- Title Pages
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
-
Introduction: Life’s Sensibilities -
1 Valuable Viruses -
2 More Like a Waterfall -
3 Alarmones -
4 Early Sensibilities -
5 Smart Bacteria -
6 Ancient Architects -
7 Others -
8 Nested Communities -
9 Cosmic Rhythms of Life -
10 Life’s Tectonics -
11 Evolutionary Illumination -
12 Symbiogenesis in Russia -
13 From Movement to Sensation -
14 Packaging DNA -
15 Lemurs and Split Chromosomes -
16 Interspecies Hybrids -
17 Origins of the Immune System -
18 Medical Symbiotics -
19 Animal Consciousness -
20 Brains and Symbols -
21 Thermodynamics and Thought -
22 “I Know Who You Are; I Know Where You Live” -
23 Cultural Networks - Bibliography
-
Appendix A: Major Groups of Living Organisms -
Appendix B: The International Geological Time Scale (Time-Rock Divisions) - Glossary
- About the Authors
- Index
- [UNTITLED]
Life’s Tectonics
Life’s Tectonics
- Chapter:
- (p.122) (p.123) 10 Life’s Tectonics
- Source:
- Chimeras and Consciousness
- Author(s):
Paul D. Lowman
Nathan Currier
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
This chapter argues that plate tectonics, which strikingly differentiate the living orb from the dead spheres of Mars and Venus, is made possible by liquid water. It shows that cycled and retained water shaped this planet’s surface. It suggests that water-based cycling life extends to the water-based cycling of the Earth’s huge lithospheric plates. It states that the Earth’s deep oceans heavily influence its plate tectonics. It is clear that plate tectonic phenomena would be enormously slowed, if not stopped completely, if the Earth were suddenly to lose its oceans.
Keywords: plate tectonics, liquid water, cycling life, Earth, deep oceans, water-based cycling
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- Title Pages
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
-
Introduction: Life’s Sensibilities -
1 Valuable Viruses -
2 More Like a Waterfall -
3 Alarmones -
4 Early Sensibilities -
5 Smart Bacteria -
6 Ancient Architects -
7 Others -
8 Nested Communities -
9 Cosmic Rhythms of Life -
10 Life’s Tectonics -
11 Evolutionary Illumination -
12 Symbiogenesis in Russia -
13 From Movement to Sensation -
14 Packaging DNA -
15 Lemurs and Split Chromosomes -
16 Interspecies Hybrids -
17 Origins of the Immune System -
18 Medical Symbiotics -
19 Animal Consciousness -
20 Brains and Symbols -
21 Thermodynamics and Thought -
22 “I Know Who You Are; I Know Where You Live” -
23 Cultural Networks - Bibliography
-
Appendix A: Major Groups of Living Organisms -
Appendix B: The International Geological Time Scale (Time-Rock Divisions) - Glossary
- About the Authors
- Index
- [UNTITLED]