In this radical new approach to Earth's biography, senior Carnegie Institution researcher and national bestselling author Robert M. Hazen reveals how the co-evolution of the geosphere and biosphere--of rocks and living matter--has shaped our planet into the only one of its kind in the Solar System, if not the entire cosmos.

Includes index.

Introduction -- Birth : the formation of Earth -- The Big Thwack : the formation of the moon -- Black Earth : the first basalt crust -- Blue Earth : the formation of the oceans -- Gray Earth : the first granite crust -- Living Earth : the origins of life -- Red Earth : photosynthesis and the Great Oxidation Event -- The "boring" billion : the mineral revolution -- White Earth : the snowball-hothouse cycle -- Green Earth : the rise of the terrestrial biosphere -- The future : scenarios of a changing planet -- Epilogue.