Earth Systems through Time

photo credit: Peter Sawyer / Smithsonian Institute

Welcome to the Earth Systems through Time course (EES 2510/5510) webpage. This site has been developed to walk you through geologic time, ranging from billions of years ago all the way to the Recent. Along the way, this site should show you the coevolution and interaction of Earth’s major spheres (Geosphere, Biosphere, Atmosphere, and Hydrosphere), as well as introduce you to a few dynamic moments in Earth’s history that forever shaped the future of our planet.

As this is a part of the EES 2510 EStT course, the material here is supplemental to what you will be receiving in lecture. In lecture, you will be walked through Earth’s history with varying degrees of depth. Your professors will discuss with you many things that relate to the topics that are presented on this website, and they will cover much more. There is a trade off in depth of material versus amount of geologic time that we can teach you. To offset this, there are two supplemental components to this course that are designed to help you better learn and understand the progression of each of these systems as well as major events or trajectories in Earth history. The first is Tiki-Toki.

Tiki-Toki is an online timeline platform that you will use to outline and track events in of each of the planetary spheres as you go through lecture. You will add events and characteristics for each of the spheres as they are presented to you. By the end of the semester, you should have a fairly complete timeline that outlines most of Earth’s history. More about Tiki-Toki can be found on the Tiki-Toki page of this website.

The second supplemental aspect of the course is this website. Pages of this website are dedicated to specific concepts that are key to understanding the history of each of these spheres and how they come together to shape the present day Earth. Throughout the semester you will be directed to different pages from this website. Each page has a series of materials to read or watch, and then a series of assignments to complete. Some are fairly simple and straightforward, while others will take more time. When turning assignments in, there is a submission page that can been identified in the menu above this page. Fill out the blank fields and upload your assignment.

This site is a collection of materials from open source educational videos, primary literature, and more. Geologic dates for the materials generated on this site come from the Geological Society of America (GSA) Geologic Time Scale v. 4.0. Although the majority of the materials on this site are dedicated, in the event something is not working, contact your instructor as soon as possible. Below is the time scale used to generate the materials on this website.

External sources accessed on Nov. 2016