Walter Álvarez > Quotes

“Rocks are the key to Earth history, because solids remember but liquids and gases forget.”
― Walter Alvarez, T. rex and the Crater of Doom

“But for geologists quarries are wonderful places, allowing us to see down through the trees and pastures that may be pleasing to the eye but obscure the profound stories that rocks have to tell. In a quarry we are privileged to look into the heart of the mountains and open up the record of the Earth's past. For me, finding a new quarry can be an emotional experience akin to entering the granite portal of the university library at Berkeley. In a library and in a quarry we confront the archives of history.”
― Walter Álvarez, The Mountains of Saint Francis : Discovering the Geologic Events that Shaped our Earth