Preface to the first edition

It is thought that the Earth was born as a planet about 4500 million years ago. Throughout the long years since then it has continually evolved, and has undergone a transformation into its present form.

Tracing the evolution of the Earth is a central topic in Earth science, and has been dealt with by many writers. However, most previous histories of the Earth have been concerned with the past 600 million years, since fossils have been found in abundance from this period, and only touch very briefly on the Precambrian period, which is equivalent to roughly seven-eighths of the Earth’s history. But those basic qualities of the Earth with which we are so well acquainted – the magnetic field, the layered structure of the core and mantle, the atmosphere and oceans, were all formed in the very early stages of the Earth’s history.