Global Evolution The First Five Billion Years © Bob Field 2008-0428 1.   Solar System 2. Sun 3.   Solid Earth 4.   Hydrosphere 5.   Atmosphere 6.   Biosphere 7.   Hadean 8.   Archaean 9.   Proterozoic 10. Phanerozoic 11. Five Billion Years Appendices A. Global Evolution Timelines B. Earth Systems Database

The National Academy of Sciences says that it is the role of science to provide plausible natural explanations of natural phenomena. The ultimate question for Earth System History is: How did a giant cloud of cold dilute gas and dust evolve into astronauts in a spacecraft orbiting a planet orbiting a star? The short answer is when energy flows, complexity grows. The fact is that the solid Earth, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere have undergone nearly five billion years of physical, chemical, and/or biological evolution because of the flows of energy and/or matter into and/or out of these systems, a process that I call global evolution.

The book will emphasize the structures, functions, composition, interactions and flows of energy and matter, and the origin and evolution of complex natural systems. The book is not yet written.