Reading the rocks
Subtitle: the autobiography of the earth
By: Marcia Bjornerud
Publisher: Westview Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 237
Subjects: Geology
Description: This armchair guide to the making of the geologic record shows how to understand messages written in stone. To many of us, the Earth's crust is a relic of ancient, unknowable history--but to a geologist, stones are richly illustrated narratives, telling gothic tales of cataclysm and reincarnation. For more than four billion years, in beach sand, granite, and garnet schists, the planet has kept a rich and idiosyncratic journal of its past. Fulbright Scholar Bjornerud takes the reader along on an eye-opening tour of Deep Time, explaining what we see and feel beneath our feet. Both scientist and storyteller, Bjornerud uses anecdotes and metaphors to remind us that our home is a living thing with lessons to teach. She shows how our planet has long maintained a delicate balance, and how the global give-and-take has sustained life on Earth through numerous upheavals.--From publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 213-226) and index.
Table of contents: title: Acknowledgments; title: Prologue : Stone Crazy.  No place with no past; title: The accidental diarist; title: The Tao of Earth.  The department of redundancy department, Inertia and spare parts; title: Equals and opposites; title: Going home to Mother Earth; title: Everything old is new again; title: The Earth fugue; title: Reading rocks: a primer.  Meeting rocks on common ground; title: A rock by any other name; title: Grammar and syntax of the three rock languages; title: Mind the gap, what rocks don't tell us; title: Putting everything in order; title: Getting a date; title: Peering into the primordial mists; title: The great and the small. Geo-metry: Sizing up the Earth; title: A sense of scale; title: The importance of being erroneous; title: Making retroactive measurements; title: Tiny bubbles; title: Stretchy coastlines and imperial microbes; title: Lawmakers or outlaws?; title: Measure for measure; title: Mixing and sorting.  Stars of rock and heavy metal; title: Density is destiny; title: Whither the water; title: Mixed drinks and metaphors; title: The mantle of power; title: Waste management; title: Mal de mer; title: Only connect; title: Innovation and conservation.  You say you want a revolution; title: The paradox of oxygen; title: Coming out of the cold; title: Swimming with the (not-yet-evolved) sharks; title: An arthropod eat arthropod world; title: The many legs of the arms race; title: Communes and junkyards; title: Something old, something new, everything borrowed; title: Strength and weakness.  Earth before geology; title: Naming names and making maps; title: A mechanical Earth; title: The incredible shrinking Earth; title: Earth unbound; title: Epilogue: The once and future Earth; title: Glossary; title: Notes; title: Index.