num_pages: 208
description: From the outwash plains of Brooklyn to Indiana's drifted diamonds and gold In Suspect Terrain is a narrative of the earth, told in four sections of equal length, each in a different way reflecting the three others―a biography; a set piece about a fragment of Appalachian landscape in illuminating counterpoint to the human history there; a modern collision of ideas about the origins of the mountain range; and, in contrast, a century-old collision of ideas about the existence of the Ice Age. The central figure is Anita Harris, an internationally celebrated geologist who went into her profession to get out of a Brooklyn ghetto. The unifying theme is plate tectonics―here concentrating on the acceptance that all aspects of the theory do not universally enjoy. As such, In Suspect Terrain is a report from the rough spots at the front edge of a science.
language: English
title: In Suspect Terrain
titlecomplete: In Suspect Terrain (Annals of the Former World, 2)
genres: Essays, Biography, Science, Travel, Natural History, Nature, Geology, Nonfiction, History, Geography
ratings_count: 1111
series: Annals of the Former World
publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux