The Earth Books

This is just a great field manual. It's packed with useful information and the illustrations are plentiful and really add to the reader's understanding since they are usually fully explained in great detail. Using photos and geological examples mostly from the Pacific Northwest, the photos dramatically illustrate many of the most important concepts. The text is also very well written, and the whole manual is detailed and thorough. Overall an extremely well done, practical, and detailed treatment of the subject. And not the least of its virtues is that it's printed on high quality, glossy paper. And finally, at only 35 bucks the price is quite reasonable for what you're getting.

Field Geology Illustrated is an excellent, concise introductory guide to recognizing geological features in the field. Its explanations and descriptions of structural geology are especially informative. The photographs and figures are outstanding and clearly display fascinating geological phenomena. Perfect for novice and advanced students.

I wanted a book that would show me actual field situations of common geologic phenomenon. Being a novice, I needed something that I could easily carry and that would not undermine detail. Maley's excellent book fills the bill very well. The numerous illustrations and photographs in this book are extremely useful if you want to "see" and understand geology. Many of the pictures have inset scale standards, such as quarters and measuring rulers, that give one a good comparasion of the rocks and sediments involved. I also appreciate the black and white pictures. Often geology texts go in for snazzy color pictures that often blurr important detail. If you want a good field guide that you can actually use this book is for you.

How I wish I had found this book earlier! The best geology book I've ever bought. It gives illustrations of just about everything along with some descriptions of what you are looking at. It's almost like an illustrated geology dictionary/glossary, and gives many pictures both as drawings and photos to help the reader understand what they are seeing. It is a great asset for all geology classes. If you are someone studying geology this is a must have book!!

I have both editions and this edition is a remarkable improvement. However, the author who has vast experience in marine geology, decided to take up precious space in an early chapter on this topic since, according to him, we live on a planet covered by water. I think instead 15-20 pages introducing geologic maps and elementary structure(especially after his introductory chapter on the history of US geological surveying) would serve the reader far better--who probably will have little opportunity to particpate in 'field' marine geology.
Maley lists standard field geology books in the reference section (Compton, etc), but field geology for the beginner/student involves understanding field maps, not just photos, as good as these pics are. A few pages covering geologic maps makes sense for a field geology book with over 700 pages.

Once I started this book, I could not put it down. I finished it in just one evening. The other reviews posted here explain the content of the story, so I will just comment on the readability of the book. And thoroughly readable it is; the author writes a personal story in a manner that makes you feel like you were there. After finishing the book I felt depressed, because I knew I would never get to personally experience an adventure such as this one.

Half of the excitement of embarking on an earth sciences degree is the opportunity to do hands-on science. The vast majority of new students relish the chance to find it all out for themselves-make their own observations and measurements, test their own hypotheses-in the best of all work environments, the field. Even those who lack motivation in the classroom often find new levels of determination when faced with the reality of a particularly gripping outcrop. There is a downside to all this delirium. Budding geologists must learn to put up with harsh conditions during the many field classes that are run in the vacations outside the summer months. In Britain, they receive precious little support from their local education authorities, despite losing valuable opportunities to earn money during holidays and terms with part-time jobs. And they also have to equip themselves for the field by buying expensive weatherproof clothing and tools. All in all, though, the experience of fieldwork is not just enjoyable and an excellent foundation in scientific experimental design. It is also good for a students future career. "Hardly any universities support the concept of fieldwork nowadays." Even if only a very few go on to become professional geologists, the benefits for students of learning to think on their feet, both literally and metaphorically, and of operating in harsh conditions while developing self-motivation and teamwork, make good highlights on CVs. Certainly, my students fare well in the graduate employment cattle market. The trouble is that, although many explorers seem increasingly to realize the benefits of a strong field experience, the whole exercise is under more and more pressure. I'm sure that this arises largely from a deep misunderstanding of what fieldwork actually involves. And the misunderstanding also extends deep into the scientific community-even within those disciplines that have, like the earth sciences, a strong traditional fieldwork. What triggers this odd perception? In a word, image. Fieldwork is often portrayed as an exercise in random data collection- a chance to potter about on your own, just looking around. The geological community hasn't helped itself much here: modern role models and good, clear presentations of excellence in fieldwork are few and far between. Curiously, other sciences have greatly benefited from fieldwork. Take astronomy, for example. How much of the interest in this science in the latter part of the 20th century was launched with the NASA lunar landing, the most expensive fieldwork ever undertaken? Indeed, the solution to the recent hot potato of life on Mars can only really be addressed through another batch of fieldwork-on the Red Planet itself. Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, a new book by Christopher Scholz offers a number of important insights into earth sciences fieldwork. It is true that Fieldwork: A Geologist's Memoir of the Kalahari hardly touches on scientific issue as important as the physical and biological evolution of the Solar System. It is nevertheless a gripping account of a small research programme directed at understanding how continents rift apart. Scholz's story recounts the activities of an expedition to collect geophysical data in Botswana. His research brief was to get a handle on earthquake hazards in and around the Okavango river delta in the Kalahari. So the book contains two currents: the narrative of the scientific investigative approach running alongside the human story-the personal excitement and frustration of life in the field. Scholz's concurrent adventures make for a thrilling read. Attempted robberies, arrests, drinking sessions and expeditions to find a decent hamburger are intertwined with the conditions a geologists needs to receive good signals with seismometers. Scholz graphically describes the difficulties inherent in carrying out seismological experiments in hostile terrain, the hassles, with local, petty bureaucracies, the difficulties of working together in teams and living alongside heards of elephant and rhino. But this is much more than a Boy's Own account of African adventures. As with most good science, Scholz's Okavango project arose by chance. The United Nations Development Programme runs a project on the Okavango delta, and its researchers wanted some idea of the earthquake hazard in the area. This delta, sited in the heart of the Kalahari desert, is a delicately balanced environment whose rivers are banked by extremely low ridges. If the ridges were formed by active faults, slip on the faults, manifested as earthquakes, could disrupt drainage in the region. This would cause massive ecological changes. The UNDP approached Scholz and asked him to be its local "earthquake consultant". He, in contrast, was interested in the more general problem of how faults and earthquakes work, particularly in response to rifting in the continents. After a bout of detective work involving global earthquake records and satellite images, Scholz realized that the Okavango area lay on a possible continuation of the rift valleys of eastern Africa. If so, the little faults in the Okavango represented an early stage of rifting, something that is extraordinarily difficult to observe elsewhere on Earth. The problem for Scholz lay in testing his ideas-hence his interest in the project to collect detailed data on small earthquakes by recording them directly in the Okavango area. So Scholz's expedition was a marriage of convenience, satisfying the interests of the UNDP in managing the ecology of the Okavango and, at the same time, allowing him to investigate, as he puts it, "a basic scientific problem". I particularly enjoyed Scholz's description of the important early parts of his scientific expedition, the different motivations for the study and the groundwork needed when designing the experiment. These are the elements that are often missing from popular accounts of scientific expeditions. As a consequence, it is easy to lose sight of the motivations of the scientists themselves once they become embroiled in the challenges of a particularly exotic location. Or the technology gets in the way of the story- an all-too-common occurrence. By avoiding these pitfalls, Fieldwork makes an exciting read for crusty old geologists, students in search of role models and all those wanting insight into the processes of scientific discovery. And it illustrates why fieldwork provides such an excellent training environment. This should have left me feeling optimistic. Here I have a book that I can recommend to my students as a role model for their own studies. Of course, this type of expedition is unlike anything they might do themselves while studying, but there are useful parallels. And I can recommend the book to my friends and family who think that fieldwork is just a question of getting a nice tan in an exotic corner of the world. The problem is that the pressure on scientific fieldwork by the organizations responsible for funding are very great indeed. Hardly any universities support the concept of fieldwork, requiring individual departments or, more commonly, the individual students to fund themselves. It is seen as a old-fashioned, unnecessary part of modern scientific endeavor, a bit of a luxury. It may already be too late to convince the skeptics. Academic fieldwork is being severely penalized even for postgraduates. Britain's Natural Environment Research Council has recently cut its support for fieldwork radically, even through students going on scientific cruises using the council's ships or working in its laboratories can use these facilities without charge. Ships and laboratory costs are underwritten yet there is no specific fund for fieldwork. So I fear that, notwithstanding the wishes of employers and the excellent general training that fieldwork provides, its days are numbered. Even excellent books like Scholz's may be too late to reverse the tide. Rob Butler teaches and researches at the University of Leads.

I am actually the author's daughter. And although he and I have not always gotten along, I was delighted to hear that my dad had finally decided to write and publish this story. As I was only six years old when he went on this particular field trip, his recounts of all the wacky and wild mishaps, misadventures, and downright silliness he encountered in Africa became favourite bedtime stories for my brother and I for years afterwards. His book preserves the tongue-in-cheek feeling of the early retellings that so delighted us as kids... and also his own personal joy at confronting both the scientific and physical challenges of this type of fieldwork.

I can totally recommend this book not only for a glimpse into the life of an earth scientist, but also as a source of inspiration (or amusing tales) for younger readers. You wouldn't think geophysics could be so much fun!

In 1974 Christopher Scholz and his team carried out a survey of seismicity in the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa, at the request of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. They achieved some decent scientific results, but also had a whale of a time, with experiences varying from the comic through the awe-inspiring to the downright frightening. Few Earth scientists write anything in the style of their life's memoirs, so this book is doubly welcome. It should appeal to a wide variety of readers, whether fieldworkers or not. The science is accessibly laid out and richly embroidered with tales of the bush. The scientific problem that the team tackled was to discover whether there is an active extension of the East African rift system into Botswana. Is this the tip of the systems propagating itself southward? The question is potentially important because when a fault, such as that forming the edge of a rift, moves and generates an earthquake, there is a change of elevation along the line where the fault-plane reaches the surface. The Kalahari is very flat and the drainage system is in a delicate balance, around the Okavango delta, for example. A large change in the drainage pattern could easily be induced by only a minor movement, and lead to profound ecological consequences. Botswana is not noted for big earthquakes, but any seismically active area produces many small earthquakes. So the survey had to deal with micro-earthquakes which, predictably, would turn up in sufficient number during the few months spent in the field. The technique is to install an array of three or more seismometers with recording devices, leave them for a day or several days, and then see what you have caught. Then the array is moved somewhere else, and so on. But much of the Kalahari is covered with more-or-less unconsolidated sand, about the worst possible material through which to try to detect micro-earthquakes. As a result, much time had to be devoted to the search for areas of solid bedrock. This traveling about, setting up camp, overcoming obstacles, coping with the wildlife and, not least confronting officialdom, forms the substance of the book. It is rich in accounts of the incidents that such a mode of life throws up. It was necessary, for example, to set up camp in a thick bush half a mile from the only watering hole for miles. The only clear strip of bush to camp on turned out to be the main route used by elephants at night on their way to have a drink. Add a few thousand nearby antelopes, lions, hyenas and so on, and the night becomes alarmingly noisy. In the end, the party managed to observe a sufficient number of micro-earthquakes to confirm their hypothesis. The author comments that when the work was published, it did not cause a great stir, but he regards it as an honest and useful job well done. Although much of the book is devoted to the sheer joy of life in the bush (and its perils), and is written so that you can almost smell the smoke of the camp-fire, the descriptions of occasional trips to town are just as evocative of Africa. We meet a rich array of ramshackle bars with ramshackle customers, we play plenty of darts and hear many a comic or curious yarn. Perhaps the best is the one about the Afrikaner who, at a time of severe floods, managed one moonless night to drive across a bridge that not only had no handrail but was under two feet of water. On being asked how he managed this, he replied: "What bridge?" Keith Cox is in the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3LY, UK.

_____________________________________________
Christopher Scholz, a geophysicist at Lamont-Doherty, went to
Botswana in 1974 to lay out a seismic net to map microearthquakes. He
encountered the typical obstacles of fieldwork in remote areas - poor
maps, poor roads, lost luggage, obtuse bureaucrats - and site-specific
challenges, such as charging elephants and hostile Bushmen. With
perseverance, good humor, ingenuity - and lots of beer - he got the job
done.

"Teddy & I were sitting about 20 yards apart. We had been like that for
more than an hour, hunched up against the trunks of a couple of
mopani trees as we waited for the herd of elephants to leave the grove
we were in... By the time we had noticed them we had lost any chance
of retreating back to the Land Rover... Climbing a tree was no refuge in
this situation. That offers protection from Cape buffalo, but not from
elephant, which can reach the upper branches of trees with their
trunks...

"One thing I can say about you, Scholz, " said Teddy. "You sure can pick
the places to go to study earthquakes."

Anyone who's spent much time doing fieldwork - or wants to confirm
how wisely they picked office/lab work instead - will enjoy Scholz's
stories. His genial style reminds me of tales (and lies) traded by old
hands in a bar in Butte or Battle Mountain. Highly recommended.

Cheers -- Pete Tillman
Consulting Geologist, Tucson & Santa Fe (USA)

I decided to buy this book in Amazon because it was cheaper than trying to purchase it here in Spain.(36 euros in spanish in a bookshop here in Spain, but only 24 euros in english, everything included).
It is a good book for those how like views of planet Earth from above, and also interested in Geology, Earth Sciences, etc. I wish it would had more text rather than photos. The texts explaining the pictures could have been longer.

It was a surprise to see the photos inside, is very good planned the chapters, and really is look of our earth, from Asia to America. If you want ilustrated the climate change, you have to buy this book.

Most of us go through life with the assumption and perspective that the world around us is stable. The occassional tsunami or hurricane impresses us on the evening news but the world overall is mostly unchanging. This book will change that perspective and assumption.

Changes in climate, population, pollution, the wreckage of wars and other man made causes as well as natural events such as earthquakes, volcanism, floods, and weather on the earths surface are shown with before and after images. The most interesting to me were the changes in Greenland's ice sheets and many of the world's glaciers due to climate changes and the stark deforestation of the tropics due to burning and agricultural development.

I found the section at the end of the book titled "Future Views" to be an interesting collection of concise essays on the graphical presentions in the preceding section of the book. You make take these as factual or opinion piece but they like the book are stimulating and will make for good conversation around the coffee table.

This is a book for those interested in the environment, business, photography or science. I teach business courses to adults. This book demonstrates the awesome power of paired photos to convey important messages about dramatic changes over a very short period of time. This book is worth your investment of time and money. I am grateful to the publisher for this great work. bshaver@bus.wisc.edu

Anybody left harbouring doubts about the reality of climate change will be relieved of them by this book. The images of how glaciers are disappearing, the sea rising to threaten coastal communities or the ravages of intense storms are a jarring sight. The Collins team has performed an outstanding service in compiling such a span of places and conditions in demonstrating what is happening and is likely to occur in our future. With added commentary from a selected group of those interested in environment issues, this is a valuable visual package.

The book is comprised of eight chapters of categorised imagery and one of comment on future conditions. Opening with such natural phenomena as earthquakes, tsunamis and cyclones and tornadoes, the images of human activity follow. Although the natural forces are the stuff of The Weather Channel, there are some human-created conditions that will be novel to many. Dutch land reclamation from the sea was depicted in our childhood reading, but the images of a set of man-made islands off the coast of Dubai may be something of a jolt. Looking like some flower or a bizarre insect, they are known as the "Palm Islands" for their resemblance to that plant.

Water, in one of its many forms, takes up a significant portion of the book. Glaciers may seem remote and of little value except for tourism, but some cities, such as Lima, Peru, rely on glaciers as a water source. The loss of glaciers means far more than the loss of a city's supply. As the Polar, Greenland and Canadian snow and ice melt away in rising temperatures, lowland civilisations are threatened with inundation. It may be easy to overlook the drowning of a Pacific Island nation like Tuvalu, but the millions of people displaced by flooding in Bangladesh will be a challenge its neighbours will have to cope with. The map depicting this flooding is hard to interpret in human terms - the scale is too small. Nevertheless, there are people in that zone of beige marked on the map.

The comments concluding the book are of interest, but reading them is a chore. In its effort to give modernity to the book, the page and print colours are far too close for proper readability. However, the reading is worth the effort for such articles as those by Mark Lynas and Tim Flannery. The editors, struggling to deliver a "balanced" presentation, slipped Bjorn Landstrom, the "Sceptical Environmentalist", in as a naysayer. Claiming to have observed the images, he then puts forward the notion that "technology" will save the species. Where Lima will obtain its water or how the Bangladeshi will be replanted elsewhere without social impact, seems to have escaped his notice. The editors might have found a more rational sceptic to include, but those are becoming as rare as the Golden Toad. Nevertheless, it is the images and explanations of their import that render the book an indispensible tool. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

I bought this book as it was recommended in my teacher's manual for fourth grade science. Having the "universe" making decisions and thinking smacks of intelligent design and undermines the basic theories of evolution and natural selection that we are preparing our students to understand in the upper grades. I will not use this book in my classroom.

i was a little unsure about getting a book that made the universe a consciousness being. but i have to say that the way in which this book, and the first in the series, are written is very easy to read, and very easy to understand. some books in this genre are harder to read, because they are more like text books with words. this book flows smoothly, and reads like a story book, and keeps my daughters interest the whole way through. my daughter is always asking me to "read the universe story" and "read the lava book!" i have not purchased the 3rd in the series, but after reading the first 2, i will definitely be purchasing this author's take on evolution!

After reading this book, my five-year-old grandson brought me a picture he had drawn of a eukaryote with a twisted DNA helix and mitochondria. I promptly order its sequel. I even reread the book on my own to help my understanding of the terminology of early evolution.

As a scientist who works on early evolution I was looking for a book for my 7 year old cousin who is fascinated by science that would counterbalance the creationism he is getting in Sunday school. I purchased this book after reading reviews but was skeptical that it would be accurate. I was beyond thrilled while reading through it! Jennifer Morgan does an excellent job of taking the origin of life, evolution of eukaryotes, prokaryotes and metazoans, the oxygen crisis, migration from sea to land and mass extinctions and making it understandable to children (and lay adults!)
I found no true errors in the science, only things that I wish were expanded on such as calling the "mounds of bacteria" what they are, stromatolites (though I may be biased as I work on these and other similar structures!)
Evolution is never mentioned by name though she does a wonderful job of saying that certain animals are "your ancestors" and, for example, how dinosaurs evolved into what are ancestors to modern birds.
I honestly believe that not only should every child be reading this book and that it would be an excellent addition to grade school science curriculum, but that every adult in the United States should read this as well. I had several adult friends and family members read it and they said they finally understood certain concepts that I work on and have tried to explain to them in the past. One friend actually said "oh so that is the difference between a eukaryote and a prokaryote!" I'm going to purchase a second copy to keep for myself to help explain the origins of life and early evolution to others.
I look forward to purchasing the other two books in this series and highly recommend this book to anyone.

Told as if the Universe has patted her lap & invited to you up for grand story, she takes you back into a time before time, when the Earth was formed, long, long before you or I were motes in the storm. Long before dinosaurs were born & flowers grew.

Told in a confidential, amusing & lyrical turn of phrase, FROM LAVA TO LIFE spills the beans on how life began here from microscopic cells in a churning brew of chemicals as our raw orb rolled around the heavens.

Fascinating images! Dana Lynn Andersen captures our imagination with her broad strokes of things bigger & smaller than one pair of eyes can see. Jennifer Morgan's sense of humor is both reverential & irreverent, charming & instructive.

If you are stumped when your kids ask the oldest of questions: "Where did I come from?" Then FROM LAVA TO LIFE & its prequel BORN WITH A BANG are for you!

When you do, after reading this book you will be vividly aware of what is passing through your nostrils and into your lungs. You will have learned where the air you're breathing orginated, what assaults it's been subject to, and what you may have to do to improve it. The air you, and your children, breathe needs attention. This passionately written account examines the history of air, the people who have investigated it and the problems we're confronting in keeping it breathable. Although the story grows increasingly grim as it progresses, Sherman finds ways of offering some hope and solutions.

Air means breathing and Sherman laments his failure to see his son's initial breath. There were distractions - a Caesarean birth and the condition of Sherman's wife. A forgiveable lapse, one hopes. From that incident, however, the author derived a deeper interest in the air we, and his wife and son, respire. Air, transparent and ephemeral, still captured the interest and imagination of early thinkers. Aristotle's famous dictum of the four basic "elements" placed air after earth in importance. Few doubted that air was essential to life, however. Although the air was thought to hold things like spirits and deities, actual investigation of air didn't come about until the Enlightenment. Shedding the myths, people like Lavoisier, Dalton and others detected "new aire" and the idea of air comprised of several gases began to emerge. More than one experimenter put his life at risk investigating the properties of oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide. Even with the new studies, the long-standing idea of the air containing "phlogiston" as evidence of burning was not easily dismissed.

Although all life has its effect on air, whether taking it in for use or expelling waste gases through breathing and less polite means, Sherman is most concerned with humanity's influence on our "breathable sphere". He offers a long discourse on the impact of various forms of smoke, particularly coal. In the Industrial Revolution, coal smoke was a sign of "progress", new wealth, restructured society with urban growth and gainful employment. That attitude carried across the Atlantic to the USA as industrialisation progressed there. As smoke and various other pollutants began choking the cities, objectors arose. Movements to curb smoke were organised, with minimal success. Britain's problem was exacerbated by the onset of fog. When combined with coal dust and smoke, the results were devastating. A Public Health Act was one of the first serious attempts to address the problem. Although the Act listed many noxious vapours, enforcement was lax and largely ineffectual.

With similar problems emerging in the United States, opposition grew apace. Again, smoke and "progress" equated. There, however, the incipient women's rights movements made clean air one of its subsidiary themes. Concern for public health generally and children's health in particular, brought many women into the fold. One businessman, W.P. Rend, declared smoke to be the "incense burning on the alter of industry". With other industrialists and many politicians echoing this sentiment, those seeking cleaner air through legislation faced firm resistance. While some progress was achieved, the onset of the automobile created a fresh problem. The USA's love affair with cars has been well documented. Sherman traces the rise of "smog" in the Los Angeles basin and the halting attempts to curtail it. One thing was certain, people weren't about to reduce car use and the problem could only be addressed at the factory with new means of curbing emitted compounds. The impact of such regulation hasn't kept the USA from being the planet's greatest polluter.

Sherman's answer is necessarily a little weak. Although he's covered the Western world, it is his own nation that provides the readership he wishes to convince. He wants his fellow-countrymen to be aware they inhale 19 thousand times per day. "What enters your nostrils and lungs each time?", he queries. Think of the dust, mites, bacteria and chemicals carried on that air into your body. He reminds us that there are delicate membranes in the lung, which, if spread out fully would cover a football field. That very expanse means a thin membrane easily affronted. It takes little effort to damage the lung. And those inside your rib cage can only be taken care of by their owner. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Oxygen may not strike you as a lively protagonist for a book. Think again.

In a masterfully inventive biography of air, Joe Sherman weaves between geology and history, myth and science, to retrace our understanding of life's most precious gas.

From the Ionian philosophers of ancient Greece to the eccentric chemists and scientists who tested daringly with air through the Renaissance, Enlightenment and Industrial eras, Sherman invokes a lively, little known chapter in Western history.

He also explores myths in Hindu, Maori and Viking culture, showing the ways societies tried to make sense of the invisible gas that surrounded and sustained them.

In "GASP!," Sherman--whose non-fiction book on General Motors, "In the Rings of Saturn," was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize--blames the auto industry, weak government policies and America's obsession with cars as key factors tilting the scales of climate change towards disaster.

But "myth came before science and will outlast it" he writes in a meditative, vaguely hopeful tone. After narrating a 20th century atmosphere filled with germ warfare, radioactive pollution, smog and global warming, hope is about all we have left.

Read this timely homage to air--and make sure you take a few deep breaths.

I found GASP to be invaluable in telling the story of air "up close and personal." After 17 years in the air quality biz, I was stunned to find out facts I never knew about this much ignored but vital natural resource. From its cosmic beginnings to current techno solutions to air pollution, GASP reads like a biography, with air as its mysterious main character - - unpredictable, brooding and misunderstood. This book brings air down to earth; it makes us want to do things in our own lives to protect "one clean breath" for future generations. Bravo Mr. Sherman on a thorough and fascinating presentation.

I am a Joe Sherman fan.

Gasp! is, by far, Mr. Sherman's best cultural history to date. This book can be read as a history of cultural perceptions, a meditation on the element we take most for granted, or a demand for social responsibility in an increasingly toxic world.

Mr. Sherman at heart is neither a fiction, nor non-fiction writer. He is a cultural narrator. Part historian, common-sense speaker and fabulist with Gasp! he invites the reader to join him in a wrestling match with Air. He extracts specific and telling details and riffs both on the facts that underlie them, and the possible consequences they leave for us living in a Tailpipe World.

I have read several of his previous books including: 'Charging Ahead', 'In the Rings of Saturn' and 'Fast Lane down a Dirt Road'. These previous books all explored odd and specific topics as metaphors for our culture and times. Electric Car Innovations, GM's Business Unit of Saturn and the 20th Century History of Vermont are topics which Mr. Sherman converted into stories unfolding larger cultural and social truths.

In Gasp! he reversed his usual manner process and come away with a stunning book. Instead of a strange and specific topic being explored as windows into larger social forces, Joe undertakes the entire history and scope of the atmosphere. It worked. Somehow, it worked. Mr. Sherman has left me aware and pondering of every inhaled breath as chemical process, spiritual process and an underappreciated act of biological chance.

Joe draws on an incredable knowledge of the Automobile Industry, cultural history and the sciences to this book a wonderful read.

This book is part Social History, Science History, and a meditation on a common-sense need for environmental awareness. If John McPhee and Studs Turkel had collaborated on work about the Air, it might be something like this book. But for those who have read him before, it is definitely the strange and insightful Joe Sherman writing this work. This book is some his best writing. Somethign to be thankful fo.

Last night, Mr. Bush the leading supporter of the Clear Skies Act, won the election. Unable to sleep, I instead finished Gasp!

Placing Mr. Bush's 'Clear Skies' into the context of Mr. Sherman's 'Gasp!' is something worthwhile for anyone who would care to better understand the Air and our relationships to it.

Among the big problems with air is that it is invisible (with luck) and that we don't have to pay for it. We get to regard with specific attention the food we buy, and if you don't like the tap water you pay for, you can always spring for bottled. Air, on the other hand, is taken for granted, and you usually don't even think of even one of the 19,000 breaths you take every day. Like any other big subject we don't think about, air is hugely complicated, but in _Gasp! The Swift and Terrible Beauty of Air_ (Shoemaker & Hoard), Joe Sherman has covered the topic fully in many different ways. He writes, "Understanding air, which is both big and amorphous, and small and right in front of you, demands a few mental oscillations." He makes the oscillations fun, from basic principles of gas exchange within your lungs to the different gods of the sky people have believed in to the evolution of our planet's atmosphere to the current worries about pollution and global warming. As if the subject isn't big enough, he has taken many discursive asides; he just has so many facts he has to disclose to the reader, but his grasp of his subject is sure and his ability to convey complexities in understandable terms is excellent.

Much of the book is devoted to the history of our understanding about the air and the thinkers who have tried to break down the invisible to see what it was made of. For instance, in 1648, the mathematician Blaise Pascal repeated the experiments of Torricelli with the new invention, the barometer. Not only did he check air pressure at the bottom of a tower stairs and at the top, he went to the mountains to try the effect. Pascal reasoned that air would weigh less and less the further one ascended, eventually winding up in a void. This sounds sensible to us, but it was anathema to the church; if there was a vacuum way up there, there was no Aristotelian scheme of higher spheres, especially the one that was where God lived. Pascal's ideas were attacked by the Jesuits. Lavoisier and Priestley eventually helped do away with the concept of phlogiston when they discovered oxygen, but the air explorers were not just at work in their labs. There is Other chemists took to the air in hot-air balloons and later hydrogen balloons. In 1862, Henry Coxwell and James Glaisher rode their basket gondola beneath a hot-air balloon to become the first to reach the stratosphere. Their altimeter indicated that they had reached 35,000 feet, but like most of the equipment and procedures of the flight, it went wildly wrong. They had a truly heroic battle against cold and a new malaise, altitude sickness, that imperiled their judgement and their lives.

The universe has spent a long time producing our atmosphere, and Sherman starts from the Big Bang to the Cambrian explosion of half a billion years ago, when oxygen was boosted to current atmospheric levels by plants, enabling the eventual takeover of the land by animals. The final third of _Gasp!_ is devoted to our very recent destruction of the atmosphere that was so long in coming. He has lived in Los Angeles, and he has written before about American car culture, and he is disdainful of how little attention governments in general, and our government in particular, are paying to air's problems. The phasing out of Freon and other such chemicals because of their destruction of the ozone layer that protects us from the ultraviolet is actually an environmental success story. Sherman shows, however, that just as in the current debate over global warming, such anti-regulation politicians as Tom DeLay insisted in 1995 that banning chemicals that destroy the ozone layer was all based on dubious science. The current administration is eager to relax rules that might bother business, and has wanted to relax pro-ozone rules as well, despite the documented reaccumulation of ozone since the rules were enforced. Profit-making corporations, Sherman shows, have a good history of making profits, and a bad one of serving public health. We have industrial (especially automotive) pollutants and the potential for weather changes that are going to reshape civilization; but he reminds us that "Clean air is about as public a concern as it is possible to imagine." It might be that corporations will get eager to forego profits for health, and it might be that government will get eager to draw up rules to make this happen; but don't hold your breath.

I found this book in a used section at a local bookseller. I remembered the series from TV and thought what the hay. As a semi-regular fan of the series later years, this book filled in lots of details I had forgotten about, or didn't know. Auger is better than usual, Liam shows up alot. Unlike most franchise novels this is more than just one episode put into book form.

This is a good example of science ficture literature. Part of the series that was spawned by the popular TV program, this latest title follows protagonist Liam Kincaid as he once again battles the Taelons as they are planning to release a retrovirus on the unsuspecting people of Earth. If they survive, they will develop the Shaqurava that, until now, only the Taelons possess. The ending is somewhat predictable, but fun to read anyway. Check out Augur's computer variation of Lili. She's a hoot!

Many E:FC fans dislike Liam Kincade for various reasons. This book gives alot more insight into the character of Liam then was ever given in S2. The author seems to want to make Season 2 make more sence then it did on TV and does a very good job. I enjoyed the Conversation with Ha'gel and the Flashbacks of Ha'gels memories of the Atavus! The book goes into alot of detail of how the Jaridians and Taelons were split apart and how the Kimera were involved. In Season 1 and 2 We are often given sketchy, cryptic details by Da'an and Zo'or about the Atavus and the Kimera and how the Taelons were created. The author takes those and binds them all together so they make sence. Very well done and compelling reading. I couldnt put it down. The writers on the TV show should take lessons from this author. Who knows, maybe she can make Season 5 make some sence.

Heritage is the 5th EFC book, and almost certainly the best.

While "Arrival", "The First Protector" and "Requiem for Boone" focus on event before the show, and "Augur's Teacher" focuses on an original chracter, "Heritage" is purely about Liam.

The basis is that Zo'or's latest project is to give humanity shaquarava through a virus, shortly after the season two episode "Second Chances". (Shaquarava are the glowing things on Liam's hands, for those unfamiliar with the series) Not knowing that Liam is one-third Kimera, and has shaquarava of his own, Zo'or orders that Liam is administered the virus. The virus gives Liam access to some of his genetic memories, including the knowledge that it was the shaquarva that turned the Atavus into Taelons, and started them on that nasty treacherous path of theirs.

Hayley Simmons (from episodes "Second Chances", "Thicker Than Blood" and "Take No Prisoners") is a major player, and there are bits of Liam/Hayley romance. While it is questionable that Zo'or would attempt to give humans shaquarva (which could allow humanity to join the Commonality), this is a minor flaw.

The plot is mainly plausible, executed with a minimum of techno-babble, and makes sense in context with the rest of the series. There are excellent explanations for the Taelons' hatred of the Kimera and how the Taelons and Jaridians differ. All characters are very, umm... in character.

Anywho. It's a great book.

The book resolved quite a few open issues with regard to the origins of the Taelons and their connection to the Jaridians and the Kimera. The series was not very good at this. As a matter of fact, the series created a more questions in its fifth season that it neglected to answer. I enjoyed the book and hope to read more by this author and others writing about this sci-fi series.

This book probably does the best job of all the E:FC books so far at portraying the characters and feel of the TV show. The Taelons characterizations are bang on. Lots of references to the TV show, especially the episode "Cloister". I like the authors explanations of minor details of the show. Like the Taelons hand gestures and why protectors frequently wear jackets. The story keeps you guessing right up to the end. Nice job blending Human and Taelon history. I liked the ending, just like the TV show. Leaves you with something to think about. Remains true to the spirit of the show. Just because the Taelons are powerful, Humans can be capable of something that they aren't. My one and only complaint would be that the chapters about the Taelons were too short! More like this please! =D

This book probably does the best job of all the E:FC books so far at portraying the characters and feel of the TV show. The Taelons characterizations are bang on. Lots of references to the TV show, especially the episode "Cloister". I like the authors explanations of minor details of the show. Like the Taelons hand gestures and why protectors frequently wear jackets. The story keeps you guessing right up to the end. Nice job blending Human and Taelon history. I liked the ending, just like the TV show. Leaves you with something to think about. Remains true to the spirit of the show. Just because the Taelons are powerful, Humans can be capable of something that they aren't. My one and only complaint would be that the chapters about the Taelons were too short! More like this please! =D

Great characters with depth and complexity! Tense, mysterious, involving plot! Riveting action! Give me more like this...

I admit, I don't read media tie-ins very often. Since I like the Earth Final Conflict series---particularly the earlier seasons-I decided to take a chance on Glenn Sixbury's Legacy. To my delight, I discovered that Sixbury not only stays true to the characters, he gives them depth that is not apparent in a one-hour television show. He expands on the best features of the Earth Final Conflict series and adds a few twists of his own.

In particular, I found his scenes between Da'an and Zo'or riveting. Sixbury has captured the Taelon movements perfectly. His interpretations of their hand motions, their expressions, and their political machinations are fascinating and believable.

The plot is unique, as well. The story centers around Archeologist Waneta Long and her discovery of an ancient Cherokee artifact. It quickly becomes apparent that this artifact is of interest to the Taelons and therefore to the resistence movement, as well. Unknowingly, Waneta becomes a pawn in the three-sided struggles between the opposing Taelon factions and the human resistence movement.

Though she is not part of the series, I found Long to be a sympathetic character in a captivating situation. Sixbury's use of Cherokee mythology and mysticism dovetails nicely with Taelon "history." Overall, Glenn Sixbury's Legacy is a fun read, both for fans of the show and those who have never seen it before.

Archeologist Waneta Young uncovers a strange looking red crystal infixed inside a piece of pottery found at a dig on a sacred mountain in the Eastern Cherokee Nation. The crystal contains an ancient destructive power guarded by anointed Cherokee shamans against those who will abuse the frightful force.

However, the human freedom resistance and the competing Taelon factions learn of the find and each struggles to take control of the red crystal. Each group assumes possession means world domination. However, unleashing the genie from the bottle may prove more dangerous and deadly than any of the competitors realize as only the Cherokee Nation understand this doomsday machine that the red crystal contains. Emancipated from the crystal prison will mean the end of the world unless Waneta the chosen one retains control of a force that none of the triad will be able to direct.

This reviewer planned to invoke the fifty-page rule expecting to waste a half an hour reading GENE RODDENBERRY'S EARTH: FINAL CONFLICT: LEGACY because long running TV series adaptations into novels usually lose steam after a few novels. However, instead this reviewer finished a great tale in one sitting. Glenn R. Sixbury does the impossible of adhering to the nature of the TV cast while enhancing their known personality quirks and traits (Zo'or's depiction is amazing) yet provides freshness with a strong tale that includes the trifecta conflict and a deep look into Cherokee mythos. Fans of the series will relish this powerful action-packed tale while those not familiar will enjoy a strong speculative fiction novel.

Harriet Klausner

I highly recommend this book for anyone with an interest in New York's Geology. The map included with the book is an excellent visual aid and for someone like me who is interested in finding fossils gives a good idea of the time periods represented.

A great reference book. My favorite part is the section with the historical diagrams of orogenies, rifting etc. Each diagram shows a time period and how New York was affected. There is also an abundance of information on fossil bearing strata and mineral locations. The book also does a great job with applying most geological processes to New York.

I found this book in the library while doing some research for my own book. I have for the longest time wanted to know what is below ground, what type of rock and stuff is a mile or two or three below me. And this book not only gave me an idea of these things, finally, but it was also just chock full of other little fun facts as well. I've spent hours reading it in the library ...

I tip my hat to the authors, Messrs. Isachsen and Rogers. A very good job. An excellent book for the coffee table, to rally a conversation around. An excellent edition to anyone's personal library.

This Leaflet I found was was very useful for thoses students who are researching particular areas in the Upstate Regions Of New York State. The language used with in the this leaflet is very easy to understand, especially if you are novice to the field of Geology. What is most useful is the many geologic time scales that give a vast amount of information in one page. I found this very useful especailly if I was studing for paleontology and field study classes. I countinue to use this leafel in my class room, mostly to help introduce topics in paeloenvironemnts, plate tectonics, and econmic geology. Each reading, which constits of 10-15 pages, includes questions at the end of each unit. I found these questions not only help to improve teh reading comprehension of my studnets, but also help to insite descussion and further research in these areas.

In spite of it's title, this account, weighing in at 280 pages, is far from "simplified". It is a comprehesive work, with numerous chapters on earth history, plate tectonics, bedrock, surficial materials, mineral resources, hydrogeology, and engineering geology. It is profusely illustrated with charts and diagrams. At least seven State Survey geologists prepared chapters for this book.

The book includes a New York State Geological Highway Map. This is a beautiful 1:1,000,000 scale time/stratigraphic bedrock map of the state, with lots of statigraphic charts and a satelite image A "photo mosaic of the state on the flip side.

This is an excellent book, absolutely necessary for any geologist or geology student. What more can I say? Maybe: Amazing!!!

This book, by Guilbert and Park, is the "Bible" for any economic geologist on ore deposits. As a graduate student in geology, I am constantly using it as a reference and use it more frequently than any other book I have. We used another textbook for my economic geology course, but all of us referred to "The Geology of Ore Deposits" when some info was needed. It is also on several professers shelves as well. Well organized and easy to find specific info.

This a very good clasic ore deposit book that must have all economic geologist. I recommend the ore textures chapter.

This is a book on the geology of ore deposits. It is not a book on exploration techniques. Although most of the geology described in this book is on land, there is also discussion of submarine volcanics and oceanic manganese nodules.

Carbonatites are mentioned as bearers of various metals, notably the REEs (rare earths). The authors treat carbonatites as strictly igneous rocks, comparable to kimberlites. The REE-rich Mountain Pass carbonatite of California is mentioned, but not the larger one at Bayan Obo, Inner Mongolia.

Pegmatites are featured as important carriers of precious metals. These include common metals, as well as exotic ones such as niobium, tantalum, rare earths, and many more. REEs are often found concentrated in the contact-metamorphic aureoles of pegmatites (p. 198). Most pegmatites are late-stage magmatic products, enriched in volatiles as well as elements that don't "fit" the matrices of the common granitic minerals.

Many economic deposits are the result of concentration by alteration processes. Apropos to this, a helpful table of the relative mobility of ions is included (p. 780). Attention is also devoted to skarn deposits.

Details are given about such things as porphyry copper deposits, various hydrothermal deposits, massive sulphide deposits, BIFs (banded iron formations) Mississippi-Valley type deposits, uranium deposits, bauxite, and much more. The chapter on placer deposits includes sketches of important auriferous placers.

There are several schematic sketches in this book. These include such things as the zonal distribution of metal deposits in a lithologic sequence.

More than 20 years after its publication, this book is still (and deservedly) probably the most widely used text on the origin, description and classification of ore deposits. It is written in an entertaining style and provides enjoyment to the reader on a subject that could easily become dry. In 1986, when this book first appeared, many processes of ore formation were suspected but not scientifically proven. Most have since been proven, and Guilbert and Park have been proven correct in their assumptions. The book is in general very comprehensive, although it lacks any description of iron-oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) deposits, the first of which (Olympic Dam in South Australia) was discovered in 1976. For an up-to-date text, the reader can consult the "recent classic" by Robb Introduction to Ore-Forming Processes. The community of geologists has been extraordinarily industrious over the period between the publication of these two books.

Great book! Does s good job of covering all the different types of mammoth earth-moving equipment. The best book of it's kind I have read with the best photography of these machines when compared to similar books. The only thing I felt was maybe missing is the location of the mines where some of these machines are/were working, but perhaps that was left out for a reason.

As a operator on one of the machines featured in the book I really enjoyed the book and the development and history of the machines in the book Some of the machines in the book are no longer in use so it is nice to be able to see pictures of them..

Giant Earth Moving Equipment is a great book and it covers lots of machines. There are sevral types of equipment and lots of great examples of each. It has loads, we're talking TONS, of great COLAR pictures. Also the MOTHER LOAD of info on all types of mining machines. Plus the detailed history of all the large machines and thier names.(this is for the striping shovles section)

A very good history of the development of the large excavators used in the mining industry. Excellent photos and good background data for each of these historic machines. A must reference for anyone interested in large equipment or mining.

The son of a friend is crazy about construction equipment. I gave this book to him for Christmas 1998. He had everyone read some sections of the book to him that day. It's been his constant companion since then at overnight's to his grandparents.

Although intended for a much different audience, this book can be a real hit with younger readers because of the great pictures.