Reading the Rocks - by Marcia Bjornerud (Paperback)

About the Book

For readers of John McPhee and Stephen Jay Gould, this engaging armchair guide to the making of the rock record shows how to understand messages written in stone

Book Synopsis

From the author of Turning to Stone, a mediation on the stories that rock can tell us about the deep history of our planet

To many of us, the Earth's crust is a relic of ancient, unknowable history. But to a geologist, the Earth's crust, and every stone upon it, is a richly illustrated narrative, telling gothic tales of cataclysm and reincarnation. How can we learn to see them?

In Reading the Rocks, geologist Marcia Bjornerud shows us. Taking the reader on an eye-opening tour of Deep Time, Bjornerud explains in elegant prose what we see and feel beneath our feet. Both scientist and storyteller, she reminds us that our home is a living thing with lessons to teach. She shows how our planet has long maintained a delicate balance between creation and destruction, and how the global give-and-take has sustained life on Earth in the face of great upheaval.

Today, however, with the rapidly escalating effects of human beings on their home planet, that great balance is being threatened -- and the consequences may be catastrophic. Reading the Rocks calls all friends of the Earth to work to avoid it.

Review Quotes

"[A]n admirably lucid account of the Earth's history as told via its geological record."--The New Yorker

"The perfect field guide for a geologic field trip through the Earth's history."

--Jill S. Schneiderman, editor of Liberation Science

"A truly exciting book."--Robert H. Dott, Jr., co-author of Evolution of the Earth

"Marcia Bjornerud knows her rocks, in all their interconnected glory to the entire biosphere, and she tells their stories with depth, clarity, and passion."--Tyler Volk, author of Quarks to Culture

"No one escapes the evidence of our Earth's history: arcane, violent, and relevant to all daily concerns. The language of the planet, superbly translated by Bjornerud, illuminates our common past and uncertain future. The four-billion-year-long animated conversation between rocks, water, and life continues." --Lynn Margulis, author of Symbiotic Planet

"We certainly need popular science books like Reading the Rocks to help science fight back... Bjornerud has a rare talent for explaining scientific ideas clearly with intriguing and helpful analogies, similes, and metaphors."--Nature Magazine

About the Author

Marcia Bjornerud is a professor of Environmental Studies and Geosciences at Lawrence University. She is a contributing writer to The New Yorker, Wired, The Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times and the author of Timefulness, Geopedia, and Turning to Stone.