Geobiology

Undergraduate · Historical course

Spring 2013

This course introduces the parallel evolution of life and the environment. Life processes are influenced by chemical and physical processes in the atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere and the solid earth. In turn, life can influence chemical and physical processes on our planet. This course explores the concept of life as a geological agent and examines the interaction between biology and the earth system during the roughly 4 billion years since life first appeared.

Readings

[Stanley] = Stanley, Steven M. Earth System History . W. H. Freeman, 2008. ISBN: 9781429233491.
Listed reading
[Kump] = Kump, Lee R., James F. Kasting, and Robert G. Crane. The Earth System . Prentice Hall, 2003. ISBN: 9780131420595.
Listed reading
Madigan, Martinko, and F. Parker. Brock Biology of Microorganisms . Benjamin Cummings, 2008. ISBN: 9780132324601.
Listed reading
[Hering and Morel] = Morel, M. M., and J. Hering. Principles and Applications of Aquatic Chemistry. Wiley-Interscience, 1993. ISBN: 9780471548966.
Listed reading
Wills, Christopher, and Jeffrey Bada. The Spark of Life: Darwin And The Primeval Soup. Basic Books, 2000. ISBN: 9780738201962. [Preview with Google Books ] ↗
Recommended
Cesare, Emiliani. Planet Earth: Cosmology, Geology and the Evolution of Life and Environment . Cambridge University Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780521409490. [Preview with Google Books ] ↗
Recommended
[Brock] = Broecker, Wallace S. How to Build a Habitable Planet . Columbia Univ Trustees, 1998. ISBN: 9780961751111.
Recommended
[Stanley] Chapters 1 and 2.
Listed reading
Valley, John W. “ Early Earth .” Elements 2, no. 4 (2006): 201–4. ↗
Listed reading
Woese, Carl R., and George E. Fox. “ Phylogenetic structure of the prokaryotic domain: The primary kingdoms .” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 74, no. 11 (1977): 5088–90. ↗
Listed reading
Hayes, John M. “ Practice and Principles of Isotopic Measurements in Organic Geochemistry.” (PDF) (2002). ↗
Listed reading
Marais, David J. Des. “ Isotopic evolution of the biogeochemical carbon cycle during the Proterozoic Eon .” Organic Geochemistry 27, no. 5–6 (1997): 185–93. ↗
Listed reading
Edmonda, John M., and Youngsook Huh. “ Non-steady state carbonate recycling and implications for the evolution of atmospheric P CO2 .” Earth and Planetary Science Letters 216, no. 1–2 (2003): 125–39. ↗
Listed reading
Ridgwell, Andy, and Richard E. Zeebe. “ The role of the global carbonate cycle in the regulation and evolution of the Earth system .” Earth and Planetary Science Letters 234, no. 3–4 (2005): 299–315. ↗
Listed reading
Anbar, Ariel D., and A. H. Knoll. “ Proterozoic Ocean Chemistry and Evolution: A Bioinorganic Bridge? ” Science 297, no. 5584 (2002): 1137–42. ↗
Listed reading
Anbar, Ariel D., Yun Duan, et al. “ A Whiff of Oxygen Before the Great Oxidation Event? ” Science 317, no. 5846 (2007): 1903–6. ↗
Listed reading
Hoffman, Paul F., and Daniel P. Schrag. “ The snowball Earth hypothesis: testing the limits of global change .” Terra Nova 14, no. 3 (2002): 129–55. ↗
Listed reading
———. “ Snowball Earth .” Scientific American 282 (2000): 68–75. ↗
Listed reading
Midterm exam · Schink, Bernhard, and Michael Friedrich. “ Bacterial metabolism: Phosphite oxidation by sulphate reduction .” Nature 406, no. 37 (2000). ↗
Listed reading
Keeling, Patrick J., Gertraud Burger, et al. “ The tree of eukaryotes .” Trends in Ecology & Evolution 20, no. 12 (2005): 670–6. ↗
Listed reading
Delwiche, Charles F. “ Tracing the Thread of Plastid Diversity through the Tapestry of Life .” The American Naturalist 154 (1999): 164–77. ↗
Listed reading
Janouškoveca, Jan, Aleš Horák, et al. “ A common red algal origin of the apicomplexan, dinoflagellate, and heterokont plastids .” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 107, no. 24 (2010): 10949–54. ↗
Listed reading
Heckman, Daniel S., David M. Geiser, et al. “ Molecular Evidence for the Early Colonization of Land by Fungi and Plants .” Science 293, no. 5532 (2001): 1129–33. ↗
Listed reading
Narbonne, Guy M. “ The Ediacara Biota: Neoproterozoic Origin of Animals and Their Ecosystems .” Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 33 (2005): 421–42. ↗
Listed reading
Marshall, Charles R. “ Explaining The Cambrian “Explosion” Of Animals .” Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 34 (2006): 355–84. ↗
Listed reading
15 · Ediacaran fauna. Evolution and radiation of animals. Evidence for early animals. Animal body plans. Sponges. Deadline to decide on the problem to write about for the final blog piece. · Chirata, Régis, Derek E. Moultonb, et al. “ Mechanical basis of morphogenesis and convergent evolution of spiny seashells .” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110, no. 15 (2013): 6015–20. ↗
Listed reading
Bambach, Richard K. “ Phanerozoic Biodiversity Mass Extinctions .” Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 34 (2006): 127–155. ↗
Listed reading
Payne, Jonathan L., and Matthew E. Clapham. “ End-Permian Mass Extinction in the Oceans: An Ancient Analog for the Twenty-First Century? ” Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 40 (2012): 89–111. ↗
Listed reading
Schulte, Peter, Laia Alegret, et al. “ The Chicxulub Asteroid Impact and Mass Extinction at the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary .” Science 327, no. 5970 (2010): 1214–8. ↗
Listed reading
D’Hondt, Steven. “ Consequences Of The Cretaceous/Paleogene Mass Extinction For Marine Ecosystema .” Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 36 (2005): 295–317. ↗
Listed reading
McInerney, Francesca A., and Scott L. Wing. “ The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum: A Perturbation of Carbon Cycle, Climate, and Biosphere with Implications for the Future .” Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 39 (2011): 489–516. ↗
Listed reading
18 · Mass Extinctions including Permian-Triassic event · Rothschild, Lynn J., and Rocco L. Mancinelli. “ Life in extreme environments .” Nature 409 (2001): 1092–101. ↗
Listed reading
DeLong, Edward F. “ The microbial ocean from genomes to biomes ”. Nature 459 (2009): 200–6. ↗
Listed reading
Zehr, Jonathan P., John B. Waterbury, et al. “ Unicellular cyanobacteria fix N 2 in the subtropical North Pacific Ocean .” Nature 412 (2001): 635–8. ↗
Listed reading
Milucka, Jana, and Timothy G. Ferdelman, et al. “ Zero-valent sulphur is a key intermediate in marine methane oxidation .” Nature 491 (2012): 541–6. ↗
Listed reading
Valentine, David L. “ Adaptations to energy stress dictate the ecology and evolution of the Archaea .” Nature Reviews Microbiology 5 (2007): 316–23. ↗
Listed reading
Stanley, Steven M. Earth System History . W. H. Freeman, 2008. ISBN: 9781429233491.
Listed reading
Kump, Lee R., James F. Kasting, and Robert G. Crane. The Earth System . Prentice Hall, 2003. ISBN: 9780131420595.
Listed reading
Morel, M. M., and J. Hering. Principles and Applications of Aquatic Chemistry. Wiley-Interscience, 1993. ISBN: 9780471548966.
Listed reading
Broecker, Wallace S. How to Build a Habitable Planet . Columbia Univ Trustees, 1998. ISBN: 9780961751111.
Recommended

Sources

Course catalogue ↗Historical OpenCourseWare
MIT OCW readings ↗
MIT OCW syllabus ↗
Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.