Earth Books

This book is great if you are looking to explore the origins of the earth, and what makes the earth work. It explains all the steps that made life on earth possible. Each chapter contains thorough information on different subjects from the ice-age to the actuall formation of the solar-system itself. I think this is an awsome book. I understood all of it and I am 15!!! Buy this book!! Its great!!

This is a must-have! I'm a geologist myself and although Ihaven't seen the television series on which the book is based (I haveno tv), most of my colleagues were watching and raving about it with great admiration. The book was immediately ordered for the library of our institution.

But don't take my word for it!

On June 2, 1999 David Sington, who is the producer and writer of the series and co-writer of the book, received the Sullivan Award at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston. The Sullivan Award is presented annually by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) for reporting that makes earth science accessible and interesting to the general public. It is named for its first winner, the late Walter Sullivan of The New York Times. Sington was the first broadcaster and first non-American to win the award in its 11 year history.

His name is associated with other great works related to geology and other sciences as well. Both authors know what they're talking about and had co-operated with many scientists on this production. A wide range of geological issues is tackled and they're all tackled admirably.

And I'm not in any way associated with the authors either. I'm just very happy to see earth science treated this way. END

This is a great volume. It accompanies the BBC TV series of the same name. Unfortunately this wonderful TV series has never been released on DVD. The book is magnificently illustrated and provides the layman with a comprehensive and competent overview of modern geology since the rise of plate tectonics.

I'd recommend reading it in tandem with University of Melbourne geologist Ian Plimer's "Short History of Planet Earth". Plimer's volume deals with some of the more controversial issues, supervolcanoes, global warming etc. Still the best companion for Simon Lamb's book is the TV series. Hopefully one day the BBC will get around to releasing it on DVD.

As a person who never studied much science, I have always been interested in the origins our world and how it came into being. The theories of earth science were explained thoroughly even to a layman like myself. This book has convinced me to delve even deeper into geology and seek the answers to the creation of my local surroundings. I now wish had chosen my university courses differently when I was younger. Bravo!!

I stumbled across the Earth User's Guide to Permaculture when I was searching for good books on the topic as I was looking for material to help start our permaculture garden, and the good reviews I read online convinced me to buy it. And am I glad I did!

I only had a very general idea about permaculture, and most of it was "theoretical". There's a plethora of free information available online as to WHY permaculture, but there isn't much about HOW. This book is an excellent guide which addresses this need, explaining in a simple manner the varied and multi-faceted techniques and processes of creating and nurturing your own permaculture garden/farm.

The book is divided in to 6 main sections:
Part 1: An observing and appraising eye
Part 2: Ecological themes in permaculture
Part 3: Applying permaculture
Part 4: Adding resilience to design
Part 5: Social permaculture

The first two parts talk extensively on the WHY of permaculture, and the next three sections talk about HOW in detail.

If you are like me, a newbie to permaculture, this is the one book you should have on your shelf. I'm sure veterans too would find it quite useful.

The author has had many years of international experience in training people
in all aspects of the permaculture philosophy and lifestyle.
With global warming making the whole issue more pressing, the book is
easy to read, covers all areas including disaster planning and shows how
fulfilling is is to tread lightly on the earth and regain control of basic
aspects of living. To become a permaculturist is to join a world-wide
movement of individuals determined to leave the world a better place.

This is my favorite Permaculture book so far. I've read several, but "Earth User's Guide to Permaculture" seems to have the most practical, hands-on information. It is presented in an easy to understand format, with exercises that will help the reader gain the necessary skills. A wonderful overview of Permaculture.

Well, I am no expert, but if one book were going to get me there, this is the one. It has everything from suggested diagrams for planting your permaculture yard or acreage, to planting techniques for us late starters. If you only get one book on the subject, this is a good choice.

This is a fabulous book that can help anyone headed on their soul journey to feel more relaxed and at ease.

Using some of the concepts in this book has helped me grow further in life, and closer to remembering my Soul plan.

I highly recommend reading this book.

Dale Sarna

It was a good book and in good condition. I am already a sun gazer. It was nice to read a journal of another's sun gazing experiences.

It is about time someone wrote a book that falls within the new age world of health and healing with some straight forward integrity. Thank you Mr. Dwinell. The stories are wonderful and raw, all the while his pure zest for life is inspiring. `The Earth Was Flat' is certainly worth the read.

Entertaining and educational filled with wit and piercing honesty. Dwinell's journal entries were filled with adventure of body mind and spirit. And his insight into our current existence was amusing, informative and heart felt. The overall concept of staring into the sun, breatharianism as well as healing and evolving was presented with a grounding and sincere voice. Overall a very impressive book that is well written and well presented. I am looking forward to his next work.

A survey of biology (from cell biology to biome-scale ecology) and geography as pertaining to the earth's biosphere - where life on earth came from (as far as it can be known), how it will end, where it has spread, how life affects the natural cycles of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur and other elements, what are the scaling laws for animals and plants, what is the total biomass of wild mammals, domesticated bovids and humans, and so on. So far as a nonbiologist can understand it, this is very interesting stuff.

The last chapter is about the human influence on the biosphere - human-introduced invasive species (99% of the biomass of the San Francisco Bay), air and water pollution, deforestation and global warming via anthropogenic emission of fossil carbon. I didn't know that the answer to a great many questions about global warming is, "We have no idea", since there are dozens of feedback cycles, both positive and negative, around the increased concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide and its consequences. Will plants photosynthesize more because of greater concentration of carbon dioxide? Some will, some won't. Will the warmer oceans cause the methane hydrates on the ocean floor to melt, releasing large quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the athmosphere? Fortunately, we cannot destroy the biosphere; unfortunately, it is within our capabilities to alter it in such a way as to make the earth unlivable for billions of humans.

Smil's Energies is one of the best popular science books I have ever read.

This is less a review of the book then a plea for more people to read it. Like an idiot, I loaned my new copy of this book to a friend after just reading through it once. I'll be buying another, and keeping it.

Smil connects so many ideas together here that you might find yourself thinking that the dynamics of an interconnected biosphere are obvious. I suppose that's the highest praise I can offer. Complex interactions within geology, geography, chemistry and evolution are made clear in this book. The writing is bright, interesting and yet dense with information. This is large scale popular science writing at its best.

Vaclav Smil is a geographer, and tries to get some perspective on the life of our planet by taking the large view. This entails a sacrifice of depth to get the necessary breadth. But the task he has set himself is still to provide sufficient rigorous detail on the topics he includes (bichemistry, energetics, geology, geochemistry, etc.) to give the reader a basis for useful understanding of the complex thing that is the biosphere. It is necessary, as he asserts in his preface, to synthesize rather than specialize if we are to address the pressing questions about our living environment, which sprawls -- physically and intellectually -- over the whole world. And if you follow the references -- or just leaf through the bibliography -- you must come to realize the immense amount of learning and research that undergird this presentation.

The patron saint of this volume is the early 20th-century Russian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky, who was the first to use the term "biosphere" (actually, "biosphera") in the grand and inclusive way that the rest of the world is now getting around to doing. He calculated (or estimated or guessed) the primary productivity of the green world, the standing biomass divided into its varous categories of land and water autotrophs and heterotrophs, the interrelationships between life, the sun's energy, the composition and behaviors of sea and air, and the grand geochemical cycles. And Vernadsky was hopeful: he expected a planet-wide consciousness to arise that would manage the biosphere intelligently.

Since then, hope has waned as our knowledge and power have grown. Humanity is stressing the systems of life as much, perhaps, as any catastophe in Earth's long history. Yet this book is a hopeful gesture: it is an attempt to get a grip on the issues in play so we can act with some effect to reverse or slow the degradation of the air, land, and waters, and to restore nature to a state of robust health -- or at least to give nature some breathing room. Smil has chosen to treat in detail the questions of the origins of life, its possible existence elsewhere, and its fundamental biochemistry. He talks about life in the mass -- as a storehouse for sunlight, and as a participant in the great cycles of material through the atmosphere, waters, within the mantle of the earth, and out again. He talks about the physical constraints on life's productivity, the dynamics and organization of the biosphere. And always he is concerned with magnitudes and their relationships: it is not enough to discuss the amount of plankton in the oceans as an isolated fact. Rather, its mass and its turnover, its powers of energy sequestration, should be compared to those of land plants, and productive and unproductive sea areas contrasted.

It is implicit in this approach that the numbers matter. We must know the size and extent of things that we wish to affect or to stop adversely affecting. After all, without some sense of the magnitude of the particular flows of material or requirements of particular facets of the living world, we can waste our efforts on what amount to side issues. However, I wish the presentation had been more user-friendly: many of the charts and graphs were lifted from technical publications, and the others had that feel. The ultimate goal of all this numerizing should be -- let's face it -- a sort of pictoral understanding. To that end, I would have liked some synthesizing graphics that showed (maybe with fat arrows and thin arrows, big, little and even teeny-tiny barrels (or trees or bugs...)) how facets of the system compared, and at a glance showed the relative "importance" of things.

I know that mere magnitude is not always a safe guide to how important something is in the workings of the world. A rather small quantity of CFC's in the stratosphere has had immense effect, for counterexample. Small amounts of bottleneck chemicals like phosphorous control the richness of life in otherwise productive areas. And how unimportant is a rare -- and biospherically useless -- species?

Anyway, I cheer this parade of fact backed by much research and aided immensely by our current generation of planet-spanning monitoring devices. This is hard science, and it gives us baselines and error ranges, without which all discussion finally devolves into opinion and political posturing. Yet, when the last graph is in place, we go right on despoiling the world. The problem is not so much a technical difficulty as it is a matter of societal will. Smil admits as much in his last chapter. All that has gone before is not even really prelude. Without the active cooperation of the political entities that partition this vast human herd the environment cannot be saved. This is the hard part. It is rather a letdown, getting to this point in the book, to realize that science is powerless in the face of a desire to ignore it.

This is a very readable book about the history and nature of the Earth's biosphere, and ideas about its future.

Smil begins with some fascinating material on the the nature and origin of early life on Earth. That includes a discussion of stromatolites (early life), and some interesting comments about guesses of the odds of life appearing in a stellar system in the Galaxy. While estimates that hold the chances to be small are taken seriously, Fred Hoyle's argument that the chance is outrageously small is shown to be silly.

The author then describes the nature and diversity of life in general, and its resiliance to a variety of natural catastrophes, including bolide impacts and supernovae.

Smil tells us about how the biosphere is energized, by solar radiation and the Earth's internal heat. And we then see the flows of water and materials, including carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and other mineral cycles. The next two chapters deal with the extent of the biosphere and the biosphere's mass and productivity. There are organisms that range up to 50 km above the surface of our planet, or to the bottom of the oceans, nearly 11 km down. To tens of meters below the land surface. And at temperatures ranging from 110 degrees Celsius to minus 50. pH ranges can be from 1 to 11. Meanwhile, the biomass may be anywhere from 2200 to 4000 Gigatons of Carbon.

There is a chapter on the dynamics and organization of the biosphere, including the quarter-power scaling of animal and plant metabolism "that applies across an entire range of body sizes and metabolic pathways."

After that, Smil discusses the transformation of the biosphere due to human actions, such as the release of sulfur, nitrogen, and carbon into the atmosphere. The book concludes with some ideas about the future of the biosphere. He speculates that the Earth's population will stabilize at well below 10 billion people and that there needs to be a transition "from fossil fuels to solar radiation as the dominant source of human energy needs." Meanwhile, there are problems to face: we humans are awfully prone to violence, there may be a new ice age, we could be hit by a big bolide, and so forth. Still, the author is mentions that the biosphere might prove surprisingly resiliant to what is being done to it at present.

There are a few useful appendices, covering milestones in the evolution of the Earth and its biosphere, sizes and masses of organisms, chemical reactions in the carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur cycles, and ocean and land estimates of the biosphere's phytomass, heterotrophic biomass, and net primary productivity, There's also a list of useful websites.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the topic.

The eBook version of this book is well thought out. The bookmarks permit an immediate jump to any one of the chapters in the book.

It is my opinion that the subject of this book should be of concern to all. Too often today we receive "sound bites" through our news media that do not provide an accurate description of the facts. This book is a rare exception.

The balanced discussion provided allows the informed reader to make his or her decision regarding the subject of global warming and global climate change. What I like about this book is the fact that Henry Willis does not buy into the accepted theories currently being spouted about global warming. Rather, he presents a viable discussion of facts, weather predictability, and the true cause for global climate change.

This is one of the very best books I've read on the subject of global climate change. It is well-researched and written in an easy to read style. If you want to know all the arguments surround the question of global climate change, this book is a must read.

I heard Mr. Willis on a talk show a couple of months ago. The
host, who himself had co-authored a book on rapid climate change,
claimed that by reading "Earth's Future Climate" in a "couple of hours,"
one could become fairly well acquainted with the subject. I got the book,
and while I don't exactly agree that it only takes a few hours, I absolutely
concur that this short, highly-readable book, is an excellent overview of
the very complex subject of climate change and prediction. Indeed it does
only take a few hours to read, but I had a very limited background on many
of the subjects covered, so I've read it about 3 times. After the third read
I feel that I indeed have a decent overview. The author covers quite a
bit of material in each of the short chapters, yet succinctly, and writes
in a very friendly manner, wanting the reader to "get it," despite the many
complexities. And most importantly, he seems to back up
all of his contentions with good science.

Mr. Willis' main contention is that while we are in a warming period,
it is not due to mankind's increasing use of greenhouse gases. He posits
that the earth's climate goes in cycles of mostly ice ages, followed by warmer
cycles. In fact we are on the rebound of what is known as "The Little Ice Age,"
which occurred after another cycle of warm temperatures before the Renaissance.
This cold cycle, along with devastating diseases, ravaged the earth's population,
and ended around 1900. Mr Willis traces many rounds of Ice Ages and warming
periods, going back thousands and millions of years, using ice cores, which he
calls "time machines" (Ch. 17, very interesting). Analysing the chemical content
(using oxygen) of ice cores tell scientists very much about what the earth's climate
is at a given time.

What causes these cycles? Well, prior to the Industrial Revolution
mankind couldn't have been a cause, so what he claims is that the cycles
have to do with sunspot cycles, which come in 11-year cycles themselves,
but their effect is in fact more pronounced during the height of the Gleibsser
Period (70-90 years). We are in a period of rapid global warming now (c. 2002)
because we are at the height of a Gleibsser Period. There are also interesting
discussions of much larger cycles, like the Milankovich cycle.

One of themes of the book is that "correlation is not causation." The
author feels that even though there are undoubted signs of global warming
(GW), the correlation between increased greenhouse gases and GW is simply
not proven scientifically. On p. 110 a "meticulously conducted study by two
Danish scientists" is cited, which claims with a "probability of 84.6%" that
GW is caused by sunspot cycles. This of course flatly contradicts the web
site of the Union of Concerned Scientists, one of his references: "the warming
effect due to increases of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is estimated to
be more than 8 times greater than the effect of solar irradiance." I guess each
will have to make up his/her own mind! Personally I found the author's
explication of vast cycles of cold and warm cycles predating the Industrial
Revolution to be surprisingly convincing.

The other major contention of "Earth's Future Climate" is that global
climate change happens very rapidly, in as little as ten years, from relatively
stable times. While the author does agree that global warming is a fact, he thinks that
because GW might cause changes in the Atlantic ocean currents, we could actually
enter another ice age! The explantion is not simple, but the writing
is interesting and clear. Specifically, in Ch. 18, "Gyres," the
discussion in on Atlantic Ocean currents, which
contain "thermohaline sinks," where cold, salty water sinks down
in tremendous volume, causing the currents (by wind) to circulate warm air.
Because there is more rainfall with GW, the salinity of the sinking water is
decreasing, which could disrupt the warming. Also, while some of the world's
glaciers are melting, because of increased rainfall this melting might be
counterbalanced by more accumulation of ice!

What makes the entire topic so complicated is that there are countless
factors that affect climate in one way or another, which cause other
things to happen, while of course the earth itself tries to re-balance
all these competing factors. In fact on p. 37 the author contends that
the system is so chaotic it is simply not predictable, even with the
best of computer models.

I've written a lot already, but I realize that this short book covers
many times more than what I've tried to summarize here. It also includes
a very good glossary, and you can scan in the bibliography as text, which
is mostly web sites, and have some fun looking around the Internet. I did find that
some of the URL's no longer exist or I had to search a given site to find the new URL.

A small fault with the book was that unless I read it very
carefully, I wasn't sure whether Mr. Willis was promoting his own
views or the views of scientists who claim that humanity's use of
fossil fuels is having a huge impact on global climate, with whom he
does not agree.

I very highly recommend this primer on global climate change to those
with limited time and background, but concern!

Earth's Future Climate, by Henry Willis, is a great introduction to paleoclimate basics for the layperson. Using everyday language, the reader quickly moves from the beginning of time to present day weather; getting a feel for the wide variety of factors contributing to today's climate. The historical data is discussed, as well as a quick and clear explanation on how to read the paleoclimate data.

The paleoclimate data reveals how the Earth's past climate went from warm to Ice Age conditions in 3 to 5 years according to emerging scientific theories. Henry Willis is well organized in his presentation and as a result Terracycles recommends Earth's Future Climate as an introduction to paleoclimate concepts.

Dennis Dahlin has compiled a delightful and unique guide of interesting places to stay with an environmental or 'earth-friendly' element. The book is a dynamic resource with an update page available on their website. The book is enhanced with beautiful sketches primarily drawn by the author. Other environmental travel guides are in the works. We enjoyed the relaxing read and look forward to exploring the many inns he has discovered and shared with us. .....

The charm and character of the inns listed in this book make me want to take a trip from the tip of the NorthEast down, stopping at every inn. Hand-drawn sketches are marvelous! And, the info on ecofriendly places to visit is richly detailed. I've almost visited all the inns here in Northern CA--This book opens new pathways across the country, while treading lightly on the earth. A treasure.

This review is written by a connoisseur of travel guides who has been a globe-trotter for over 50 years, and a resident of the northeast for much of her life prior to becoming an innkeeper in the Caribbean. The book is exceptionally well researched and beyond compare in its meticulously researched and presented contents. It picks and chooses the most interesting inns, richly describing each one in an enchanting and easy-to-follow format. It inspires the reader with additional information about hiking groups, farmers' markets, environmental action groups, web sites, and other items of interest rarely included in similar, but more expensive, travel guides. Reading this book is like being taken care of by the best of the best inn-keepers. The illustrations are methodically detailed and beautiful to look at, as are the photos. Buy it, you'll like it! And give it as a gift, too!

From Planeta Journal - Guide to "green" hotels in the U.S. Northeast. The author provides a selection of hotels desgined and operated in harmony with the environment. Establishments in this guide strive toward being earth-frinedly via the use of solar heating, innovative recycling programs and/or organic gardens. The author describes these hotels and inns and provides rates, credentials and - most notably - lively histories of each hotel's origins and the owner's current work. Chapters include information about nearby earth-friendly restaurants, natural food stores, farmers' markets and destinations for low-impact recreation. This is the first in a series. Highly recommended.

This is one of the best books ever. Big red plus. KAREN sit down. Kenny be quiet. Howard be quiet. Chunche SIT DOWN.

A well written, well researched, and brilliantly edited peice. I highly recommend this for all serious physics research courses that touch upon tectonics in any way, it's a fine specimen of a book

This book is more enjoyable than triple integrals rotating like crazy!. I give it a big plus. Tony, this is too much; take your luggage and go.

The best book on physics ever. It gave me great pleasure to read. Big Plus

Interested in sustainable agriculture? Look no further. In "The Eco-Foods Guide", Cynthia Barstow helps us navigate the complex issues surrounding food security and in clear, accessible language illustrates how our everyday food choices impact the planet. That said, this book, which is written in a friendly, conversational voice, is anything but a dry read. In fact, it's really rather fun. (Granted I am extremely passionate about food politics!) As a long-time natural foodist and someone with a lot of experience working in the field of organic foods, I highly recommend this guide. It's very comprehensive and covers everything from biodynamic farming to community supported agriculture to why you should only buy shade-grown, fair trade, organic coffee. It also discusses the grave environmental dangers of biotechnology. At the risk of sounding new-agey, I must also agree with the underlying spiritual message of this book. Eating local, seasonal, organic food really does help you re-connect with the earth. It's time we once again remember that food is holy! As all of life is interconnected, what's good for the earth is good for you!

The Eco-Foods Guide is an indispensable resource for the consumer who wants to go beyond reading labels and really delve into the truth about where our food comes from. Cynthia Barstow's conversational style is readable and down to earth--she answers the questions that loom in our heads as we make choices at the grocery store. She discusses the issues of buying organic vs. non organic, the benefits of buying locally, and she de-mysifies GMO's and what role they play in our food. Barstow also inlcludes helpful websites for futher purusing. As a mother of a two year old, I am grateful for this accessible guide--keep in a handy place!

Barstow's Eco-Foods is a well-thought out book that focuses on: local, organic, seasonal qualities of the food we should eat. The book is easy reading and optimistic, full of pro-active and productive actions we could take. Eco-foods brings in a thorough historical background of important topics. While I consider myself well-read and informed on modern food issues, Cynthia enlightened me on subjects such as genetic drift, genetically modified, terminator technology, labeling, salmon waste, pouring rights, and more. The book flows with a compendium of who's who in the field (like Rachel Carson, Frances Moore Lappe, Thomas Berry, and many more), listing of relevant websites in an easy to see manner, shopping tips, brief vignettes on subjects that are discussed. I will use Eco-Foods as a resource for my good foods purchases.

The Eco-Foods Guide: What's Good For The Earth Is Good For You! by sustainable agriculture and consumer advocate Cynthia Barstow is a very practical and "user friendly" consumer's guide to shopping the grocery-store aisles. Individual chapters cogently teach the reader about confusing yet critically important terms on grocery shelf cans, boxes and labels such as shade-grown, IPM-certified, GMO-free, biodynamic, and more, as well as offering sound and invaluable advice for shopping at farmer's markets, buying local produce, being aware of what edibles are being purchased for consumption, and generally regarding food as a sacred part of life itself. The Eco-Foods guide is very highly recommended, indispensable reading for anyone concerned with seeking out alternatives to the overly processed, additive contaminated, preservative laden, and chemically adulterated and synthesized and genetically altered foods that can (and do) significantly contribute to contemporary health problems.

[ [ASIN: 0300093616 Emmet Gowin: Changing the Earth] ]
I had seen the show of Emmet Gowin's photographs at the Corcoran and was moved by the haunting beauty of the images. After being reintroduced to the work I decided to buy the book for myself and I am glad I did. It allows me to spend more time with Gowin's images and contemplate the many layers of realization and feeling locked into the photographs. Even if we didn't know or recognize the source the work we would still be haunted by the natural and human made melancholic patterns of line, space and color of the photographs themselves.
David Carlson

`Changing the Earth' is a collection of beautiful and compelling aerial photographs that were taken over 14 years. Where Adams has shown us the beauty of the land before man has stepped upon it, Gowin shows us what the land looks like after man has used it. Gowin is one of the best printers (photographic) in the world and quality of his work is very obvious in this book.

Like a great deal of aerial photography (Bradford Washburn's naturalistic mountain work immediately comes to mind in this connection), Emmet Gowin's meticulously detailed portfolio depicting man's ambition writ large upon the surface of our planet can often be 'read' as much as abstract art as documentary record. As art, this series of images of a wounded planet is so deceptively compelling it is easy to become lost in the sensuousness of the aesthetic moment Gowin repeatedly creates and forget that the subject matter being systematically explored is intrinsically disturbing and of concern. Indeed, the experience of finding so much beauty in landscapes of man-made desolation and ruin is unnerving. Yet it is undeniable that from a distance the patterns on the Earth made by irrigation pivots, toxic chemical ponds, missile burial trenches, mining pits, and numerous other manifestations of human 'development' without limits are endlessly unique and dramatic. Paradoxically, it is precisely this nexus of visually stimulating, geometrically intricate imagery generated in the context of wanton exploitation and destruction of the land that sustains the narrative and aesthetic power of Changing The Earth. One is absorbed in the beauty of the photography just long enough to catch sight and become painfully aware of the pervasive, intensely consequential, problem that demands attention and thought. Thus lessons for the future abound in the pages of this volume! One day our way of taking the Earth for granted by first depleting its resources for immediate gain and then dumping what is no longer wanted or useful wherever is convenient, will be seen as the opulent conceit and obscene luxury that it surely is. Until that day, studies like Changing The Earth bare witness to our collective folly, greed and irresponsibility.

This book despite it's somewhat horrific subject matter has a beauty so deep and profound it restores my faith and interest in Black and White image making. Beautifully printed it is a book that any budding black and white landscape photographer should own.

It's exactly what the title says. Very dry, just the facts, but very extensive and detailed. If you're looking for a great reference book or if you like to read concise factual summaries....then you'll love this book.

Hi, I really like this book. It's bben helpfully to me for my carrer. Thanks, Michelle Trzecisnki

This encyclopedia begins with an entry for `aa' (a particular type of lava flow) and ends with a page-worth of data on Yellowstone National Park. In between, all geophysical phenomena associated with earthquakes and volcanoes are covered alphabetically, including anecdotes on many individual eruptions or shakings, e.g. the Kobe earthquake in Japan.

I enjoyed reading the "Encyclopedia of Earthquakes and Volcanoes" but thought it must be a work in progress (I have the new edition) as there were many typos and one astronomical quibble:

* "Io is the hottest place in the solar system outside the sun (p. 105)"---actually I believe that honor belongs to Venus. Io's average surface temperature is 130 K whereas the surface of Venus averages 740 K (hotter even than Mercury).

Another interesting oddity concerning earthquakes, is that the authors tend to favor the Mercalli Scale, which is based on ordinary human observations, rather than the Moment magnitude.

Not all of the black-and-white photographs are dated, and the cover photograph of a volcanic eruption is not identified (although a friend of mine from Oregon swears it is Mt. St. Helens). Ideally, a newer edition of this book will label all of the photographs, and perhaps include a few in color.

All quibbling aside, this is an interesting book that fills a useful niche. It will definitely remain in my reference library.

"Appendix B" which includes "Eyewitness Accounts of Major Eruptions and Quakes" is absolutely fascinating, and it alone is worth the price of the book.

In a unique and very handy A-Z format, here in one volume is all the information you are ever likely to need on these most dramatic natural phenomena.
The great earthquakes and famous volcanic eruptions are comprehensively covered, with clear explanations of the geologic concepts and terms, interesting photos and maps, and thumbnail biographies of leading figures in the study of these majestic forces of nature. A particularly interesting feature is the inclusion of each state with an evaluation of its seismic potential. (There are some surprises here). Highly recommended as a very useful single-volume introduction for libraries and interested individuals.

(The "score" rating is an ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books.)