A guide to map interpretation presenting maps of areas from all over the world and explanations of the formation of various land patterns and riverbeds
Armin Kohl Lobeck (1886-1958) was a noted American Cartographer, Geomorphologist and Landscape Artist.
Armin Lobeck was 21 years old when he entered Columbia University in 1907 because he dropped out of high school to care for his family when his father became ill. In his senior year at Columbia, he took Master's level courses in botany and architecture, and received his AB degree in 1911 and his Master's Degree in 1913. After working as a teacher at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy from 1911-1914, he returned to Columbia University where he was awarded his Ph.D. in 1917.
At the beginning of World War I, he enlisted in the US Army and was sent to Fort Dix, NJ, but he was soon transferred to the United States Department of State. At the war's end, he was assigned to the Geography Section of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace.
Armin Lobeck accepted a position as associate professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and worked there for 10 years from 1919-1929. In 1929 he returned to Columbia University as full Professor of Geology, where he remained until his retirement in 1954.
During World War II, Dr. Lobeck was employed by the Military Intelligence Service (United States), G-2, on the General Staff of the United States Army, and the Army Map Service.
Inspirational mix of cartography, geology, and a curiosity about the shapes and forms of the world. It shows its age (for example, nothing about continental drift), but still worth a slow read.
This is a wonderful book, a concise and clearly illustrated look at how underlying geology is expressed as features on the surface. Lobeck shows us how many different landforms came to be, focusing on shorelines, rivers, and lakes, helping us understand things like "Why is that particular island there, and why does it have that shape?"
This book predates the wide acceptance of plate tectonics, so of course there are a couple of big-picture explanations missing. But what is in the book is, to my knowledge, largely sound. This really helped me grasp some concepts I had inklings of or concepts I understood dimly.
One interesting aspect is that a good amount (but by no means all) of the examples used in the book are from the eastern United States, an area I hadn't studied much of, having received my geology education in California. So that was a nice bonus, to learn about a new area.