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Chimeras and ConsciousnessEvolution of the Sensory Self$
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Chimeras and Consciousness: Evolution of the Sensory Self

Lynn Margulis, Celeste A. Asikainen, and Wolfgang E. Krumbein

Print publication date: 2011

Print ISBN-13: 9780262015394

Published to MIT Press Scholarship Online: August 2013

DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/9780262015394.001.0001

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PRINTED FROM MIT PRESS SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.mitpress.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright The MIT Press, 2021. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in MITSO for personal use.date: 22 October 2021

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
DOI:10.7551/mitpress/9780262015394.003.0011

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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