James Badro is a Professor and Research Director at the Institute of Earth Physics in France. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and a Life Fellow of the Mineralogical Society of America. His research interests involve deep earth geophysics and geochemistry through high pressure experiments, with special focus on experimental petrology, experimental geochemistry, mineral physics mantle and core composition, structure and dynamics, earth formation and evolution, earth accretion and differentiation. He is a well-known author with numerous research publications including in Science, Nature Materials and Geophysical Monograph Series.Michael J. Walter is the Professor and Head of School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol, UK. His research interests involve high pressure-temperature experimental petrology, geochemistry, and mineral physics with special focus on topics including the differentiation of the mantle and core, Earth accretion, subsolidus lower-mantle phase relations and crystal chemistry, origin and evolution of deep-seated carbonatite magmas and mineral inclusions in diamond. He is a well-known author with numerous publications including in Science and Journal of Geophysical Research.

"This book reviews our current understanding of the fundamental processes, which took a cloud of gas and dust in the solar nebula to the highly differentiated worl we know in a relatively short period of time (probably less than 100 million years, or about 2% of the age of the solar system).""The papers follow a standard scientific research style - clear, but terse and to the point with frequent use of acronyms, and an expectation of considerable subject matter knowledge from the reader."William R. Green (05/09/2016)

• ContributorsPrefaceAcknowledgements1. Timing of nebula processes which shaped the precursors of the terrestrial planetsMarc Chaussidon and Ming-Chang Liu2. The Earth’s building blocksFrédéric Moynier and Bruce Fegley, Jr.3. Earth and Terrestrial Planet FormationSeth A. Jacobson, Kevin J. Walsh4. Late Accretion and the Late VeneerAlessandro Morbidelli and Bernard J. Wood5. Early differentiation and core formation: processes and timescalesFrancis Nimmo and Thorsten Kleine6. An experimental geochemistry perspective on Earth's core formationJulien Siebert and Anat Shahar7. Thermal state and evolution of the Earth core and deep mantleStéphane Labrosse, John W. Hernlund, and Kei Hirose8. Early Differentiation and its Long Term Consequences for Earth EvolutionRichard W. Carlson, Maud Boyet, Jonathan O’Neil, Hanika Rizo and Richard J. WalkerIndex