After traipsing around the US west on my recent road trip, and hitting inumerable uber-fabulous interpretive centers at the National and State Parks, I could not help but wonder, what the heck is all this junk I'm lookin' at?
More specifically, it was hard not to wonder why the formations in Arches, those fantastic red liquidy bridges that, before they've been arched by erosion, look like huge sliding screens, layer after layer out to the horizon, are what they are, and not what the formations in Badlands are, colorfully banded mounds, sometimes mesa topped and sporting prairie grass hairdos, sometimes jaggedy ridgelines, sometimes full of the rivulet patterns made by water cutting its way through rock that looks soft enough to take a chunk out with my bare hands. And that is a lot to wonder about.
I also had the good fortune to visit my friend Eco Gwen on the same journey; she is currently enrolled in Geology 101, and while she could not answer all of my questions after 2 weeks in the course, such as what really is the difference between a mineral and a rock, nor could I understand her answers, which had a lot to do with crystalline something or other and atomic structure.
I don't suspect I will become an expert amateur, or if I'll even be able to answer my own question above, that irritating run on sentence comparing Arches and Badlands formations, after I skim this book. But if it answers even 2 or 3 of the hundreds of observations I made out in the wide, wide, world, which so far it has, then indeed, this is a good read.
Recommended by Joey Santore of Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't on YouTube. A decent introduction into the field of geology, from rock identification to the concept of plate tectonics. I picked up the 2005 version for cheap online, the first edition with a chapter on the geology of the solar system. I'm interested to look into what has changed in our knowledge of geology in the last 15 years.
This book is great. As a physics student I am constantly reading boring, monochromatic, full of writing textbooks (not a bad thing, just not immersive!), however this textbook is full of colour, images, easy to read tables and subtexts with a SUMMARY!! at the end of the chapter to make sure you learned key concepts. Very good, especially if you are taking first year undergraduate earth sciences.
A fascinating book, pitched at A-level/ 1st year undergraduates. It's a well written general geology book that captures all the main veins extremely well but not in great depth.
This was a nicely illustrated fairly palatable geology textbook. Reader interest was minimal and 32 pages of plate tectonics was a tough wade through, but I learned much and had fun with my husband (a geology fan) studying for this class.
I'm reading this book and being a geographer i found it as on of best best source for understanding principles and fundamentals of Geology and Physical Geography.