Best Historical Geology
Students will learn and understand the underlying causes of why things happened and the way they did, and how all of Earth's systems and subsystems are interrelated. He is a past president of the American Association of Stratigraphic Palynologists and currently a councilor of the International Federation of Palynological Societies and chair of the Acritarch Subcommission of the Commission Internationale de Microflore du Paleozoique.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"My husband bought this book for his Geo 102 class and he says is is a very good book.Explains things very well."
"I like the Kindle version."
"Just as expected, but very expensive for paper back."
From the author of the bestselling The Professor and the Madman comes the fascinating story of William Smith, the orphaned son of an English country blacksmith, who became obsessed with creating the world's first geological map and ultimately became the father of modern geology. Determined to publish his profoundly important discovery by creating a map that would display the hidden underside of England, he spent twenty years traveling the length and breadth of the kingdom by stagecoach and on foot, studying rock outcrops and fossils, piecing together the image of this unseen universe. Simon Winchester ( The Professor and the Madman ) tells the fossil-friendly fairy tale life of William Smith in The Map That Changed the World . Born to humble parents, Smith was also a child of the Industrial Revolution (the year of his birth, 1769, also saw Josiah Wedgwood open his great factory, Etruria, Richard Arkwright create his first water-powered cotton-spinning frame, and James Watt receive the patent for the first condensing steam engine). While working as surveyor in a coal mine, Smith noticed the abrupt changes in the layers of rock as he was lowered into the depths. Winchester clearly relishes his happy ending, and his honey-tinged prose ("that most attractively lovable losterlike Paleozoic arthropod known as the trilobite") injects a lot of life into what seems, on the surface, a rather dry tale.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"He has the knack of making subjects that sound so uninteresting burst forth with fascinating detail, that grab and hold your interest."
"History; surveying; mining; geology; canal building...and the personalities involved, will surely interest the most laconic reader."
"I bought this book because I've been curious about what it was like for geologists who were foundational to the discipline to interact with society and religious beliefs of the time."
"The book is wonderful and altho I'm not finished reading it, I gave it 5 stars already."
"In regard to this book, it was great and even the memories of it are still inspirational, but the excessive descriptions are a disincentive for rereading it again. Understand that this is only my preference, if you like or at least don't mind the descriptive passages you will love this book."
"I read his books about the great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 and the eruption of Krakatoa..5 stars..see my reviews. He temporarily has a very good income but over stretched his finances, buying a large estate with a large mortgage, renting an expensive apartment, opening up a mine that fails and marrying a woman who develops heath problems and severe mental illnesses. Today by carbon radioactive isotope dating, we know that some of these rock layers are hundreds of millions of years old and older. Eventually, William gets his true Great colored Map of England's Geology printed and copies sold. I developed a lot of empathy for William Smith and gave a small cheer when he eventually gets his recognition as "Father of Geology", and the creator of the Great Colored large Map of English Geology a revolutionary breakthrough showing the underground geology layers that changed people's thinking about how the earth rock/layers were formed, the rock layers ages ,and life at differnt ages on earth) and happiness."
"Mr Winchester at his best with a subject he is eminently qualified to explore."
"This well written book follows the ups and downs of a little known scientist, William Smith, that started the modern era of geology."
Twenty years ago, when John McPhee began his journeys back and forth across the United States, he planned to describe a cross section of North America at about the fortieth parallel and, in the process, come to an understanding not only of the science but of the style of the geologists he traveled with. And in 1993 came Assembling California , a survey of the area geologists find to be a laboratory of volcanic and tectonic processes, a place where geology can be watched in the making. Annals of the Former World gathers these four volumes, which McPhee always conceived of as a whole, to make that epic of the Earth's formation; to it he adds a fifth book, Crossing the Craton , which introduces the continent's ancient core, underlying what is now Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Highly technical but for the reader who will stick with him, the best way to gain insights into global geologic history."
"Another outstanding book by John McPhee."
"As someone with a technical background but virtually no geology, this well written book is just a bit too much for me."
"it is an excellent "read' for those interested and somewhat versed in geology and plate tectonics, but may be too long and too technical for the first or casual reader."
"I started reading McPhee's geology-oriented books years ago somewhat in self-defense --- I have two kids who are professional geologists."
"Excellent book by an excellent writer."
"Reyes is actually a chunk of the Sierra mountains that moved north from the area right about where you go over that huge pass on I5 heading out of the central valley going towards LA. Sink them in earth, cook *just right* and the oil migrates to the sand that once formed the berms at the river ocean outlets. The book will give you a feel for the vast scope of time. * For example, "lakes" don't really exist except as fleeting dynamic piffles, like eddies in a river. At the same time you get a view of science in action. * It chronicles the slow rise of plate tectonics and shows how science really works as contradiction, new data and ideas slowly topple old paradigms even as the data gathered for those old paradigms becomes fodder for the new ... and are not themselves always wrong, at least locally."
"This is a book I reread every few years."
Best Physical Geology
With its strong readability and engaging, instructive illustrations, this trusted bestseller returns with a hybrid and streamlined focus on core principles. The 12th Edition , Pearson Science’s first augmented reality, hybrid textbook, uses the BouncePages image recognition app (FREE on both iOS and Android stores) to connect students’ digital devices to the print textbook, enhancing their reading and learning experience. 0134074254 / 9780134074252 Earth: An Introduction to Physical Geology 0134182642 / 9780134182643 Mastering Geology with Pearson eText -- ValuePack Access Card -- for Earth: An Introduction to Physical Geology. Lutgens and Tarbuck published their first college text, Earth Science , in 1976. Not only do Tarbuck, Lutgens, and Tasa work well together creatively; they also enjoy spending time in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Tasa’s New Mexico studio.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Great price for renting and I recieved it right on time!"
"same thing, good books to read, use for school, better alternative to order with amazon rental."
"Needed for school."
"This is a very accessible tome for anyone interested in geology but without formal education in the subject."
"Super recommended 🖒 I bought a second hand book but it looks super new!"
"Great book of information!"
"I know the description said it may not contain access code but was hoping it would."
"i am very bothered by the fact that before ordering this i was not told that the access code was modified, and the modified version is not the one i need and there is no telling how i would have known this was modified prior to having placed my order."
Best Structural Geology
The book provides unique links to industry applications in the upper crust, including petroleum and groundwater geology, which highlight the importance of structural geology in exploration and exploitation of petroleum and water resources. "In addition to being a great textbook option for undergraduates, this book will serve as an excellent refresher for professional geologists. Fossen's extensive use of citations throughout the text, in figure captions, and at the end of each chapter provides an excellent window into many of the most important papers in the primary literature of both modern and classical structural geology. Readers will also find Fossen's references to free and commercial structural geology software and other resources helpful. Students and instructors who use this book will also benefit from the balance it provides among observational, theoretical, and numerical and analogue modeling perspectives. Second, the book nicely balances the traditional academic approach to structural geology with important industry applications (e.g., chapter 19, Salt Tectonics; chapter 8, Faults; and many additional interpreted seismic sections) that tend to receive only cursory treatment in other structural geology textbooks. A third strength is its clear and rigorous yet accessible physics and math coverage of strain and stress theory (e.g., chapters 2-6 and Appendix A); the strain analysis spreadsheets and other ancillary material such as textbook figures, problem sets, and field photographs available on the textbook Web site (http:// www .cambridge.org/features/fossen/) should also prove to be great learning and problem-solving tools. In summary, this is an excellent, accessible introductory structural geology text that is admirably well illustrated and well written.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Great book, a must have for any geologist."
"tough course."
"the line drawings in color are the best of any textbook I have read."
"Contains a bunch of pictures, and the book is in color, contain a topic for restoration, something that is not really common on Structural Geology books, I love it for this."
"The binding is terrible and the book is falling apart!"
"Good book so it get 5 stars."
"This book is interesting, not too hard to read."
"Within weeks of purchasing this book, pages began to fall out and by half way throught the semester, the book was unuseable because nearly all of the pages had fallen from the binding."
Best Sedimentary Geology
This concise treatment of the fundamental principles of sedimentology and stratigraphy highlights the important physical, chemical, biological, and stratigraphic characteristics of sedimentary rocks.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"It has numerous printing mistakes and assorted missing/duplicate pages."
"Being new to the topic, the text seems encyclopedic, covering what I would have considered side topics such as turbulent and laminar fluid flow (but which I now understand to be relevant.)."
"+ Nice glossy pages. + Great figures. + Good Explanations. - Pathetic binding, pages started falling out 1/4 of the way into the semester."
"Excellent guide to sedimentary processes, great for students."
"A very useful addition to geology library."
"Blah.... for the price the text is fuzzy and the pictures/figures all black and white and grainy."
"This book has tons of printing mistakes."
Best Geomorphology
The bond that unites geomorphology with so many diverse disciplines is the common need to understand the processes of surface mechanics, which is exceedingly important as we struggle to comprehend the impacts of climate changes, tectonic events, and their effects on our physical environment. "Having used Process Geomorphology in the past, I intend to return to it for all of my future sections.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"On the more cheerful side: I bought this on Amazon for about $65 which was way cheaper than the $110 the college book store wanted, so that lessens the sting."
"Great condition for price."
"Very informative for the archaeologist, also."
"Exactly the book I needed for a process geomorphology class."
"This was a required book for my Earth Surface Process course."
Best Volcanology
Powerful economic and historical forces influenced the fates of those around the volcano that sunny Sunday morning, including the construction of the nation’s railroads, the harvest of a continent’s vast forests, and the protection of America’s treasured public lands. Rich with vivid personal stories of lumber tycoons, loggers, volcanologists, and conservationists, Eruption delivers a spellbinding narrative built from the testimonies of those closest to the disaster, and an epic tale of our fraught relationship with the natural world. “In Mr. Olson’s telling, [the survivors’] stories read like urgent fiction….These vignettes lend a human face to an event that has become associated largely with geology.”. - Michael O'Donnell, Wall Street Journal. “A first-class, meticulously crafted piece of reportage that is as exciting as it is informative―and will long stand as a classic of descriptive narrative of the biggest American volcanic eruption of all our lifetimes―or so we all hope!”. - Simon Winchester, author of Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded. This book, as welcome as it is amazing in the depth of its background and the strength of its storytelling, will stand as a stirring and stilling accomplishment.”. - Robert Michael Pyle, author of Wintergreen: Rambles in a Ravaged Land and Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The mountain developed a rapidly (and constantly) growing bulge on its side for weeks leading up to the explosion but very few seemed to recognize the severity or significance of this... Olson put it best in regards to lessons learned at Mt. St. Helens: "No one will ever again blithely and knowingly watch the side of a volcano bulge out like a balloon ready to pop and expect to outrun the ensuing catastrophe." Olson took the timeline back and forth, both within the almost 2 months of activity leading up to the eruption and the personal stories of some of those affected by the blast. He started referring to certain people in the past tense, and as I had not memorized the list of those who died before reading this the deaths and survivals were genuinely surprising to me. Olson does a great job of creating a compelling narrative around this recent historical event and I really liked the book, learned a lot about volcanoes (now I want to be a volcanologist), and came to care for some of the real people highlighted in the personal stories. I know not everyone will want to share any of that (I can't begin to imagine how traumatic that was), but as a reader I am sorry Eruption did not include at least footnotes on more of the people it focused on in the earlier parts of the books."
"I love books about events where I (think) I know the outcome and I am still engrossed from the moment I pick up the book until I sadly reach the last page, and this book fits that description perfectly."
"The research is exhaustive, and the author appears to have gone to considerable lengths to talk to survivors, witnesses, scientists, policy makers and others who lived through the event and helped to shape the response. If you read the Wikipedia entry on Mount St. Helens, it makes it seem as if government did a lot to protect lives. The history of Weyerhaeuser at the start of the book runs, perhaps, a bit long but it's easy enough to read quickly through it to get the heart of the story."
"Having seen Mt St. Helens and all the other mountains in the Cascade Range in 1979 (Not even sure we knew they were volcanoes) Olson's story in very poignant."
"I didn't realize when I picked this book up how much the story would be about the social factors at work in the US at the time."
"The events surrounding the eruption and the people and land that were so drastically affected."
Best Specific Locations Geology
A complete guide to finding, collecting, and preparing the state’s gems & minerals.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"While this book is started to get a little dated, it still applies 90% of the time."
"Directions to some sites are really spot on, some are quite vague (something like, follow Forest Road 123 for 6.5 miles, but the road forks 3 or 4 times with no signs and you don't know what to follow)..."
"I have other books on rock hounding but this one covers a smaller area of the country which is excellent and purtains to one state and what you can find therem\."
"Highly instructive, a good read and worth the money."
"This book outlines what rocks can be found at a certain site and gives very detailed instructions and maps to the site."
";-). Garret Romaine has written several books and there's a reason Falcon picked him to write for them."
"My husband bought this for me as a surprise and it was a nice one."
Best Limnology
With 40% new and expanded coverage, this text covers applied and basic aspects of limnology, now with more emphasis on wetlands and reservoirs than in the previous edition. Expanded coverage of the toxic effects of pharmaceuticals and endocrine disrupters as freshwater pollutants More on aquatic invertebrates, with more images and pictures of a broader range of organisms Expanded coverage of the functional roles of filterer feeding, scraping, and shredding organisms, and a new section on omnivores. In many ways, this textbook provides a really refreshing blend of ecological concepts as they apply to aquatic ecology, in addition to the basic knowledge of freshwater ecosystem organisms that a student would need to apply the concepts… We think that it is a successful, innovative and, for the most part, modern view of the study of inland waters. Over the years, Dodds has taught Limnology, Advanced Aquatic Ecology, Microbial Ecology, Principles of Biology, Conservation Biology, Environmental Problems, Origins of Life, Herbivory, Presentations in Ecology, Aquatic Ecology, Stream Ecology, Algal Identification, Algal Ecology, Bacteriology and Freshwater Biology. Dodds has grants from agencies including the National Science Foundation, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the United States Geological Survey, the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Dodds’ recent research has focused on Aquatic Ecology on Konza Prairie, Nitrogen Uptake Retention and Cycling in Stream Ecosystems, Quality and Quantity of Suspended Solids in Kansas Rivers, and Nutrients and Algae in Streams.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"For the most part, I really enjoyed using this book for class."
"It's a text that I like to page through for the literature, and often will lend to others looking for a freshwater perspective."
"Looks great, perfect condition and came right on time."
"book in good condition as advertised."
"This text does a great job of covering a lot of material in an approachable way."
"Regarding quality of the book- if you actually plan on opening and reading the book, the binding is awful."
"Poorly bound."
Best Plate Tectonics
This interesting book uses plate tectonics as its central theme; it acquaints readers with California geology.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I enjoyed the final section that presented concepts from previous chapters in a grand-scheme California geologic history."
"It's also a perfect fit with my California geography textbook, approaching each area through the same province names, descriptions."
"Needed it for a class; therefore had to buy it."
"I'm not an expert in the subject matter but I thought the book was very well written."
"A novice's interest in geology lead me through elementary reading to this college text which has opened. the up the greater. world of geology to. me."