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Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth

10 best books like Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth (Andrew H. Knoll): When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of all Time, Oxygen: The Molecule That Made the World, After the Ice Age: The Return of Life to Glaciated North America, Supercontinent: Ten Billion Years in the Life of Our Planet, The Planet in a Pebble: A Journey Into Earth's Deep History, For Love of Insects, The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth's History, The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin's Dilemma, Genesis: The Scientific Quest for Life's Origin, Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Microbial Evolution

When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of all Time
AuthorMichael J. Benton
Today it is common knowledge that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteorite impact 65 million years ago that killed half of all species then living. Far less well-known is a much greater catastrophe that took place at the end of the Permian period 251 million years ago: 90 percent of life was destroyed,...
Oxygen: The Molecule That Made the World
AuthorNick Lane
ISBN0198607830
In Oxygen, Nick Lane takes the reader on an enthralling journey as he unravels the unexpected ways in which oxygen spurred the evolution of life and death. He shows how oxygen underpins the origin of biological complexity, the birth of photosynthesis, the sudden evolution of animals, the need for two...
After the Ice Age: The Return of Life to Glaciated North America
AuthorE.C. Pielou
ISBN0226668126
A world building book. Pielou's world is vast, complex, and filled with, sometimes surprising, concepts and images. One of those books to read in segments of time, between other reading materials. Quotes later ....

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Here be table of contents:

"Part One - Preliminaries"
Chapter...
Supercontinent: Ten Billion Years in the Life of Our Planet
AuthorTed Nield
ISBN0674026594
To understand continental drift and plate tectonics, the shifting and collisions that make and unmake continents, requires a long view. The Earth, after all, is 4.6 billion years old. This book extends our vision to take in the greatest geological cycle of all--one so vast that our species will probably...
The Planet in a Pebble: A Journey Into Earth's Deep History
AuthorJan Zalasiewicz
ISBN0199569703
This is the story of a single pebble, whose history carries us into abyssal depths of time, and across the farthest reaches of space. Indeed, starting from this tiny, common speck, Jan Zalasiewicz offers readers a stimulating tour that begins with the Universe's dramatic birth in the unimaginable...
For Love of Insects
AuthorThomas Eisner
ISBN0674011813
Imagine beetles ejecting defensive sprays as hot as boiling water; female moths holding their mates for ransom; caterpillars disguising themselves as flowers by fastening petals to their bodies; termites emitting a viscous glue to rally fellow soldiers - and you will have entered an insect world...
The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth's History
AuthorDavid Beerling
ISBN0192806025
Global warming is contentious and difficult to measure, even among the majority of scientists who agree that it is taking place. Will temperatures rise by 2 C or 8 C over the next hundred years? Will sea levels rise by 2 or 30 feet? The only way that we can accurately answer questions like these is by looking...
The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin's Dilemma
AuthorMarc W. Kirschner
ISBN0300119771
Offering daring new ideas about evolution, two highly respected biologists here tackle the central, unresolved question in the field—how have living organisms on Earth developed with such astounding variety and complexity? Marc Kirschner and John Gerhart draw on cutting-edge biological and...
Genesis: The Scientific Quest for Life's Origin
AuthorRobert M. Hazen
ISBN0309094321
Life on Earth arose nearly 4 billion years ago, bursting forth from air, water, and rock. Though the process obeyed all the rules of chemistry and physics, the details of that original event pose as deep a mystery as any facing science. How did non-living chemicals become alive? While the question is...
Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Microbial Evolution
AuthorLynn Margulis
ISBN0520210646
Microcosmos brings together the remarkable discoveries of microbiology of the past two decades and the pioneering research of Dr. Margulis to create a vivid new picture of the world that is crucial to our understanding of the future of the planet. Addressed to general readers, the book provides a beautifully...
The Sixth Extinction: Patterns of Life and the Future of Humankind
AuthorRichard E. Leakey
ISBN0385468091
Richard Leakey, One Of The World's  Foremost Experts On Man's Evolutionary Past, Now Turns  His Eye To The Future And Doesn't Like What He  Sees.

To the philosophical the  earth is eternal, while the human race -- presumptive  keeper of the world's history -- is a mere speck  in...
Eating the Sun: How Plants Power the Planet
AuthorOliver Morton
ISBN0007163649
A story of a world in crisis and the importance of plants, the history of the earth, and the feuds and fantasies of warring scientists—this is not your fourth-grade science class's take on photosynthesis.

From acclaimed science journalist Oliver Morton comes this fascinating, lively,...
In The Blink Of An Eye: How Vision Sparked The Big Bang Of Evolution
AuthorAndrew Parker
ISBN0465054382
About 550 million years ago, there was literally an explosion of life forms, as all the major animal groups suddenly and dramatically appeared. Although several books have been written about this surprising event, known as the Cambrian explosion, none has explained why it occurred. Indeed, none...
Evolution: The First Four Billion Years
AuthorMichael Ruse
In this meaty tome (979 pages long!), the editors (Michael Ruse and Joseph Travis) present numerous articles written by renowned scientists on various aspects of modern evolutionary theory. Jeffrey Bada and Antonio Lazcano discuss developments in understanding the origin of life; Michael Benton...
The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive?
AuthorPeter D. Ward
ISBN0691130752
In The Medea Hypothesis, renowned paleontologist Peter Ward proposes a revolutionary and provocative vision of life's relationship with the Earth's biosphere--one that has frightening implications for our future, yet also offers hope. Using the latest discoveries from the geological record,...
Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature
AuthorBrian Switek
ISBN1934137294
“Switek seamlessly intertwines two types of evolution: one of life on earth and the other of paleontology itself.”—Discover Magazine

““In delightful prose, [Switek] . . . superbly shows that ‘[i]f we can let go of our conceit,’ we will see the preciousness of life in all its...
The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance
AuthorErnst W. Mayr
ISBN0674364465
No one in this century can speak with greater authority on the progress of ideas in biology than Ernst Mayr. And no book has ever established the life sciences so firmly in the mainstream of Western intellectual history as The Growth of Biological Thought. Ten years in preparation, this is a work of epic...
Extinction: How Life on Earth Nearly Ended 250 Million Years Ago
AuthorDouglas H. Erwin
ISBN0691005249
Some 250 million years ago, the earth suffered the greatest biological crisis in its history. Around 95% of all living species died out--a global catastrophe far greater than the dinosaurs' demise 65 million years ago. How this happened remains a mystery. But there are many competing theories. Some...
The Variety of Life: A Survey and a Celebration of All the Creatures that Have Ever Lived
AuthorColin Tudge
ISBN0198503113
Here, between the covers of one capacious book, is an illustrated summary of all the creatures that have ever lived, a vast compendium of earth's current and former inhabitants in all their dazzling and infinite diversity.
Colin Tudge argues that we are entering a new phase of biology in which,...
Evolution
AuthorMark Ridley
ISBN1405103450
Mark Ridley's Evolution has become the premier undergraduate text in the study of evolution. Readable and stimulating, yet well-balanced and in-depth, this text tells the story of evolution, from the history of the study to the most revent developments in evolutionary theory.
The third edition...
Animal Behavior: An Evolutionary Approach
AuthorJohn Alcock
ISBN0878930116
This is the first textbook I've read since college, which has been well over a decade. This subject was far from my major (Computer Science) but I'd say this book provides a very thorough understanding of the subject with tons of examples to illustrate both how behavior works and adapts.

I find...
The Theory of Evolution
AuthorJohn Maynard Smith
ISBN0521451280
Overall, I enjoyed reading this book. I felt at times that I was lost to the point of the science being explained, but that could of been that there was no point, simply John Maynard Smith was enlightening me to something. In the end though, this is a good book to get a comprehensive view of evolution and it's...
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