What do you think?
The Rock and Gem Book: And Other Treasures of the Natural World
What is the difference between a rock and a gem? What makes the Hope Diamond so special? Why are some minerals fluorescent?
Dig deep to find the answers in The Rock and Gem Book. Filled with over 1,200 stunning full-color photographs, The Rock and Gem Book is the perfect encyclopedia for young geologists to consult.
Chapters are organized according to scientific classifications with straightforward explanations that bring each specimen to life. From the quartz in watches to the limestone in the Great Pyramids, the earth's natural treasures are used in architecture, art, and science. Get up close to diamonds, rubies, pearls, and sapphires, and study the different types of rocks, from granite to meteorites.
Designed in DK's signature style, the pages are filled with highly visual spreads that show off the depth and unique quality of each gemstone, rock, and fossil. See the past with fossils, learn about the ocean through shells, and find out what makes gold so special in The Rock and Gem Book.
Dig deep to find the answers in The Rock and Gem Book. Filled with over 1,200 stunning full-color photographs, The Rock and Gem Book is the perfect encyclopedia for young geologists to consult.
Chapters are organized according to scientific classifications with straightforward explanations that bring each specimen to life. From the quartz in watches to the limestone in the Great Pyramids, the earth's natural treasures are used in architecture, art, and science. Get up close to diamonds, rubies, pearls, and sapphires, and study the different types of rocks, from granite to meteorites.
Designed in DK's signature style, the pages are filled with highly visual spreads that show off the depth and unique quality of each gemstone, rock, and fossil. See the past with fossils, learn about the ocean through shells, and find out what makes gold so special in The Rock and Gem Book.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published May 10, 2016
About the author
Dan Green
713 books18 followersThere is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads' database.
Dan Green spent his first four years in Africa, until his family swapped the African sun for Welsh rain. He grew up an English-American hybrid in the heart of Wales and then went to Cambridge University to study geology. After college, he shipped out to Italy to chase a dream of rock 'n' roll stardom, wound up in Venezuela, where he became editor of the English language newspaper and survived a coup d'etat and most recently rode his motorbike across Europe to Morocco. Dan is the "voice of Basher" - the best-selling children's science series created by the graphic artist Basher (basherbooks.com/usa/home.html). He has also written humor books, comic strips for Horrible Histories and Horrible Science, and is the author of the Footprint Venezuela Handbook.
Visit his website and find out what he is up to:
www.dangreenbooks.com
Dan Green spent his first four years in Africa, until his family swapped the African sun for Welsh rain. He grew up an English-American hybrid in the heart of Wales and then went to Cambridge University to study geology. After college, he shipped out to Italy to chase a dream of rock 'n' roll stardom, wound up in Venezuela, where he became editor of the English language newspaper and survived a coup d'etat and most recently rode his motorbike across Europe to Morocco. Dan is the "voice of Basher" - the best-selling children's science series created by the graphic artist Basher (basherbooks.com/usa/home.html). He has also written humor books, comic strips for Horrible Histories and Horrible Science, and is the author of the Footprint Venezuela Handbook.
Visit his website and find out what he is up to:
www.dangreenbooks.com
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 28, 2024
This book contains many natural stones and gems that you have never seen before.
All of them are so beautiful that it's hard to believe they were created by nature.
Personally, I'm drawn to Amethyst's noble lavender color.
When I look at beautiful natural stones, I feel a connection with the universe.
I would like to see the candy-colored rocky mountains called "RAINBOW MOUNTAINS" in China.
RAINBOW MOUNTAINS
These candy-striped mountains may look like an optical illusion, but they actually consist of sandstone rock, built up by layer after layer of blue-gray, magenta, maroon, and lemon-colored stone. One of the most beautiful landforms in China, they form part of the Zhangye Danxia Geological Park in Gansu Province, in the northwest of the country.
The second half of this book also includes information on shell types.
The shells are heart-shaped, pink, and have gradations.
It's amazing how such beautiful works can be created in the ocean!
All of them are so beautiful that it's hard to believe they were created by nature.
Personally, I'm drawn to Amethyst's noble lavender color.
When I look at beautiful natural stones, I feel a connection with the universe.
I would like to see the candy-colored rocky mountains called "RAINBOW MOUNTAINS" in China.
RAINBOW MOUNTAINS
These candy-striped mountains may look like an optical illusion, but they actually consist of sandstone rock, built up by layer after layer of blue-gray, magenta, maroon, and lemon-colored stone. One of the most beautiful landforms in China, they form part of the Zhangye Danxia Geological Park in Gansu Province, in the northwest of the country.
The second half of this book also includes information on shell types.
The shells are heart-shaped, pink, and have gradations.
It's amazing how such beautiful works can be created in the ocean!
August 19, 2026
I have a list somewhere of scientific fields organized by how much I like them and geology is kind of near the bottom. (Whatever field covers electromagnets is the bottom.) I do love a shiny or unusual rock, however, and like bugs I am trying not to limit the children in their interests.
Unsurprisingly, I learned a thing on the first page! I probably could have produced the words "igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic" if needed to save my life, but I had no idea that rocks cycled through the types via erosion, heat/pressure, and melting, in a sort of rock water cycle. I bet Ms. Underwood (hopefully retired) tried to tell me and I wasn't listening. Sorry, Ms. Underwood.
There's a table of contents, a glossary, and an index, as well as a brief guide to identifying minerals using color, luster, hardness, etc. The last main section is various stories of historically relevant rocks/gems/minerals, which could be handy for enticing the budding humanities major.
Unsurprisingly, I learned a thing on the first page! I probably could have produced the words "igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic" if needed to save my life, but I had no idea that rocks cycled through the types via erosion, heat/pressure, and melting, in a sort of rock water cycle. I bet Ms. Underwood (hopefully retired) tried to tell me and I wasn't listening. Sorry, Ms. Underwood.
There's a table of contents, a glossary, and an index, as well as a brief guide to identifying minerals using color, luster, hardness, etc. The last main section is various stories of historically relevant rocks/gems/minerals, which could be handy for enticing the budding humanities major.
January 16, 2025
For those of us who are new to petrology, this is actually a really good reference on the different types of rock & mineral with a fantastic range of images.
The introductory geology section is rather primary-school rudimentary, which almost put me off, but the main reference section on the different rocks & minerals is superb. I'm sure those with geology or petrology training would scoff, but I found it helpful is further understanding the geology and specifically identifying many the rocks on my local coast and went in a couple of days from having almost no knowledge to being able to identify many of the local coastal rocks.
The introductory geology section is rather primary-school rudimentary, which almost put me off, but the main reference section on the different rocks & minerals is superb. I'm sure those with geology or petrology training would scoff, but I found it helpful is further understanding the geology and specifically identifying many the rocks on my local coast and went in a couple of days from having almost no knowledge to being able to identify many of the local coastal rocks.
September 30, 2020
This book is fantastic!!! I plan to buy our own as I can only hoard our library copy for so long.
Science, history, art, geography and culture... all melded so well into this one fascinating topic. Rocks and stones? Who knew. It's a beautiful yet functional book with so much information and so much to look at. Not one to miss for a child's home bookshelf.
Science, history, art, geography and culture... all melded so well into this one fascinating topic. Rocks and stones? Who knew. It's a beautiful yet functional book with so much information and so much to look at. Not one to miss for a child's home bookshelf.
October 15, 2017
This is a great book that talks about different rocks throughout the world! It would get kids involved in looking and researching rocks.
Read
April 17, 2020We read every word on every page. Every single word!
April 27, 2017
We read it for the photographs. I spent most of the book reading the names of things to the kids and listening to them pick their favorites on each page.
March 26, 2016
Deeply Weird, but Sort of Fun
Look closely at this book's subtitle, (at least in the U.S. edition): "A Visual Encyclopedia of the Earth's Treasures". Two important points here - first, there is not a lot of text; second, the authors take a loopy and indiosyncratic shot at what constitutes a treasure.
We start with 40 pages of rocks and their various classifications, and that is quite good and generally up to date and informative. Then we move on to minerals. The pictures are gorgeous, although the descriptions of the minerals are very dense and technical. Of most interest are observations about the uses to which the minerals are usually put. From minerals we drift into the topic of gems, and the distinction between "raw" and cut gems is made starkly clear.
But then, without much of a hint about this from the title or the cover, we move into the world of fossils. This might be the best part of the book since the photos are excellent, the information is current, and the captioning gets a bit more chatty, upbeat, and interesting. For a young reader I sometimes suspect that all mineral photos, apart from being colorful and sort of neat, begin to blend together after a few pages. But with fossils you get worlds and worlds of cool stuff. Don't know why they aren't mentioned in the title or more featured on the cover.
Anyway, from there, though, we move on to a lengthy section on "shells", and we get pages and pages of cowries, clams and chitons, which I have always felt could be summed up on a one page pamphlet titled "shells". No matter, though, because once the shells begin to pale we end with "treasures". It's over a dozen pages of random treasures - a Viking silver hoard in England, a famous pearl, a royal Chinese jade burial suit, and so on.
So, this is really half a dozen different picture books in one, organized loosely around the theme of cool stuff you usually find on the ground. I'm actually O.K. with that and enjoyed the book, (although it could have used a bit less "shell" and a bit more fossil), but so as not to be disappointed it seems best for one to think of this as a coffee table picture book for browsing. On that scale it scores well. (Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book in exchange for a candid review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
Look closely at this book's subtitle, (at least in the U.S. edition): "A Visual Encyclopedia of the Earth's Treasures". Two important points here - first, there is not a lot of text; second, the authors take a loopy and indiosyncratic shot at what constitutes a treasure.
We start with 40 pages of rocks and their various classifications, and that is quite good and generally up to date and informative. Then we move on to minerals. The pictures are gorgeous, although the descriptions of the minerals are very dense and technical. Of most interest are observations about the uses to which the minerals are usually put. From minerals we drift into the topic of gems, and the distinction between "raw" and cut gems is made starkly clear.
But then, without much of a hint about this from the title or the cover, we move into the world of fossils. This might be the best part of the book since the photos are excellent, the information is current, and the captioning gets a bit more chatty, upbeat, and interesting. For a young reader I sometimes suspect that all mineral photos, apart from being colorful and sort of neat, begin to blend together after a few pages. But with fossils you get worlds and worlds of cool stuff. Don't know why they aren't mentioned in the title or more featured on the cover.
Anyway, from there, though, we move on to a lengthy section on "shells", and we get pages and pages of cowries, clams and chitons, which I have always felt could be summed up on a one page pamphlet titled "shells". No matter, though, because once the shells begin to pale we end with "treasures". It's over a dozen pages of random treasures - a Viking silver hoard in England, a famous pearl, a royal Chinese jade burial suit, and so on.
So, this is really half a dozen different picture books in one, organized loosely around the theme of cool stuff you usually find on the ground. I'm actually O.K. with that and enjoyed the book, (although it could have used a bit less "shell" and a bit more fossil), but so as not to be disappointed it seems best for one to think of this as a coffee table picture book for browsing. On that scale it scores well. (Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book in exchange for a candid review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
November 30, 2016
There is not much science in this volume, but it is a pleasure to look at the colorful pictures.
August 15, 2017
Kids loved this book we got from the library. Want to get a copy as it would be a great one to have around.
April 24, 2017
Beautiful book, sometimes low on information and sometimes oddly specific. It's like wandering through a cabinet of curiosities. (Besides rocks and gems it also has fossils, shells, and famous treasures.)
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews