Web Links

Chapter 11, The Archean Eon of Precambrian Time

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An overview of early Archean time (4.5-3.8 billion years ago) from the University of California at Berkeley Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) exhibit.

An overview of Archean time from 3.8-2.5 billion years ago from UCMP.

Here you can download an animation of solar system formation.

The Origin of the Solar System. A nice overview at the Nine Planets site.

Building Planets at PSI: The Origin of the Solar System. Planetary Science Institute. This wonderfully illustrated site describes the use of a computer model to study how the solar system formed.

The Origin of the Moon. Another site from PSI that gives an excellent, well-illustrated presentation of the latest view on how Earth’s moon formed.

Clocks in Rocks: Isotopes and the Age of the Earth. An explanation of how radiometric dating is used to determine Earth’s age.

The First Billion Years of the Earth: Differentiation, Water, and Early Atmospheres.

Evidence seen for early Earth layer differentiation. Scientists have found evidence that early Earth developed a crust quickly.

Archean Geology. Overview; includes a short quiz.

Precambrian Geology of North America.

Precambrian Crustal Evolution and Tectonics. The first section discusses Archean crustal evolution and plate tectonics.

Primordial Soup. An article describing Stanley Miller’s recent experiments on the origin of life.

Fossil Record of the Cyanobacteria. An article from the UCMP.

Earth, Wind, and Fire: A Catastrophic View of Geology. Very complete syllabus of a course at the University of Dublin, Trinity College, by Philip Allen and Alex Densmore. Lectures of interest for this chapter include:

The Big Bang. An expanding universe, the Big Bang, the fate of the universe.

Origin of the Planets in Our Solar System. The birth of the solar system, the accretion of terrestrial planets, the formation of the Jovian planets, the moon.

Oasis Earth. Factors that make Earth suitable for the evolution of life.

Life in Hell: Getting it Right for the Origin of Life. The origin of life and the interaction of the biosphere with Earth’s physical and chemical environments.

Living in Oblivion: The Early Evolution of Life. The first sections detail the evolution of life in the Archean Eon.

W. H. Freeman & Co. and Sumanas, Inc.