Showing titles in Geology

In Origins, Frank H. T. Rhodes explores the origin and evolution of living things, the changing environments in which they have developed, and the challenges we now face on an increasingly crowded and polluted planet. Rhodes argues that the future well-being of our burgeoning population depends in no small part on our understanding of life's past, its long and slow development, and its intricate interdependencies.

From the author of Apocalyptic Planet, an unsparing, vivid, revelatory travelogue through prehistory that traces the arrival of the First People in North America 20,000 years ago and the artifacts that enable us to imagine their lives and fates. This book upends our notions of where these people came from and who they were.

Beginning with Mt. Vesuvius, whose eruption in Roman times helped spark the science of geology, and ending in a lab in the West of England where mathematical models and lab experiments replace direct observation, Richard Fortey tells us what the present says about ancient geologic processes. He shows how plate tectonics came to rule the geophysical landscape and how the evidence is written in the hills and in the stones. And in the process, he takes us on a wonderful journey around the globe to visit some of the most fascinating and intriguing spots on the planet.

The Story of the Earth in 25 Rocks tells the fascinating stories behind the discoveries that shook the foundations of geology. In 25 chapters, Donald R. Prothero recounts the scientific detective work that shaped our understanding of geology, from the unearthing of exemplary specimens to tectonic shifts in how we view the inner workings of our planet.

So much of our human body is made up of salt that we'd be dead without it. The fine balance of nature, the trade of salt as a currency of many nations and empires, the theme of a popular Shakespearean play... Salt is best selling author Mark Kurlansky's story of the only rock we eat.

From the oldest rocks, formed three billion years ago in Karnataka, to the arrival of our ancestors 50,000 years ago on the banks of the Indus, the author meticulously sifts through wide-ranging scientific disciplines and through the layers of earth to tell us the story of India, filled with a variety of fierce reptiles, fantastic dinosaurs, gargantuan mammals and amazing plants. 

In this epochal book, Immanuel Velikovsky, one of the great scientists of modern times, puts the complete histories of our Earth and of humanity on a new basis. He presents the results of his 10-year-long interdisciplinary research in an easily understandable, even entertaining manner. In spite - or even because - of the disgraceful hostility provoked by his theories, this book keeps being of ardent topicality, which in the light of recent scientific research is even growing.

Hailed as "the great nature writer of this generation" (Wall Street Journal), Robert Macfarlane is the celebrated author of books about the intersections of the human and the natural realms. In Underland, he delivers his masterpiece: an epic exploration of the Earth's underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself.

The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruptions and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecologic and economic disaster. In Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants to transform the West.

In this Very Short Introduction audiobook, Jan Zalasiewicz gives a brief introduction to the fascinating field of geology. Describing how the science developed from its early beginnings, he looks at some of the key discoveries that have transformed it before delving into its various subfields, such as sedimentology, tectonics, and stratigraphy.

Long dismissed as a relic of a bygone era, coal is back -- with a vengence. Coal is one of the nation's biggest and most influential industries -- Big Coal provides more than half the electricity consumed by Americans today -- and its dominance is growing, driven by rising oil prices and calls for energy independence. Is coal the solution to America's energy problems?

Principles of Geology [1830] is a groundbreaking classic of science. Mentioned in Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, glowingly, it captivated such contemporaries as Melville, Emerson, Tennyson, and George Eliot. It is now here for a new generation interested in Earth Science, climate and sustainability.

Earth evolves. From first atom to molecule, mineral to magma, granite crust to single cell to verdant living landscape, ours is a planet constantly in flux. In this radical new approach to Earth’s biography, senior Carnegie Institution researcher and national best-selling author Robert M. Hazen reveals how the co-evolution of the geosphere and biosphere - of rocks and living matter - has shaped our planet into the only one of its kind in the Solar System, if not the entire cosmos.

Travelling a thousand miles and across three billion years, Christopher Somerville (walking correspondent of The Times and author of Coast, The January Man and Ships of Heaven) sets out to interrogate the land beneath our feet, and how it has affected every aspect of human history from farming to house construction, the Industrial Revolution to the current climate crisis. In his thousand-mile journey, Somerville follows the story of Britain's unique geology, travelling from the three-billion-year-old rocks of the Isle of Lewis, to the furthest corner of Essex.

Australopithecines, dinosaurs, trilobites - such fossils conjure up images of lost worlds filled with vanished organisms. But in the full history of life, ancient animals, even the trilobites, form only the half-billion-year tip of a nearly four-billion-year iceberg. Andrew Knoll explores the deep history of life from its origins on a young planet to the incredible Cambrian explosion, presenting a compelling new explanation for the emergence of biological novelty.

Worlds in Collision - written in a brilliant, easily understandable, and entertaining style and full to the brim with precise information-can be considered one of the most important and most challenging books in the history of science. Not without reason was this book found open on Einstein's desk after his death. For all those who have ever wondered about the evolution of the earth, the history of mankind, traditions, religions, mythology or just the world as it is today, Worlds in Collision is an absolute must-listen!

At various times in a span of fifteen years, John McPhee made geological field surveys in the company of Eldridge Moores, a tectonicist at the University of California at Davis. The result of these trips is Assembling California, a cross-section in human and geologic time, from Donner Pass in the Sierra Nevada through the golden foothills of the Mother Lode and across the Great Central Valley to the wine country of the Coast Ranges, the rock of San Francisco, and the San Andreas family of faults.

In this Very Short Introduction, William Lowrie describes the internal and external processes that affect the planet, as well as the principles and methods of geophysics used to investigate them. From analyses of Earth's deepest interior to measurements made from Earth-orbiting satellites, Lowrie shows how geophysical exploration is vitally important in the search for mineral resources and emphasizes our need to understand the history of our planet and the processes that govern its continuing evolution.

In Tibet, geologist David R. Montgomery heard a local story about a great flood that bore a striking similarity to Noah’s Flood. Intrigued, Montgomery began investigating theworld’s flood stories and - drawing from historic works by theologians, natural philosophers, and scientists - discovered the counterintuitive role Noah’s Flood played in the development of both geology and creationism.

Explore the universe and immerse yourself in the story of our solar system, planet, and life through meteorites.