- 200 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
A garden of geologic delights for all Earthlings
Geopedia is a trove of geologic wonders and the evocative terms that humans have devised to describe them. Featuring dozens of entries—from Acasta gneiss to Zircon—this illustrated compendium is brimming with lapidary and lexical insights that will delight rockhounds and word lovers alike.
Geoscientists are magpies for words, and with good reason. The sheer profusion of minerals, landforms, and geologic events produced by our creative planet demands an immense vocabulary to match. Marcia Bjornerud shows how this lexicon reflects not only the diversity of rocks and geologic processes but also the long history of human interactions with them.
With wit and warmth, she invites all readers to celebrate the geologic glossary—a gallimaufry of allusions to mythology, imports from diverse languages, embarrassing anachronisms, and recent neologisms. This captivating book includes cross-references at the end of each entry, inviting you to leave the alphabetic trail and meander through it like a river. Its pocket-friendly size makes it the perfect travel companion no matter where your own geologic forays may lead you.
With whimsical illustrations by Haley Hagerman, Geopedia is a mix of engaging and entertaining facts about how the earth works, how it has coevolved with life over billions of years, and how our understanding of the planet has deepened over time.
- Features a cloth cover with an elaborate foil-stamped design
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Information
Timescale
Eon | Era | Period | Beginning (millions of years ago) | Geologic Highlights |
Phanerozoic | Cenozoic | Quaternary | 3 | Anthropocene Holocene (last 10,000 yrs) Pleistocene (Ice Age) |
Neogene | 23 | |||
Paleogene | 65 | Mammals diversify Giant birds | ||
Mesozoic | Cretaceous | 140 | Dinosaur extinction Atlantic Ocean opens | |
Jurassic | 200 | First flowering plants Oldest surviving ocean crust | ||
Triassic | 250 | Age of the reptiles begins | ||
Paleozoic | Permian | 290 | Greatest mass extinction Pangaea formed Panthalassa Ocean | |
Carboniferous | 355 | Widespread coal swamps Tully Monster | ||
Devonian | 420 | First amphibians Tiktaalik | ||
Silurian | 440 | Wi... |
Table of contents
- Cover Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acasta Gneiss • The Old World
- Benioff-Wadati Zone • Off the deep end
- Chondrite • Recipe for a small planet
- Darcy • A truth universally acknowledged
- Eclogite • Pulling its weight
- Firn • Snows of yesteryear
- Gastrolith • From the gizzards of lizards
- Haboob • Dust in the wind
- Jökulhlaup • Breaking the ice
- Karst • The holey land
- Lahar • Abhorrent torrent
- Moho • Setting boundaries
- Namakier • Salt − water = taffy
- Oklo • The original Manhattan project
- Panthalassa • Oceans of time
- Rapakivi • Oddballs
- Scree • Slippery slopes
- Taphonomy • What becomes a fossil most
- Unconformity • Conspicuous absence
- Varve • Dear diary
- Xenolith • Wayfaring stranger
- Yardang • Gone with the wind
- Zircon • I will survive
- Appendix 1. Simplified Geologic Timescale
- Appendix 2. Entries by Language of Origin
- Appendix 3. Entries by Topical Category
- Appendix 4. Entries by Geographic Location
- Appendix 5. Biographical References
- Useful References