Early Earth

It has been over two decades since the last attempt to summarize the state-of-the-art in a comprehensive volume of earth dynamics. Earth processes have changed rapidly since that time with the advent, for example, of new isotopic tracers, experimental techniques, and high-powered computing. Currently there is no volume dedicated to the study of the Early Earth from a multidisciplinary point of view.§Most of the current state of the Earth was inherited from the initial conditions 4.56 billion years ago, when accretion, large impacts among planetary objects, and major differentiation events were taking place concurrently. 'Why is the Earth a habitable planet and able to sustain life?' is a question that is intimately linked to those initial conditions. How the Earth evolved from a molten ball of metal and magma to the tectonically active and dynamic planet we know today is the essence of this editorial project. The fundamental issues such as how the Earth formed and evolved to attain it's current chemical and physical properties, is highly multidisciplinary and important new results have emerged from a variety of disciplines including cosmo-chemistry, geomagnetism, geochemistry, experimental petrology, mineral physics and seismology. Currently there is no monograph that encompasses this multidisciplinary view, and from our perspective, describing this "state" the early Earth from such a multidisciplinary point of view will certainly generate an enduring monograph of fundamental importance.