Page 85 - The Creation Of The Universe
P. 85
THE BLUE
PLANET
The Earth, with its atmosphere and oceans, its
complex biosphere, its crust of relatively oxi-
dised, silica rich, sedimentary, igneous, and
metamorphic rocks overlaying [a magnesium sili-
cate mantle and core] of metallic iron, with its ice
caps, deserts, forests, tundra, jungles, grass-
lands, fresh-water lakes, coal beds, oil deposits,
volcanoes, fumaroles, factories, automobiles,
plants, animals, magnetic field, ionosphere, mid-
ocean ridges, convincing mantle... is a system of
stunning complexity.
J. S. Lewis, American Geologist 54
