Geology of the American Southwest: A Journey Through Two Billion Years of Plate-Tectonic History

Book Description

Scott Baldridge presents a concise guide to the geology of the Southwestern U.S. Two billion years of Earth history are represented in the rocks and landscape of the Southwest U.S., creating natural wonders such as the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, and Death Valley. This region is considered a geologist's "dream", attracting a large number of undergraduate field classes and amateur geologists. The volume will prove invaluable to students and will also appeal to anyone interested in the geology and landscape of the region's National Parks.

Customer Reviews:

The big geologic picture on a land where geology dominates the view.......2007-04-03

The title of this book says it all. The story begins two billion years ago and follows the formation of the continental crust of what is now the southwestern US. It then follows that chunk of land to the present, as supercontinents form and disintegrate, island chains collide, and mountains rise and fall. Unlike so many books about the geology of the southwest, Baldridge focuses on the plate tectonics behind the processes. This approach allows the reader to understand the "why" behind advancing and retreating seas, uplifts, faults and volcanoes. The geographic area studied is the southwest, although the Colorado Plateau seems to gather the most attention. It is seen in a broad geological context that includes what happened in places like Death Valley, the Rio Grande Rift and Southern Rocky Mountains. Baldridge places his explanation in standard geologic time, but his chapter breaks are in locations driven by the regional geology, not the standard hierarchy. For a Grand Canyon example, the Chuar and Tonto groups are a single chapter, a fresh (and justifiable) perspective. The story that comes through is a "life story" of the southwest, in which a reader can see the region's geology evolve, illustrating how events in its past shape its response to new conditions.

The book's broad scope means that the history of individual rock layers are often not there - indeed, many layers are not even mentioned (although the fame of Grand Canyon's rock column is evident, most of ours are). The layers serve to illustrate a "story line" driven by the forces acting on the land, they do not break the story into pieces because of what is (or is not) preserved in today's exposures. In developing this evolutionary presentation, Baldridge has to sort through many, often conflicting, hypotheses. He does a good job of finding common threads. In many cases, he presents different mechanisms but concludes with the salient points that seem to be areas of agreement or with the conditions that a solution must explain.

This book is not for the geologically faint of heart. It assumes a pre-existing general understanding of plate tectonics and other geological principles. It is not the place to learn how plate tectonics works, but is the best place I have found to understand how plate tectonics worked on the Colorado Plateau. It will not tell you how the Grand Canyon was carved, how Monument Valley formed, what makes the Supai Group red, or other specific questions. But it does provide the vast historical panorama against which such questions can be asked. From a degree of technicality, it is less technical than Beus and Morales' Grand Canyon Geology, but certainly well beyond Price's Introduction to Grand Canyon Geology. In the preface, Baldridge says his target audience is "upper level undergraduates and graduates." I would expand this to include anyone with a real interest in the Colorado Plateau, and who wants the "big picture" only hinted at in most treatments of the region (like Baars' The Colorado Plateau: A Geologic History). For readers with a more casual familiarity with geology, it could be a difficult read, but the rewards are great for a comprehensive understanding of the area's history.

I liked it - a lot!

Geology of the American Southwest: A Journey Through Two Billion Years of Plate-Tectonic History.......2006-11-10

An excellent introduction to the geology of the American Southwest, including most of the Colorado Plateau in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, as well as parts of California (in particular Death Valley), Nevada, and Texas. All chapters devote considerable space to a discussion of the plate tectonic settings and paleogeography of the geologic period under consideration. The tectonic settings and processes are of central importance in understanding the amazing and extensive rock record being described. This book contains a host of useful maps, stratigraphic and correlative diagrams, and crisp images of many rock formations discussed in the text. For example, a figure on page 170 I found particularly useful displays a cross section of the famous Jurassic sedimentary rocks spanning the Arizona-Utah border (which is equally applicable to southwestern and far western Colorado), showing schematically but clearly the complex horizontal and vertical relationships, including unconformities, of the major Jurassic rock units present in what can be at times a confusing area of geological terrain. The geology of many of the National Parks and Monuments in the American Southwest, particularly Grand Canyon National Park, is interwoven very nicely with the overall theme and level of the book. All in all, a very useful reference covering 2 billion years of Earth history in this part of the United States, particularly appropriate for undergraduates and graduate students studying geology and the Earth sciences. An extensive bibliography, cited frequently in the text, provides many points of introduction to the supporting literature, and opportunities for further exploration. Undergraduates who plan on participating in a geology field camp in the American Southwest will no doubt benefit by reading this book before their departure.

Earth Structure: An Introduction to Structural Geology and Tectonics

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Very self-explanatory, almost hand-holding
Difficult Book for Undergraduates with no experience

Earth Structure: An Introduction to Structural Geology and Tectonics
Ben A. Van Der Pluijm , and Stephen Marshak
Manufacturer: W W Norton & Co Inc (Np)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 039392467X

Book Description

For the Second Edition of Earth Structure: An Introduction to Structural Geology and Tectonics, the authors have heavily revised each chapter while preserving the overall structure of the First Edition. The Second Edition also benefits from new artwork that clearly illustrates complex concepts.

New to the Second Edition:

New Chapter 15, "Geophysical Imaging," by Frederick Cook
Within Chapters 21 and 22, four new essays on "Regional Perspectives" discuss the European Alps, the Altaids, the Appalachians, and the Cascadia Wedge.
New and updated art for more informative illustration of concepts. The Second Edition now has 570 black & white figures.

Customer Reviews:

Very self-explanatory, almost hand-holding.......2007-02-06

which can help a great deal in a fast paced structure class! All concepts are well laid out, clear and understandable.

Difficult Book for Undergraduates with no experience.......2004-12-13

The book is an excellent book for advanced students of structural geology and faculty. The book may be a bit too fast for beginners. I personally like the book because i have a little background in structural geology. But I know undergraduate students who have struggled with this book. I feel this book should be read after going through books by Twiss and Moores or Davis and Reynolds.
I am in no way against this book. It provides an interesting reading for a relatively advanced reader and this book is indeed at present one of the very good books available.

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The ONLY up-to-date textbook on California geology

California Geology (2nd Edition)
Deborah Harden
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 013100218X

Book Description

This interesting book uses plate tectonics as its central theme; it acquaints readers with California geology. Basic principles in the beginning of the book and tables of highlights for each province enable the reader to understand the whole picture of catastrophic national disasters, California history, mining methods, and societal impacts; it brings the lessons of geology closer to the everyday context of California life. After a comprehensive overview of the basic principles of geology, this book then focuses on the geological highlights of California (young volcanoes, deserts, the Mojave Desert, the Sierra Nevada, the Klamath Mountains, water, the Great Valley, the coast Ranges, earthquakes, faults, and seismic safety, the transverse ranges, and the peninsular ranges). The inside back and front covers of the book contain a wealth of readily available information, with comprehensive geologic, fault, relief, and mountain range maps. A handy desk reference for geologists, this book is also a source of information for anyone interested in the evolution of California's terrain.

Customer Reviews:

The ONLY up-to-date textbook on California geology.......2000-05-02

Deborah Hardin's textbook on California geology is superior to all previous texts inasmuch as she is the first to utilize the theory of plate tectonics to provide a unified framework for her overall exposition. Instead of being bombarded with an encyclopedic but chaotic assemblage of rock types and unconnected microprocesses, the reader is treated to a consistent and comprehensive picture of how California came to be that hangs together remarkably well.

Harden utilized the recent research of countless other geologists to put together this book, and her hard work has paid off. She includes several chapters that provide a conceptual overview of geologic principles, then goes on in successive sections to describe how various forces and processes related ultimately to plate tectonics have been responsible for the evolution of various distinctive landforms and geomorphic regions of California. She also includes a final chapter that is a stand-alone summary version of the "geological history of California." Throughout the book, she makes clear again and again how a clear understanding of the various ways that tectonic plates can interact is absolutely fundamental to understanding how California has come into existence over the past several hundred million years. It's a fascinating story, and Harden's text will help anyone willing to read carefully and study a bit to learn the basics of California geology.

As an added bonus, Harden has included several sections that are linked to present-day environmental hazards, most notably those related to the constant threat of earthquakes in the Golden State. Such information is, of course linked directly to the geology of the state that she has described and explained so well.

The illustrations and diagrams re not terribly elaborate, but they are helpful and reasonably plentiful. Also included are some small-sized versions of the standard California geology and fault maps.

Book Description

How were the Appalachian Mountains formed? Are the barrier islands moving? Where is there gold in the Carolinas? Find answers to these questions and many more in this reader-friendly guide to the geology of North Carolina and South Carolina.

Plate Tectonics: An Insider's History of the Modern Theory of the Earth

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Plate Tectonics
Delightful "insiders' history"
Plate Tectonics as told by those that assembled the theory

Plate Tectonics: An Insider's History of the Modern Theory of the Earth

Manufacturer: Westview Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0813339812

Amazon.com

Widely dismissed as crank science in earlier generations, the theory of plate tectonics--which explains the movement of continents in geological time, as well as the formation of the earth's major features--is now largely accepted as fact within the scientific community.

Drawing on the memories of major theoreticians in the field, scientist and historian Naomi Oreskes offers a vivid history of just how that transformation occurred. She describes the early quest on the part of James Dana, Alfred Wegner, J. H. Hodgson, and other scientists to account for the mechanics of earthquakes and certain puzzling features of geomorphology, a quest widened and strengthened by the work of deep-ocean explorers who were able, beginning in the 1960s, to study tectonics at work far below the surface of the world's waters. Such advances, as pioneer Peter Molnar and others explain, did not immediately change the way geologists went about their work, but they quickly went on to revolutionize science--and then, as such things do, to become orthodox.

A useful reference for students of geology and the history of science, this book is also easily accessible to nonspecialists. --Gregory McNamee

Book Description

The definitive history of plate tectonics, told by the scientists who developed and assembled evidence for the theory.

Can anyone today imagine the earth without its puzzle-piece construction of plate tectonics? The very term "plate tectonics," coined only thirty-five years ago, is now part of the vernacular, part of everyone's understanding of the way the earth works.

The theory, research, data collection, and analysis that came together in 1967 to constitute plate tectonics is one of the great scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century. Scholarly books have been written about tectonics, but none by the key scientists-players themselves. In Plate Tectonics, editor Naomi Oreskes has assembled those scientists who played key roles in developing the theory to tell - for the first time, and in their own words - the stories of their involvement in the extraordinary evolution of the theory.

The book opens with an overview of the history of plate tectonics, including in-context definitions of the key terms that are discussed throughout the book. Oreskes explains how the forerunners of the theory, Wegener and du Toit, inspired how scientists working at the key academic institutions - Cambridge and Princeton Universities, Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Geological Observatory, and the University of California-San Diego's Scripps Institute of Oceanography - competed and collaborated until the theory coalesced in 1967.

Customer Reviews:

Plate Tectonics.......2002-11-05

Plate Tectonics: An Insider's History of the Moden Theory of the Earth edited by Naomi Oreskes is a book about the movement of the land masses on the Earth and how the theory of plate tectonics came about. In the book there are seventeen original essays by the scientists who made earth history as they explain how placte tectonics works.

Plate tectonics is a science that you'd think has been around for a long time, but in fact, not until 1968 has the theory, research, data collection and analysis came together. The movement of relatively static land masses was not a popular idea, especially in the oil industry, where they believed that tectonics was not a viable theory.

This book takes us on a journey in history giving us a historical background of continental drift to plate tectonics. What I find extemely interesting about this book is the actual players in the development of the theory are represented here. Giving their accounts and insight into why things are as they are... explaining their thought processes in confirmation of the theory of plate tectonics.

Each author gives a piece of the puzzle until there is enough evidence that a workable theory can be developed. These authors tell us in their own words, making for a compelling book about discovery. Also, the reader will find an overview of definitions of terms used throughout the book, this keeps the readers interest as you will not be overburdoned with terms you do not understnd.

All in all, this is a very readable book as it explains the science of plate tectonics and the inter-relationship of this science to man's well-being on earth.

Delightful "insiders' history".......2002-03-23

This book will delight all historians of science. The indefatigable Naomi Oreskes, known for her excellent history of continental drift and plate tectonics, has assembled reminiscences by the surviving founders of plate tectonics theory. Dr. Oreskes deserves the highest praise for this. Alas, the senior figures such as Arthur Holmes and Harry Hess are no longer with us; the writers of these essays were graduate students in the critical early 1960s. Now elders themselves, they recall the excitement of coming on the scene just when all was breaking loose. Even the most sober number-crunchers manage to write with infectious enthusiasm. The theories are explained in a notably accessible fashion, and the varied intellectual currents of the time (and, in some essays, subsequent decades) are brought out. My one complaint--as a reader interested in the history of science--is that the writers don't say much about their personal lives. One suspects that some of them have no personal lives beyond number-crunching. Most, however, hint at or partially reveal rich and interesting backgrounds that clearly affected their thoughts. Only Peter Molnar does much more than hint, and, although he claims that one reader called his essay "unexpurgated," even he is rather reticent. Still, this volume is a gold mine, providing a very different look at one of the most "revolutionary" (in scare quotes) theoretical advances in the history of science. The consensus here seems to be that it was indeed a revolution, at least in the eyes of American graduate students of the 1960s, but not a Kuhnian revolution brought about by highly intellectualized "paradigm shifts" (Kuhn 1962); it was brought about by new field methods that brought floods of new data. These allowed the development of real mathematical models. One can only stand in awe of the amount of work this entailed. Several authors speak of working day and night, week after week, on data entry and computer jockeying. They managed this without any loss of enthusiasm--quite the reverse, apparently. Ah, youth.

Plate Tectonics as told by those that assembled the theory.......2002-01-10

This is a highly informative account of both the ideas that led to the development of Plate Tectonic theory and the concepts of how the earth works. The book is engaging to read and is understandable to an audience at the level of Scientific American. I am using it as a required text in my course at Columbia University titled "Plate-tectonic theory and its geological corollaries". For those fascinated in how the human mind puts observations together to build ideas and then test them, this book is first rate. Each chapter is crafted by a different researcher describing his or her contribution to the over all theory. The reader encounters brilliant and original ideas discarded by peer review, scientists peeping over each other's shoulder, the rush to the goal line to publish first, competition for access to key data sets, a last minute conversion from the static earth perspective, and the thrill of exploration at sea. The authors presents a wonderful history in Chapter 1 of the intellectual passage from the first inkling of continental drift in the 16th century to the breakthrough in 1966-1968 of the full-blown theory of rigid lithosphere paving stones and narrow plate boundaries.

Parks and Plates: The Geology of Our National Parks, Monuments, and Seashores

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Robert J. Lillie's 'Parks and Plates' is a wonderful book

Parks and Plates: The Geology of Our National Parks, Monuments, and Seashores
Robert J. Lillie
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0393924076

Book Description

The breathtaking landscapes of America's national parks reveal the processes that shape our planet.

Many of our national parks, monuments, and seashores were established because of their inspiring geological features. The geysers of Yellowstone, the volcanoes of Hawaii, and the granite peaks of Yosemite bear witness to the "national park idea" as one of our country's greatest contributions to society. Parks and Plates explains the fascinating geological processes that formed the mountain ranges, volcanoes, shorelines, and other dramatic landscapes of America's national treasures.

Robert J. Lillie, a gifted teacher and expert on park geology, takes a unique approach to the subject. By structuring each section of Parks and Plates around major geological features, Lillie highlights geologic patterns across many different parks. He explains these fascinating landforms using examples from over 100 park sites to introduce and illustrate plate tectonics, a simple yet eloquent way to visualize geological processes. Lavishly illustrated throughout with full color photographs, diagrams, and maps, Parks and Plates will enrich the National Park experience for curious travelers and armchair explorers alike. 336 full-color illustrations.

Customer Reviews:

Robert J. Lillie's 'Parks and Plates' is a wonderful book.......2005-12-21

Parks and Plates: The Geology of Our National Parks, Monuments and Seashores clearly and concisely describes the geological processes which formed the most spectacular, familiar and beloved landscapes in America. Balancing the fast-moving text are richly illustrated explanations of geological ideas and terminology and helpful color photographs depicting specific examples. The author identifies which parks reflect which geological forces leaving the reader with a desire to pack up and visit each park.

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Plate Tectonics: How it Works
Allan Cox , and Brian R. Hart
Manufacturer: Blackwell Publishing Limited
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 086542313X

Book Description

Palaeomagnetism, plates, hot spots, trenches and ridges are the subject of this unusual book. Plate Tectonics is a book of exercises and background information that introduces as well as demonstrates the basics of the subject. In a lively and lucid manner, it brings together a great deal of material in spherical trigonometry that is necessary to understand plate tectonics and the

Metal Deposits in Relation to Plate Tectonics (Minerals and Rocks)

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Metal Deposits in Relation to Plate Tectonics (Minerals and Rocks)
F. J. Sawkins
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0387509208

Book Description

In this book metal deposits, in particular those of non-ferrous and precious metals, are classified and analyzed in terms of their plate tectonic settings. This approach allows a meaningful treatment of metal deposits of different types and provides significant insights into both their genesis and formative environments. The updated 2nd edition incorporates the most significant advances in economic geology of the last 5 years. Particular attention is paid to the geological settings and generative models of gold deposits of all kinds.

Continental Rifts: Evolution, Structure, Tectonics (Developments in Geotectonics)

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Continental Rifts: Evolution, Structure, Tectonics (Developments in Geotectonics)

Manufacturer: Elsevier Science
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0444895663

Book Description

This multi-author book has been prepared by an international group of geoscientists that have been active in rift research since the late 1960s. In 1984, an informal, grass-roots study group was initiated to compare individual research results and to explore in greater depth the apparent differences and similarities in the interpretations from various rift systems. The group became known as the CREST working group, an acronym of Continental Rifts: Evolution, Structure and Tectonics, which not surprisingly became the title of this book.

Book Description

Biogeography relates the evolution of the Earth's biota to major episodes in the Earth's history such as climatic changes and plate tectonic events. Furthermore, biogeographic patterns have played a prominent role in the development of the theory of evolution. Thus biogeography has the potential to make important contributions to the field of geobiology.
Paleobiogeography emphasizes how analytical techniques from phylogenetic biogeography can be applied to the study of patterns in the fossil record. In doing this, it considers the strengths and weaknesses of paleobiogeographic data, the effects of plate tectonic processes (specifically continental rifting and collision) and changes in relative sea levels in terms of how they influence the evolution and distribution of organisms.

Customer Reviews:

The Mark of Paleobiogeography.......2001-02-20

Just as the past has left its mark on our present, this book will surely leave its mark on the fields of paleontology and biogeography. With awareness for biodiversity and global change rating a top prioity in current research, study, and politics, it is more important than ever to be aware of the facts. This book addresses those issues from the dawn of life to the current situation. Lieberman's elucidation and writing abilities far out-pace either Gell-Mann or Steinbeck in quality. He is able to synthesize more than one field into a working theory that is understandable and resonable. "Paleobiogeography," is a must read for any amateur or professional interested in the fields of evironmental science, geography, biology, or paleontology.

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