robert Brian, Plate Tectonics: How it Works, Oxford, Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1986.Google Scholar
Dewey, John F., “Plate tectonics,” Scientific American, 226 (1972), pp. 56–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fowler, C.M.R., The Solid Earth, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990. Gleick, James, Chaos, Making a New Science. New York, Viking, 1987.Google Scholar
Gould, Stephen Jay, Wonderful Life, New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 1989.Google Scholar
Heezen, Bruce C., and Tharp, Marie, World Ocean Floor Panorama, Milwaukee, Mercator Projection, 1977.Google Scholar
Hsü, Kenneth Jinghwa, The Great Dying, San Diego, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1986.Google Scholar
Jeanloz, Raymond, “The Earth's Core,” Scientific American, 249 (1983), pp. 40–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Le Pichon, Xavier, Leçon Inaugurale, Collège de France, Chaire de Géodynamique, 1987.Google Scholar
McKenzie, Dan P., “The Earth's Mantle,” Scientific American, 249 (1983), pp. 50–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKensie, Dan P., and Richter, Frank, “Convection currents in the earth's mantle,” Scientific American, 235 (1976), pp.72–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mellaart, James, Çatalhüyük. A Neolithic Town in Anatolia, London, Thames and Hudson, 1967.Google Scholar
Menard, H. William, The Ocean of Truth, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1986.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Molnar, Peter H., “The Structure of Mountain Ranges,” Scientific American, 254 (1986), pp.70–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Park, R.G., Geological Structures and Moving Plates, Glasgow, Blackie, 1988.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pisias, Nicklas G., and Imbrie, John, “Orbital geometry, CO2 and Pleistocene climate,” Oceanus, 29 (1986 1987), pp. 43–49.Google Scholar
Pitman, W.C., III, and Golovchenko, Xenia, “Quantitative landscape evolution,” Journal of Geophysical Research, 96 (1991), pp. 6879–6891.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Press, Frank and Siever, Raymond, ed. Planet Earth, Reading from Scientific American, San Francisco, Freeman and Company, 1974.Google Scholar
Scientific American, The Dynamic Earth, special issue, 249 (September 1983).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skinner, Brian J., and Porter, Stephen C., Physical Geology, New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1987.Google Scholar
Smith, David G., ed., The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Earth Sciences. New York, Crown Publishers/Cambridge University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Uyeda, Seiya, “Recent developments in solid earth sciences,” Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, 31-34 (1983), pp. 29–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Verhoogen, J., Turner, F.J., Weiss, L.E., Wahrhafting, C., and Fyfe, W.S., The Earth. An Introduction to Physical Geology, New York, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Inc., 1970.Google Scholar
White, Robert S., and McKenzie, Dan P., “Volcanism at rift,” Scientific American, 260 (1989), pp.62–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, J. Tuso, ed. Continents Adrift and Continents Aground, San Francisco, Freeman & Company, 1976.Google Scholar
Wyllie Peter, J., The Dynamic Earth: Textbook in Geosciences, New York, John Riley & Sons, 1971.Google Scholar
Wyllie Peter, J., “The Earth's Mantle,” Scientific American, 232 (1975), pp. 50–63.B.CrossRefGoogle Scholar