- The Behavior of the Earth
- Claude Allègre
- Well over a century after Darwin gave biology its unifying theory of evolution, the earth sciences experienced a similar revolution and the theory of plate tectonics took hold. In The Behavior of the Earth, world-renowned earth scientist Claude Allègre sets forth the exciting events in this contemporary revolution from its first stirrings in the nineteenth-century and Alfred Wegener's original model of continental drift (1912) through the development of its full potential in modern plate-tectonic theory.
- Hardcover 1988 / Paperback 1990
- From Stone to Star
- Claude Allègre
- Translated by Deborah Kurmes Van Dam
- Chronicling one of the great scientific adventures of our time, the eminent geochemist Claude Allègre offers a fascinating glimpse into the sophisticated isotopic detective work that has established a geologic chronology of the earth and transformed our understanding of its genesis and history. From the fossil collecting methods of eighteenth--century geologists to the development of high resolution mass spectronomy, this book provides an engaging introduction to the history, methods, and theories of modern geology.
- Hardcover 1992 / Paperback 1994
- Ice Ages
- John Imbrie
- Katherine Palmer Imbrie
- This book tells the exciting story of the ice ages--what they were like, why they occurred, and when the next one is due. The solution to the ice age mystery originated when the National Science Foundation organized the CLIMAP project to study changes in the earth's climate over the past 700,000 years. One of the goals was to produce a map of the earth during the last ice age. Scientists examined cores of sediment from the Indian Ocean bed and deciphered a continuous history for the past 500,000 years. Their work ultimately confirmed the theory that the earth's irregular orbital motions account for the bizarre climatic changes which bring on ice ages.
- Paperback
- Krakatau
- Ian Thornton
- On August 27, 1883, the island of Krakatau near Java erupted with a force nearly ten thousand times that of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima, obliterating all plant and animal life. This book is a comprehensive account of the reassembly of a tropical forest ecosystem on Krakatau over the past century. It is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the rebirth of Krakatau as well as the resilience of life everywhere.
- Paperback 1997 / Hardcover
- Origins of Igneous Rocks
- Paul C. Hess
- Hardcover 1989
- Supercontinent
- Ted Nield
- This book explores the the Supercontinent cycle, a geological cycle so vast that our species will probably be extinct long before the current one ends. And yet this cycle, the grandest pattern in Nature, may well be the fundamental reason any complex life at all exists. Nield introduces readers to some of the most exciting science of our time, describing how geologists first guessed at these vanishing landmasses and came to appreciate the significance of the fusing and fragmenting of supercontinents.
- Hardcover 2007
- Thinking about the Earth
- David Oldroyd
- Thinking about the Earth is a history of the geological tradition of Western science. David Oldroyd traverses such topics as "mechanical" and "historicist" views of the earth, map-work, chemical analyses of rocks and minerals, geomorphology, experimental petrology, seismology, theories of mountain building, and geochemistry.
- Hardcover 1996
- Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle
- Stephen Jay Gould
- Hardcover 1987 / Paperback
- A View of the River
- Luna B. Leopold
- Widely regarded as the most creative scholar in the field of river morphology, Leopold presents a coherent description of the river, its shape, size, organization, and action, along with a consistent theory that explains much of the observed character of channels.
- Paperback 2006 / Hardcover