The Story Of Earth by Robert Hazen

From The Week of October 30, 2012 How does life begin? We live on a world teeming with plants and trees, insects and eagles, microbes and whales, a world on which life has coalesced in the depths of the oceans and on the peaks of our mountains. It is so prolific, so constant, that it has made it impossible to imagine its empty opposite, a barren rock, home to nothing more than ice and stone. But how did all of this begin? And what are the necessary conditions to ignite the wonder that lives beyond our doors? As much as it pains the mind to conceive of something blooming from nothing, Mr. Hazen challenges us to do precisely this in his epic examination of the origin of planet Earth.

Birthed during the violent tumult produced by the solar system's formation some 4.5 billion years ago, Earth is something of a miracle. For not only is it currently the only world in the known universe to support life, it survived comets, asteroids and even planetary collisions to become so much more than an icy rock. Certainly, its fortunate position in the so-called Goldylocks Zone, that advantageous band of cosmic real estate far enough from a star not to be fried and close enough not to be frozen, helped its cause, but this is far from the only necessary virtue for life's evolution. There must also be tides to stir the oceans, planetary rotation to evenly bake the surface in sunlight, a molten core to spur volcanic activity, and mechanisms for capturing and releasing carbon dioxide and oxygen in a beneficial, self-sustaining cycle. And even these are but a few components to providing life a warm and comfortable cradle.

However, the factor we consider least is the most important to Mr. Hazen, time, time for acids to learn how to become bacteria, for bacteria to learn how to be multicellular, for multicellular organisms to spread out and diversify, and for that life to populate the oceans and finally the land with the varieties of the ecosystem we see today. Time... For the planet to evolve, for our star to strengthen, for our moon to grow more distant, for our species to build upon millions of years of fortunate mistakes. Through rocks and mathematical modeling, from the mirrors on the moon to the fossilbeds in our seas, Mr. Hazen examines the fullness of that time, charting life's growth through Earth's successive eras, most of which would have been hostile to human existence. For even if we managed to survive the poisonous atmosphere, we would have surely been trampled by creatures out of our nightmares, manifestations that are now nothing more than ghosts trapped in ancient bones. These are the many faces of our Earth, an Earth that isn't really ours after all.

Though at times soupy with statistics, The Story of Earth is, in the main, a delightful journey through Earth's largely unrecognizable past. Drawing upon a career spent studying Earth's many and varied rocks, Mr. Hazen, a researcher at Carnagy-Mellon University, highlights the major eras in Earth's development, challenging our minds to imagine the strange and deadly faces that Earth has worn in eons past. For while we naturally think of Earth as a possession one, an ancient creature claimed by propagation and technology, it has existed infinitely longer and in infinitely harsher environs than we ever will. Mr. Hazen drives this home in a human-ego-deflating demonstration of research and discovery, mathematical modeling and reasonable imagination that, while occasionally numbing, is never thoughtless.

While we seem no closer to an answer on precisely how life, like the universe, kindled into being, Mr. Hazen infects his work here with a delightful sense of childlike awe and excitement that one imagines he has never lost. The thirst for discovery combined with the thrill of understanding provides the work a heartening momentum. Science and imagination mix together here into a well-spiced stew that is worthy of being sampled and appreciated. (4/5 Stars)