Optional Readings for Interested Parties: The market for historical geology textbooks is limited and has been dominated by a small handful of authors. I have not found a historical geology textbook to my liking that is up-to-date, affordable, comprehensive, and covers the topics I find to be important and interesting (in the order in which I would cover them). Therefore there is no official textbook in this course. However, for those of you who would like some reading parallel to my course lectures, you might find any of the following interesting:
Fortey, R. A. 1998. Life: A Natural History of the first 4.5 billion years of Life on Earth.
Gould, S. J. 2001. Book of Life
Hazen, R. M. 2012. The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 billion years, from stardust to living planet
