GeologyRocks

About the author

Jon
Imperial College London

This book is a succinct introduction to geology, covering a diverse set of subjects in a relatively short number of pages. The book is aimed at people who have become interested in geology, but have no formal training, and so serves to give the reader some basic knowledge. It is divided into 11 chapters and a glossary, each colour-coded with "tabs" so you can easily find a section. The glossary contains descriptions of terms that are highlighted throughout the text and is a very useful resource.

The journey into the world of geology begins, predictably, with minerals. The book briefly introduces what a mineral is and uses quartz as an example, including the silica tetrahedon (though not by name). This is the first example of what are two consistent features throughout the book, the text touches on a subject, in this case the fact that quartz is a single silicon atom surrounded by four oxygen atom, but the figure referenced shows a silica pyramid, a silica chain and a silica sheet. These are not mentioned in the text at all and appear in the figure. The figure itself is the second problem: it is a black and white figure, which would be greatly enhanced by being full colour. The figures do have some colour: the colour of the chapter tab. I don't think this adds anything though. The book contains ample (and quite superb) photographs, why not colour diagrams also? The rest of the chapter illustrates common minerals, with lots of excellent photographs. I've often felt in such introductory books though, that some photographs of minerals actually in rocks, rather than type specimens, would be beneficial, but I digress.

The second chapter covers igneous petrology, starting with the ever popular volcano. We then move onto intrusions, before describing the the fundamental igneous rock types. The chapter concludes with a brief description of fractional crystallisation.

Chapter 3 describes erosion, transport and deposition of sediments, which leads very nicely onto chapter 4, which covers sedimentary rocks. These two chapters together are very well written and illustrated, and give a very good introduction to sedimentology.

Plate tectonics is covered in chapter 5. Again, the weakness of black and white figures is displayed here. One figure (5.7) is in colour, which serves to highlight the lack of full-colour figures. Over figures in this chapter would benefit greatly from being in colour. The text leads very nicely into faults and earthquakes. However, in chapter 6, I think that the author has strayed somewhat from his aim of introducing readers to geology. Figure 6.7 covers what happens when faults have a "bend" in them; namely the creation of extensional or compressional features. I think this is far too much detail for this book - indeed I learnt something (not a bad thing at all)!

You might be wondering what happened to metamorphic rocks? Park has covered igneous and sedimentary and plate tectonics. Unfortunately, metamorphic rocks do not warrant a chapter of their own, but have a section in chapter 5. Given some of the un-necessary detail included in some of the chapters, this is a little strange, especially when chapter 7 covers folding and deformation of rocks, including metamorphic textures (although they are not called this) such as schistosity.

The next two chapters cover geological time and palaeontology. One of these is very good, covering the basics well. The other uses incorrect terminology and is the weakest chapter in the book. The geological time chapter is quite short, but does cover all of the basics well. The palaeontology chapter covers Linnean taxonomy and then evolution. There is abundant mention throughout of "advanced" and "primitive" creatures. These are outmoded and old-fashioned terms and should really be replaced with "derived" and "basal". The old-fashioned terminology continues with phrases like "replaced in importance". This is a human-centric view of evolution, which is ironic as the author suggests Dawkins for further reading; an author who definitely does not share this view! The overall impression of this section is that life is arranged in a hierarchy, not the modern view of the "bush of life".

Chapter 10 covers geological industry; oil, coal, mining, etc. Again, this chapters covers the basic facts, but does dive into unnecessary details in places.

Finally, the book covers the geological history of the Earth. Maybe this would have been better swapped with chapter 10? However, it delivers a succinct and clear history of the Earth from the Precambrian to the present day.

Overall, "Introducing Geology" does what the title says - it is a good introduction to the whole of geology. This is certainly no mean feat to cover in such a small amount of pages, but Park has made a good attempt to do so. Sometimes, he strays from the introductory nature of the title, delving into detail, either explicitly or by having overly complex diagrams, which seem beyond the scope of the book. The book is well organised and chapters fit together well, often leading in nicely to subsequent chapters. The book is let down by chapter 9 - the old-fashioned terms should really be replaced with more up-to-date terminology as they may hinder further learning.

I would recommend this book for anyone wanting to know the basics of geology, but do not know anything to begin with. It would be especially good for someone about to start A-Level or undergraduate geology for the first time - it is unlikely to make the first year a breeze, but it'll seem a lot less scary. However, the book comes with some quite large caveats. Be wary of thinking that this book covers each subject in exactly the same amount of detail and accuracy though - you may have to "unlearn" some of the things in this book to progress further.

Book Details:

Graham Park, 2006, Dunedin Academic Press. ISBN: 1 903765 64 1