Harvard professor highlights Sage Library Zoom presentation

Sage Branch of Thomas Branigan Memorial Library will host author Andrew H. Knoll in a Zoom presentation about his book, “A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters,” from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. Thursday, July 15.

There is no charge to attend. The public is welcome.

Send an email to sagelibrary@las-cruces.org for the meeting number and password.

From Amazon.com about the book: “Drawing on his decades of field research and up-to-the-minute understanding of the latest science, renowned geologist Andrew H. Knoll delivers a rigorous yet accessible biography of Earth, charting our home planet’s epic 4.6 billion-year story. Placing 21st-century climate change in deep context, ‘A Brief History of Earth’ is an indispensable look at where we’ve been and where we’re going.”

“One thing I find fascinating is the timetable of Earth history, as most of the things we tend to view as ancient actually occurred relatively recently in our planet’s past – dinosaurs, come readily to mind,” Knoll said. “For the first 2 billion years of Earth’s history, there were few continents exposed above the sea and no oxygen in the air. Our familiar world of animals comes around only in the last 15 percent of the story, and humans enter the picture just yesterday in geologic terms (less than one thousandth of a percent of Earth history). I think we need to understand this story to appreciate the remarkable alteration of the planet by humans, and its consequences for us all.”

Knoll is the Fisher professor of natural history and a professor of earth and planetary sciences at Harvard. He received a bachelor’s degree from Lehigh University in 1973 and a doctorate from Harvard in 1977, both in geology. Following five years on the faculty of Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, Knoll returned to Harvard as associate professor of biology in 1982. His research focuses on the early evolution of life, Earth’s environmental history and the interconnections between the two. For the past decade, he has served on the science team for NASA’s MER mission to Mars.

Visit https://eps.harvard.edu/people/andrew-h-knoll.