Description

Part 1 – Astrophysics

The Story of the Earth begins with the “Big Bang” 13.7 billion years ago.  From a volume less than one atom, all the matter in the universe was created.  Billions of stars in billions of galaxies came into existence in milliseconds.  Then in several cycles of birth to death of individual stars; elements, molecules, minerals, and rocks became part of our universe.  From the detritus of a supernova, the exploding death of a star, our own solar system and our planet came in to existence 4.5 billion years ago.   Learn how this story of astrophysics set the stage for the story of our planet, Earth.

Part II — The Eons of Earth

Most of the historical geology that earth science majors study in college covers only the last half billion years of Earth’s history.    This lecture will review the origins of the Earth and its subsequent development to our present time.  New technology and recent research have uncovered information that was unavailable to earth scientists in the past.  The birth of the Earth (and the Moon) and the four eons of Earth’s history will be discussed as Earth evolved from molten ball of magma to the present biosphere that we live on today.