This book is designed to give to Coloradoans and Colorado visitors, especially those with little or no geologic training but with an abiding interest and sense of excitement in their surroundings, a feeling for the long prehistory of Colorado. Colorado’s story, which begins not millions but billions of years ago, involves tremendous forces working deep within our earth. To avoid drowning the reader in a sea of names and facts the author has deliberately told Colorado’s story in simplified form, leaving out many geologic details and avoiding over-use of specalized geologic terms.
my father is a geophysicist so it's not like I had a choice. We called it geology 165 because we were getting geology lessons at 65 mph every time we got in the car and went anywhere. Trips through Wyoming were all Geology lessons! I do like geology though but it is because of my dad :-)
The odd sort of thing that I choose as unchallenging bedtime reading. Obviously a bit out of date (I chuckled at the passing reference speculating whether we might be entering a new ice age... oh yeah, 1980, they were still speculating about that in the 1970s) and I wonder how much has changed regarding many of the interpretations, but still an intriguing read to get some regional geology background. I've got a lot of Wyoming to explore before I start on Colorado, but this has definitely got me excited about that as well.
Bonus points if you've listened to any amount of C.W. McCall because you'll recognize a lot of place names from "Wolf Creek Pass" and "The Galloping Goose" and "Four Wheel Cowboy" and others I've either not listened to or have forgotten at the moment.
And of course you can't beat that last name. "The Chronic."
This is one to check out again for our next road trip, so we can see what it is describing in person. There are even mile markers in the descriptions to help find the different formations.