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Nature of Earth: An Introduction to Geology
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
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March 6, 2019Very informative.
November 16, 2021
This is the companion book to the Great Courses video series. Very enjoyable and accessible. Gave a good understanding of the formation and erosion of geological structures, the effects of plate tektonics and vulcanism, and the economics and geology of coal and petroleum.
September 19, 2019
4.5 stars. If there were more than 2 total ratings on this series, I'd rate it 4, but it doesn't deserve that. Points are only docked because it took me ~6 months to finish this 36 lecture course, so I can't say I BLEW through it exactly. A VERY few small sections lost my interest and could not be salvaged no matter how hard I tried or how many times I restarted.
However, this is a fantastic read/listen/watch/however you decide to go about it. Personally, I preferred to watch the video lectures (SERIOUSLY, do yourself a favor and subscribe to The Great Courses Plus for $10 a month), because photos are shown of the geologic phenomena being described (such as rock types or formations), which helps settle it in my brain much better. Similarly, animations and graphics are used to illustrate dynamic concepts like convection, subduction, soil content comparisons, etc. There are photos used in the PDF/book formats of this course, but not nearly as many as in the video content, and obviously they are not visible if you're listening to the purely audio versions - although just audio streaming would still probably be manageable.
Information is presented so clearly, with tons of day-to-day applications, and Prof. Renton is beyond enthusiastic about the material. He's actually kind of adorable and I wish he was my grandpa. His excitement is contagious. I read on Wikipedia that Bill Gates watched this lecture series and talked about it publicly as an ideal standard for higher education, if that's worth anything to you. As a Geographic Science/Environmental Science major, I learned more from this course than from comparable real-life geology courses that I've had to take before, and was more interested in it as well.
However, this is a fantastic read/listen/watch/however you decide to go about it. Personally, I preferred to watch the video lectures (SERIOUSLY, do yourself a favor and subscribe to The Great Courses Plus for $10 a month), because photos are shown of the geologic phenomena being described (such as rock types or formations), which helps settle it in my brain much better. Similarly, animations and graphics are used to illustrate dynamic concepts like convection, subduction, soil content comparisons, etc. There are photos used in the PDF/book formats of this course, but not nearly as many as in the video content, and obviously they are not visible if you're listening to the purely audio versions - although just audio streaming would still probably be manageable.
Information is presented so clearly, with tons of day-to-day applications, and Prof. Renton is beyond enthusiastic about the material. He's actually kind of adorable and I wish he was my grandpa. His excitement is contagious. I read on Wikipedia that Bill Gates watched this lecture series and talked about it publicly as an ideal standard for higher education, if that's worth anything to you. As a Geographic Science/Environmental Science major, I learned more from this course than from comparable real-life geology courses that I've had to take before, and was more interested in it as well.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews