For readers of John McPhee and Stephen Jay Gould, this engaging
armchair read to the making of the geologic record shows how to
understand messages written in stone. To many of us, the Earth''s
crust is a relic of ancient, unknowable history. But to a
geologist, stones are richly illustrated narratives, telling gothic
tales of cataclysm and reincarnation. For more than four billion
years, in sand, granite and garnet schists, the planet has kept a
rich and idiosyncratic journal of its past. Fulbright Scholar
Marcia Bjornerud takes the reader along on an eye-opening tour of
Deep Time, explaining in elegant prose what we see and feel beneath
our feet. Both scientist and storyteller, Bjornerud uses anecdotes
and metaphors to remind us that our home is a living thing with
lessons to teach. She shows us how our planet has long maintained a
delicate balance, and how the global give-and-take has sustained
life on Earth through numerous upheavals. But with the rapidly
escalating effects of human beings on their home planet, that
cosmic balance is being threatened - and the consequences may be
catastrophic. Containing a glossary and detailed timescale, as well
as vivid description and historic accounts, "Reading the Rocks" is
literally a history of the world, for all friends of the Earth.
關於作者:
Marcia Bjornerud is a professor and the Chair of Geology at
Lawrence University. She is a Fellow of the Geographical Society of
America and was a 2000-2001 Fulbright Scholar. She lives in
Wisconsin, USA and this is her first book.
目錄:
Acknowledgments
Currently Accepted Geologic Timescale
PROLOGUE: STONE CRAZY
No place with no past
The accidental diarist
1 THE TAO OF EARTH
The Department of Redundancy Department:Inertia and
spare parts
Equals and opposites
Going home to Mother Earth
Everything old is new again
The Earth fugue
2 READING ROCKS: A PRIMER
Meeting rocks on common ground
A rock by any other name
Grammar and syntax of the three rock languages
Mind the gap: What rocks don''t tell us
Putting everything in order
……