Basin and Range

Rating:
Summary: "The summit of Mount Everest is marine limestone," J.McPhee
Review: This reader was the perfect example of John McPhee's, "You don't get the Picture." As the picture becomes clearer, humans on this planet seem to get less significant. A reader can look back after reading a book of this nature and begin to understand the theory of deep time. Grandma is old, and the Egyptian Pyramids are older, although deep time places a different picture in which to view. Four and one half billion years is now considered old. A good example of someone getting the picture would be displayed as a reader that has traveled the Great Basin area, before and after taking a geology course and/or reading literature such as McPhee's Basin and Range. Geologically speaking, Pre-McPhee/Geology Course, a commuter might consider Lovelock, Nevada a desolate,unattractive place where a fuel stop would be the only reason to stop. Not knowing, deep time speaking, that tomorrow Lovelock could be beach front property. A geologist can spend their whole life trying to get the picture. In the late 1950's the picture became more focused. Tools were introduced into the geologic picture that allowed geologists to look at Earth's material in a completely different fashion. The X-ray diffractormeter and the X-ray fluorescence spectrometer, along with the electron probe from the 1970's gave descriptive scientists a much more focused picture. With this new knowledge some ideas became popular during this time as well. Plate-tectonics and a spreading sea floor was now in the picture, and the Glomar Challenger helped to confirm this. The once beautiful andesitic granite display in the Sierras is now made up of a family of some seven other rocks with very little granite actually involved. El' Captain, Yosemite Falls, and the Sierras might be a bit unclear without the right instruments to guide someone, but the individual in which McPhee writes Basin and Range from is surely not. Dr. Kenneth Deffeyes is a chemical oceanographer, geological engineer, sedimentary petrologist, a senior geology professor, and his interests are very clear. Dr. Deffeyes pays special attention to the Basin and Range area even though he considers the cattle here unintelligent, with the use of painted cattle guards. Dr. Deffeyes provides the geological knowledge presented in this book and it is evident that he adores his work. Just as Henry Hess adored his ocean floors. During the Scottish Enlightenment, in the early months of 1785, James Hutton did to geology what Copernicus did to our solar system. As historians said it, the true conflict between areas of religion and evolution regarding our creation did not come until more than a hundred years after Hutton displayed his findings to the Royal Society. Without a doubt Hutton alone did not create the conflict between religion and evolution, although his work strengthened the argument of the evolution of the globe and his geologic enlightenment is still continuing today. He left the Royal Society with an introduction stating, "The purpose of this dissertation is to form some estimate with regard to the time the globe of this Earth has existed." He concluded his dissertation with, "The result, therefore, of this physical inquiry is, that we find no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end." A reader might consider Hutton one of the first few men/women to begin to grasp the big picture of deep time and goes as far as guess that some two hundred years ago the globe was less than ten thousand years old. Another question, how old will the globe be one hundred years from now? Moreover, what was America like in deep time? Dr. Deffeyes picks a time and takes a imaginary field-trip along Interstate 80 heading east from North America's west coast. During this time the equator ran through Colorado, Nebraska, San Diego, California, and what would come to be Lake Superior in three hundred and thirty million years. North America's west coast would be in western Wyoming. More than two hundred miles out to sea would be paleo-Carlin Canyon, Nevada. Moving east a tropical fern forests with a high elevation near present day Laramie, Wyoming and a gentle descent to Nebraska where sea would start again. This sea would stretch for more than four hundred miles to somewhere near the Mississippi River of today. Followed there by low flat terrain wetlands through what would be Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. In Ohio a second sea would go as far as Pennsylvania. Once in New Jersey a final ascent would occur to the ultimate peaks of a mountain range somewhere around the present George Washington Bridge. This would eventually become the future Africa, quite a different view compared to day, but it is still there. The Appalachians might not be as high, the great wetlands might now be coal deposits, but it still remains. Readers could wonder, what will this be like in the future, speaking in deep time terms? Could central California become an island? For college students taking an introductory course in geology this would be a very appropriate piece of literature. It brings in the big picture from out of the geologic darkness. In less than two hundred and twenty pages McPhee takes you with Dr. Schmitt to the moon and brings back a kilo of rock. Henry Hess's, a World War Two attack boat skipper, mineralogist, and a professor who's knowledge is as deep and geologic time itself. John McPhee decided if he had to sum up his book in one sentence it would be, "The summit of Mount Everest is marine limestone."

Rating:
Summary: "The summit of Mount Everest is marine limestone," J.McPhee
Review: This reader was the perfect example of John McPhee's, "You don't get the Picture." As the picture becomes clearer, humans on this planet seem to get less significant. A reader can look back after reading a book of this nature and begin to understand the theory of deep time. Grandma is old, and the Egyptian Pyramids are older, although deep time places a different picture in which to view. Four and one half billion years is now considered old. A good example of someone getting the picture would be displayed as a reader that has traveled the Great Basin area, before and after taking a geology course and/or reading literature such as McPhee's Basin and Range. Geologically speaking, Pre-McPhee/Geology Course, a commuter might consider Lovelock, Nevada a desolate,unattractive place where a fuel stop would be the only reason to stop. Not knowing, deep time speaking, that tomorrow Lovelock could be beach front property. A geologist can spend their whole life trying to get the picture. In the late 1950's the picture became more focused. Tools were introduced into the geologic picture that allowed geologists to look at Earth's material in a completely different fashion. The X-ray diffractormeter and the X-ray fluorescence spectrometer, along with the electron probe from the 1970's gave descriptive scientists a much more focused picture. With this new knowledge some ideas became popular during this time as well. Plate-tectonics and a spreading sea floor was now in the picture, and the Glomar Challenger helped to confirm this. The once beautiful andesitic granite display in the Sierras is now made up of a family of some seven other rocks with very little granite actually involved. El' Captain, Yosemite Falls, and the Sierras might be a bit unclear without the right instruments to guide someone, but the individual in which McPhee writes Basin and Range from is surely not. Dr. Kenneth Deffeyes is a chemical oceanographer, geological engineer, sedimentary petrologist, a senior geology professor, and his interests are very clear. Dr. Deffeyes pays special attention to the Basin and Range area even though he considers the cattle here unintelligent, with the use of painted cattle guards. Dr. Deffeyes provides the geological knowledge presented in this book and it is evident that he adores his work. Just as Henry Hess adored his ocean floors. During the Scottish Enlightenment, in the early months of 1785, James Hutton did to geology what Copernicus did to our solar system. As historians said it, the true conflict between areas of religion and evolution regarding our creation did not come until more than a hundred years after Hutton displayed his findings to the Royal Society. Without a doubt Hutton alone did not create the conflict between religion and evolution, although his work strengthened the argument of the evolution of the globe and his geologic enlightenment is still continuing today. He left the Royal Society with an introduction stating, "The purpose of this dissertation is to form some estimate with regard to the time the globe of this Earth has existed." He concluded his dissertation with, "The result, therefore, of this physical inquiry is, that we find no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end." A reader might consider Hutton one of the first few men/women to begin to grasp the big picture of deep time and goes as far as guess that some two hundred years ago the globe was less than ten thousand years old. Another question, how old will the globe be one hundred years from now? Moreover, what was America like in deep time? Dr. Deffeyes picks a time and takes a imaginary field-trip along Interstate 80 heading east from North America's west coast. During this time the equator ran through Colorado, Nebraska, San Diego, California, and what would come to be Lake Superior in three hundred and thirty million years. North America's west coast would be in western Wyoming. More than two hundred miles out to sea would be paleo-Carlin Canyon, Nevada. Moving east a tropical fern forests with a high elevation near present day Laramie, Wyoming and a gentle descent to Nebraska where sea would start again. This sea would stretch for more than four hundred miles to somewhere near the Mississippi River of today. Followed there by low flat terrain wetlands through what would be Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. In Ohio a second sea would go as far as Pennsylvania. Once in New Jersey a final ascent would occur to the ultimate peaks of a mountain range somewhere around the present George Washington Bridge. This would eventually become the future Africa, quite a different view compared to day, but it is still there. The Appalachians might not be as high, the great wetlands might now be coal deposits, but it still remains. Readers could wonder, what will this be like in the future, speaking in deep time terms? Could central California become an island? For college students taking an introductory course in geology this would be a very appropriate piece of literature. It brings in the big picture from out of the geologic darkness. In less than two hundred and twenty pages McPhee takes you with Dr. Schmitt to the moon and brings back a kilo of rock. Henry Hess's, a World War Two attack boat skipper, mineralogist, and a professor who's knowledge is as deep and geologic time itself. John McPhee decided if he had to sum up his book in one sentence it would be, "The summit of Mount Everest is marine limestone."

Rating:
Summary: It has its moments.
Review: Geologic insight and humorous tangents abound in John McPhee's Basin and Range. In this book, McPhee describes to a more or less lay audience the formation processes of the Basin and Range. This book was written as part of a series of geology along Interstate-80. In this initial volume, McPhee lays the groundwork for the complicated processes that created the Basin and Range as well as giving readers a sort of compressed introduction to plate tectonics, geologic time and terminology.

He begins the book in New Jersey, three thousand miles from what readers know as the Basin and Range province. Though his motive is not entirely clear, one may be able to detect that McPhee is showing a possible evolutionary movement for the Basin and Range where the processes occurring in the province today may lead to a morphology similar to present-day New Jersey. Rather than straightforwardly addressing the Basin and Range (as a textbook may do), McPhee opts to intersperse his discussion of the landscape with discussions of nomenclature to geologic time to the unreliability of a geologist as a driver. When the author does directly confront the Basin and Range it is nothing overwhelming-some block faulting here, dry lakebeds there-in an attempt to make the geology sound simplistic when that could hardly be farther from true.

While the book has definite merit as a primer on geologic formation processes of the Basin and Range, the reader is forced to compete with McPhee's flowery stream-of-conscience writing style. A reader with no geologic background may be able to glean some information from this book. That which is gained, however, will be more subtle and anecdotal than anything else. While McPhee's simplification of the processes that formed the Basin and Range may be helpful at an amateur level, it may as well be frustrating and cannot compete with the knowledge one would gain from reading a more formal publication.

Rating:
Summary: It has its moments.
Review: Geologic insight and humorous tangents abound in John McPhee's Basin and Range. In this book, McPhee describes to a more or less lay audience the formation processes of the Basin and Range. This book was written as part of a series of geology along Interstate-80. In this initial volume, McPhee lays the groundwork for the complicated processes that created the Basin and Range as well as giving readers a sort of compressed introduction to plate tectonics, geologic time and terminology.

He begins the book in New Jersey, three thousand miles from what readers know as the Basin and Range province. Though his motive is not entirely clear, one may be able to detect that McPhee is showing a possible evolutionary movement for the Basin and Range where the processes occurring in the province today may lead to a morphology similar to present-day New Jersey. Rather than straightforwardly addressing the Basin and Range (as a textbook may do), McPhee opts to intersperse his discussion of the landscape with discussions of nomenclature to geologic time to the unreliability of a geologist as a driver. When the author does directly confront the Basin and Range it is nothing overwhelming-some block faulting here, dry lakebeds there-in an attempt to make the geology sound simplistic when that could hardly be farther from true.

While the book has definite merit as a primer on geologic formation processes of the Basin and Range, the reader is forced to compete with McPhee's flowery stream-of-conscience writing style. A reader with no geologic background may be able to glean some information from this book. That which is gained, however, will be more subtle and anecdotal than anything else. While McPhee's simplification of the processes that formed the Basin and Range may be helpful at an amateur level, it may as well be frustrating and cannot compete with the knowledge one would gain from reading a more formal publication.

Rating:
Summary: Not a good book for a beginning geology student
Review: I had to read this book for an Intro to Geology course, and although I find geology to be fascinating, I had a very difficult time following this book. The author uses a lot of technical vocabulary and is rather repetitious. Although I understood what McPhee was talking about most of the time, I think it would have made a better film documentary than a book. The author constantly went off on tangents and the overal organization of the book did not appeal to me at all. . .it would be more readable if written as a field journal because I could not even figure out when one day turned into another. But the book did a decent job of presenting the bigger picture.

Rating:
Summary: "The summit of Mt. Everest is marine limestone,"John McPhee
Review: I just completed Basin and Range and I am writing a short review for an instructor. I will return again, although I currently recommend this book for any undergradute student in the natural science areas. You will not be dissappointed. [e-mail]: If you have questions, comments, or input, please, please email me at your convience. I get up every morning and live in the heart of the Basin and Range.

Rating:
Summary: There's more to Nevada than Las Vegas..........
Review: John McPhee's Basin and Range is a layman's geology explaining the formation of mountains and valleys between the Great Salt Lake and the Sierra Nevadas. McPhee intersperses his geology with an alluring mix of personal insight and travelogue commentary which enlivens an otherwise potentially dry subject matter. McPhee makes geology approachable and uncovers the deep intrigue of a science which can be punishing when presented in textbook style. Basin and Range is a short, interesting, and enjoyable explanation of the earth's early shifts of magnitude.

Rating:
Summary: GREAT BOOK- BASIN AND RANGE
Review: John McPhee's Basin and Range kept me wanting to read more, right up to the very end. His style was very interesting, keeping his story on basin and range full of knowledge. He describes two of North America's past basin and range provinces. An ancient one which was once along America's eastern seaboard and the active basin and range which is centered in Nevada. Even for those who are not knowlegdable on geology this is an easily understood book. I would recommend this book to anyone that enjoys to read, especially someone that is interested in learning about our natural environment.

Rating:
Summary: excellent easy reading geology
Review: Mcfee has an amazing ability to help the non geologist understand and enjoy this complicated topic. His writing skills keep one interested and absorbed. Try "Assembling California"and Irons in the Fire",too.

Rating:
Summary: A pure and noble quest
Review: Reading John McPhee is such a delight that one wonders what he would be like as a teacher. Not a journalism instructor, for which he is amply qualified, but declaiming on science, particularly geology. McPhee is a master in understandably describing geologic processes and the people studying them. Under his touch, the stable earth is brought to life, compressing time and traversing space. Watching an aircraft descend for a landing, he muses that in another time its approach path would be deep under water. He explains how different the perception of time is in the mind of a geologist from that of our own. All civilization is but an eyeblink in contrast with the rise and fall of mountains and seas. According to McPhee, what geologists face is summarized in one sentence: "The summit of Mount Everest
is marine limestone."

Not long ago, he reminds us, the world was once considered to be like a drying apple. Some areas shrink driving other places to rise leaving a skin of folds. McPhee describes the history of the idea of plate tectonics and how it confounded this earlier concept. The starting point was an understanding of the earth's age. A Scottish "gentleman," James Hutton was an astute observer and an eloquent speaker. Putting his findings in writing, however, "trampled people with words." Hutton revealed the vast duration of time required to form earth's vistas. He was followed by a herald of Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell. Between them, the age of the earth and of life replaced the established biblical origins. In effect, Hutton had taken the next major step in science after Copernicus. Plate tectonics, a group, rather than an individual's insight, opened new fields of research and provided more detailed views of Earth's processes.
Among the pictures are better indicators of finding valuable resources.

McPhee's other works provide testimony to his physical courage, which is immense. Join him as he drives a twisting mountain road with a geologist on a quest: "We turned a last corner, with our inner wheels resting firmly on the road and the two others supported by Deffeyes' expectations." McPhee has joined Kenneth Deffeyes to learn about the building of the Basin and Range - the succession of mountain strings and the valleys separating them. Through McPhee, Deffeyes relates how the mountains were thrust up, eroding silt into the lowlands. Mountain building forces also produce other interesting results. Deffeyes, "a big man with a tenured waistline" by McPhee's description, has "pure and noble purposes in coming to Nevada." His quest for "pure science" investigation is one side of Deffeyes' character. The
other side is his pursuit of a "noble" metal - silver. Deffeyes knows of how plate tectonics works. He also grasps the history of the Nevada mining industry. The combination may make him a millionaire from refining abandoned mines. But there are risks and he tells McPhee " . . . if anybody comes after me, I want you to go to jail cheerfully rather than surrender your notes." Fortunately, McPhee is still outside prison walls writing for us.

This first of several works on the revolution in thinking inspired by plate tectonics remains a readable and valuable book. McPhee doesn't confine his talents to imparting what scientists do. Arcane topics are deftly woven with our everyday lives and ambitions. Sit beside him in a cafe in Nevada as he queries patrons on their reaction to the possibility that the sea will someday flood their region: "We got a boat." His careful balance of deep science and everyday life has received many accolades, but never quite enough. The best reward is to buy him and read him - and the benefits to the reader will be the more enduring.