The Field Guide to Geology - Softcover

Lambert, David; Diagram Group

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0816065101 ISBN 13: 9780816065103

Publisher: Checkmark Books, 2006

Synopsis

This is an essential field guide for geology lovers. Written by a team of eminent geologists and educators, "The Field Guide to Geology, New Edition" features clear graphics and simple field-guide procedures to guide hikers through the great outdoors. A revised and updated edition of a best-seller, this helpful resource offers readers ready access to the subject. This new edition features 200 new, two-color illustrations (more than 750 in all), updated graphs and tables, as well as two new chapters titled "Monitoring the Earth's Changes" and "Geologists of Note." This volume's lucid, easy-to-follow text covers all the key rudiments of geology and will provide nature lovers with a useful reference to various geological phenomena. The topics covered include: Air currents; Composition; Desertification; Greenhouse effect; Ice changes; Seafloor profiling; Seismic activity; Submersibles; Tides; Waterflow; and more.

About this title

About the Author:

David Lambert has written more than eighty books for children and adults including the award-winning Kingfisher Book of Oceans and Seashores.

Diagram Group are the successful publishers of many illustrated encyclopedias, including "Rules of the Game" and "The New Weapons of the World Encyclopedia" published by St. Martin's Press.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 8 Up—Since the first edition of this book was published in 1998, technology for geological fieldwork has improved immensely. The coverage of these innovations, in a new chapter called "Monitoring Earth," is this book's best feature. It provides useful overviews, at a level of detail and in a vocabulary that is perfect for the audience, of concepts such as satellite laser ranging, which is used to measure the movement of continents, and the use of satellites in mapping the ozone layer. The rest of the book discusses the planet's formation; plate tectonics; methods of rock creation; how the sea, ice, and wind change the landscape; deciphering Earth's history from fossils and other rocks; exploitation of rocks and minerals, and, in another updated section, provides lists of prominent geologists and relevant institutions. The presentation in these chapters is overly succinct for such complex information, resulting in difficult reading (with no glossary) and loss of important detail. In one chapter, a 543-million-year-period is shoehorned into 30 pages. The illustrations are particularly disappointing. It is standard practice to show geological processes in simple line diagrams. These are provided, and are useful, as far as they go. But the few photographs mean that students have little opportunity to see the features produced by the forces that are so ably diagrammed. Apart from the information on new technologies, students would do better with Timothy M. Kusky's Encyclopedia of Earth Science (Facts On File, 2005).—Henrietta Thornton-Verma, School Library Journal
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About this edition

• Publisher: Checkmark Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0816065101
• ISBN 13: 9780816065103
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 304