Mars - A Warmer, Wetter Planet

by Jeffrey S. Kargel

Following NASA's very recent discovery of vast amounts of water just beneath the Martian surface, Jeffrey Kargel presents a brand new treatment of Martian geologic and climatic history. A fresh perspective on the ideas of oceans and glaciation and young water runoff features - at best poorly represented in current books - will capture every reader's imagination and enthusiasm for the Red Planet.

606 pages, Paperback

First published July 23, 2004

Reviews

[Nathan Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most of us already know that Mars is a desert, a dusty and desolate world of angular rocks, craters, and long-extinct volcanoes. Many of us are also aware of the polar ice caps, and perhaps of some of the large landscape features looking suspiciously like gargantuan water features. But what many of us probably don't know is that water ice has played such a pivotal role in the sculpting of Mars. And this is the core of this book. In its pages, the author explores ice and compares features with comparable ones here on Earth. The text is often technical and the reader might want to have a dictionary handy, if not a degree in Geology with an emphasis geochemistry. While the author made an attempt at a conversational style, and while it was always highly fascinating and educational, the composition was often dense and necessitated a certain amount of percolation before continuing.

[Patty Jansen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one for the science buffs. there is a lot of geology in this book. I felt a little bit unsettled by some of the vindictive remarks against other scientists. A fair amount of commentary is devoted to the development of scientific dogma. Interesting, but not a book I'd recommend as first go-to for information about Mars.

[Jerry Robinette]

Not terribly elegant, but well-reasoned and heavily illustrated.