How the Earth Works cover art

How the Earth Works

Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

How the Earth Works

By: Michael E. Wysession, The Great Courses
Narrated by: Michael E. Wysession
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £38.99

Buy Now for £38.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

How the Earth Works takes you on an astonishing journey through time and space. In 48 lectures, you will look at what went into making our planet - from the big bang, to the formation of the solar system, to the subsequent evolution of Earth.

You will travel to the center of our planet and out again, charting the geologic forces that churn beneath our feet to push the continents and seafloor around like froth on the surface of soup. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis are byproducts of our planet’s ceaseless activity, and you will focus on specific examples of each to learn why and when they occur. Volcanic activity has produced the atmosphere as a side effect, and you will learn how this sea of air functions at the global scale. Earth’s surface is mostly water, and you will explore the cycling of this vital substance throughout the planet, along with its role in climate, erosion, plate tectonics, and biology.

Not only are humans at the mercy of our planet’s natural forces, but we ourselves have also become agents of change. We are altering the Earth’s land, water, and air faster than any other geologic process. This will be another theme of your journey: how humans have transformed watersheds, leveled mountains, changed the balance of gases in the atmosphere, and caused the extinction of enough species to hasten the end of the 65-million-year-old Cenozoic era. It is vitally important that we understand the nature of our geologic powers if we are to have any hope of controlling them.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2008 The Great Courses (P)2008 The Teaching Company, LLC
Earth Sciences Environment Science Solar System Natural Disaster Thought-Provoking

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Theory of Evolution: A History of Controversy cover art
The Other Side of History: Daily Life in the Ancient World cover art
Einstein's Relativity and the Quantum Revolution: Modern Physics for Non-Scientists, 2nd Edition cover art
The Evidence for Modern Physics cover art
Chemistry and Our Universe cover art
Being Human: Life Lessons from the Frontiers of Science cover art
The Foundations of Western Civilization cover art
The Learning Brain cover art
The Great Ideas of Philosophy, 2nd Edition cover art
A New History of Life cover art
Life in Our Universe cover art
The Science of Energy cover art
The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality cover art
The American Civil War cover art
1066: The Year That Changed Everything cover art
The Philosopher's Toolkit: How to Be the Most Rational Person in Any Room cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
"Well it turns out!" this is a very good audio book. you get alot for your money and it gets you thinking differently.

"Well it turns out!"

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

This is the best audiobook on audible. It means so much to me. It is my go to book when I get bored of others. Perfectly narrated by a genuinely enthusiastic author. This book doesn’t waste anytime. It tells you the story of our planet - as we understood it at the time of writing. A sequel is required to update for some more recent scientific findings. Hope that happens

Changed my life

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Clearly a very knowledgeable academic with great enthusiasm for the subject. Definitely would benefit from eliminating the distraction of 700+ uses of turning out phrase.

Great…

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Fantastic book: informative well-researched content, great relatable examples and fun engaging delivery. I also really liked the historical anecdotes backing up the explanations. Couldn’t recommend this book enough

Great book!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

at 22 hours long I do admit I did drift a bit on a few areas but overall it kept me engaged. The narration was perhaps a little flat but fine for the subject matter, and i very much enjoyed it.

long and detailed description of earth's function

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Glad I listened and great to hear someone who clearly loves their subject and is a true expert. Would benefit from a broadening out of vocabulary as opposed to the repetitive "Turns out" and "Enormous". Full of fascinating facts except at the end, where a couple of oddities and speculative peculiarities appear - such as political organisations like the EU being naively held up as a natural evolution of global unity which will presumably expand into wonderful philanthropic supranational entities? Thankfully, he sticks to his subject specialism in the main and it turns out, he has created an enormously interesting piece of work :-).

Tricky following along on the move but very good!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Lots of depth and breadth. Highly recommended. Wish there was a revised one with more recent data.

Fantastic!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

It explains the wonders of evolution and how fortunate we are to exist in this time and place in the universe. Brilliant book

A must for lovers of nature

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

This powerful work confirms that the earth and indeed the universe is a complex living organism. The way everything is woven together, every thing is co dependent and co surviving takes the breathe away, the seen live on the unseen, the silent leverage on the power of the loud.
This book is indeed a living testimony to the word complexity.

TESTIMONY TO A LIVING UNIVERSE

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Really interesting and user friendly…and great for listening to on dog walks whilst looking at the world around us

Brilliant !

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews