Earth Science Books

AMERICAN INDIAN ENVIRONMENTS: Ecologicl Issues in Native American History
edited by Christopher Vecsey and Robert W. Venables. B&W photos illustrate. Condition: Gently pre-read, but highlighted, 1983 Syracuse Trade Paperback, second printing. Light tanning to white cover edges aith rubbings along bottom spine; edge wear; and highlighting on many pages. Better than it sounds. Content: These essays discuss the historical and contemporary relationships between Native Americans and the natural world. Topics include: environmental religions, Iroquois villages of the 18th century, Navajo natural resources, and subarctic Native Americans and wildlife. Very interesting. Contributors include Kai Erikson; William Hagan; Laurence Hauptman; Wilbur Jacobs; Oren Lyons; Peter MacDonald, and Calvin Martin. [1 copy available]
$ 5.59 + $ 3.29 media shipping.

BLACK TIDES (History of Oil Spills)
by Miles O. Hayes. B&W charts, maps, & photo section. Condition: NEW 1999 Univ. of Texas hardcover (no DJ issued), no printing given. Content: An illuminating, albeit willfully and irritatingly rustic, excursion through the recent history of oil spills and the development of rapid response teams to the events, from one of the people who goes around cleaning up after them. Hayes taught coastal geomorphology in Massachusetts and South Carolina for a number of years, happiest, as he recounts here in outtakes from his diaries, when in the field, taking in cuspate forelands and varves and tide-dominated embayments. But it was with the breakup of the tanker Metula off Tierra del Fuego that he found his calling: mapping coastal waterways to fashion contingency plans in the case of oil spills and later in hot-response situations. Hayes conveys a modicum of the nuts and bolts of his tradecraft, formulates a set of basic behavioral principles of oil-spill types, and details the growth of his business, the characters involved, the bureaucratic nonsense he must endure, and his private tribulations (including a couple of nasty plane c rashes). All of these take a back seat, however, to the widely scattered venues and record-breaking spills he has rushed tobarge dumps, well-head blowouts, unscheduled tanker off-loadingsfrom the Amoco Cadiz to the Exxon Valdez to the apocalyptic release in Kuwait. In a studied effort to strike a yokel posture, Hayes overplays the down-home music, and the feeble, emphatic stabs at humorIm only superhuman, you know! is typicalbegin to feel like an occupation army. Yet rising to the light through all the twanging is a clear sense of how rapid-response teams have developed sensitivity indices to handle oil spills. Major oil spills are viscerally revoltingelemental blots on the landscapebut by giving them a readable character, Hayess well-documented attempt to orchestrate slick-fighters so that they can protect the most delicate habitats first makes them yet another triage unit on the environmental front. (17 B&W photos, 11 maps) Questions welcome. [2 copies available]
$ 11.00 + $ 3.29 media shipping. International shipping available.

THE GARDENS OF THEIR DREAMS: Desertification and Culture in World History
by Brian Griffith. Condition: NEW 2001 Zed Books Trade Paperback, first printing. Content: This magnificent history of the desert relates the human consequences of its relentless expansion. As a result of the past several thousand years, the Great Desert now stretches in almost unbroken continuity from Mauritania's Atlantic seaboard through the Middle East and Central Asia to the Great Wall of China. The author seeks to understand how the great civilizations in the original "green lands" of North Africa, Ancient Egypt, the Middle East, South Asia, and China responded and changed under the pressure of invaders fleeing growing environmental degradation in the surrounding deserts. In fascinating detail, Brian Griffith's cultural history of the deserts of Africa and Asia shows how the expanding wasteland fundamentally reshaped people's images of nature, women, politics, and religion. Questions welcome. [2 copies available]
$ 7.49 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

LOWER CANYONS OF THE RIO GRANDE
by Louis Aulbach and Joe Butler. Illustrated with B&W photos, charts, drawings, maps. Condition: UNREAD c. 1999 Wilderness Area Map Service of Houston (self-published) spiral-bound paperback, second edition, no printing given. Content: This guide has been compiled as a aid to canoeists. However, rivers change with time. We have tried to present a fair and accurate evaluation of the river and the condisions of the environment. These maps and notes will not get you through the canyons. Boating skill, caution, and a deep respect for the river will. Questions encouraged. [1 copy available]
$ 8.59 + 3.40 media shipping.

THE MYSTERIOUS LANDS: An Award-Winning Naturalist Explores The Four Great Deserts of the Southwest
by Ann Hamond Zwinger. B&W drawings by the Author. Condition: NEW 1990 Plume Trade Paperback, first printing. Small remainder mark bottom edges. Content: This is a wonderful book! America's great deserts of the Southwest have long been a source of inspiration and awe. Now one of our finest nature writers and illustrators presents superlative adventures exploring America's four great deserts: the Sonoran, the Chihuahuan, the Mojave, and the Great Basin of Nevada. Detailed drawings by the Author of the flora and fauna of the areas. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 3.50 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

NO APPARENT DANGER: The True Story of Volcanic Disaster at Galeras and Nevado Del Ruiz
by Victoria Bruce. B&W drawings illustrate. Condition: NEW 2000 HarperCollins hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first edition, first printing. Remainder mark. Content: If you have ever been angry at Congress for being mired in stalemate and acrimony, then read this book and you can feel the same way about the scientific community. It's time for both bodies to get their act together! Victoria Bruce retells the story of Galeras--the Columbian volcano that erupted in 1993 killing nine researchers--with the tenacity of an investigative reporter. She contests Stanley Williams' account of the events at Galeras, and to support her argument brings in the history of Nevado Del Ruiz--an earlier volcanic eruption that erased an entire town. Her story brings together the danger inherent in the natural world and the hubris and politics of the scientific community. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 3.89 + $ 3.29 shipping. Priorioty & International shipping available.

PATH OF DESTRUCTION: The Devastation of New Orleans and the Coming Age of Superstorms
by John McQuaid and Mark Schleifstein. B&W photo section. Condition: NEW 2006 Little Brown hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. Content: America and the world were stunned in August 2005 as Hurricane Katrina nearly destroyed New Orleans. Shocking images seared the national consciousness: a city under water; entire families pulled from holes chopped in rooftops; children begging for water outside the convention center; hundreds of people waiting for days in hundred-degree heat alongside an interstate for buses that seemed never to arrive. To grasp how Katrina could happen in twenty-first-century America, you have to understand the untold backstory of the catastrophe, from New Orleans’s centuries-long flirtation with disaster, to the heroic attempts by a handful of local scientists and officials to sound warning bells, to the ignorant and misguided decisions by politicians, bureaucrats, and engineers that set the stage for the catastrophe. In this book, John McQuaid and Mark Schleifstein, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, give a full account of the storm and the dreadful inadequacies that existed prior to 2005, an indictment of the officials at all levels who failed to act, and a scientific investigation into why these huge storms have only just begun. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 5.00 + $ 3.29 media shipping.

PETRIFIED FOREST: The Story Behind the Scenery
by Sidney Ash & David May. Beautiful color photos of the Park plus B&W drawings of the flora. Condition: Gently pre-read 1969 edition (this printing c. 1990), Petrified Forest Museum Assn. soft cover (stapled wraps), no printing given. No major problems, just pre-read. Content: This book details the geological forces that formed the Petrified Forest, the petroglyphs, flora, and man's involvement in the Park. The book is dedicated to ". . . all who find Nature not an adversary to conquer and destroy, but a storehouse of infinite knowledge and experience linking man to all things past and present." [1 copy available]
$ 2.59 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

THE PRACTICAL PALEONTOLOGIST
by Steve Parker. Raymond L. Bernor, Editor. Wonderful detailed color photos & drawings illustrate. Condition: Gently pre-read 1990 Little, Brown hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first American edition, first printing. Gift inscription hidden on half-title page. Content: A step-by-step guide to finding, studying, and interpreting fossils--from searching for sites to extracting, cleaning, and restoring finds." All of this and more is described inside using simple, nontechnical language and lots of color illustrations and photos. The advice, aimed at absolute beginners, details such topics as how to keep a field notebook, how to label a collection, and how to learn more at museums and libraries. This is presented together with short explanations of geological concepts, some history of the field of paleontology, and encouragement that a dedicated amateur really can develop a valuable and interesting collection of fossils. This book would be especially good for young people who are interested in fossils or who need ideas for science fair projects. A bit large for dragging around in the field, but take it anyway - it's essential for beginner fossil hunters, IMHO. Questions welcome. [1 copy available-
$ 8.95 + $ 3.29 media shipping.

ROADSIDE GEOLOGY OF ARIZONA
by halka Chronic. B&Wphotos, "color" maps, and drawings illustrate. Condition: UNREAD 1989 Mountain Press Trade Paperback, sixth printing. Tiny edge wear. Content: One of the most popular geology and travel series ever. Reviewer: "The first chapter or two of all these books is a Geology 101 of the State -- including terms, an historical timeline, and discussion of the latest geological theories that have any bearing at all on the landforms you will see from your car or truck as you drive across the state. Then comes the good part -- a series of chapters with exciting names like "Route 60; Globe to Mesa". As you drive, your companion reads the book, keyed to mile-markers, freeway exit ramps, small towns, etc. Every rill, dike, escarpment -- even the various colored rocks you see as you ride through the roadcuts on the freeway -- are explained. Follow the highways in the book, and you're an expert on Arizona geology. [1 copy available]
$ 5.29 + $ 3.29 media shipping.

SCENES OF THE PLATEAU LANDS AND HOW THEY CAME TO BE
by Wm. Lee Stokes. Great B&W drawings and maps. Condition: UNREAD 1983 Starstone sot cover (stapled wraps), 10th printing. Small, pale tag removal mark top front cover corner. Content: The Author is a Professor of Geology at the university of Utah. HIs B&W drawings and a readable text explain the forces of geology that formed the beautiful Four Corners area. Perfect for homeschooling. [1 copy available]
$ 5.29 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

WATER, EARTH, AND SKY: The Colorado River Basin
by Michael Collier. Beautiful color photos of the Southwest by Collier. Condition: NEW 1999 Univ. of Utah Press hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), no printing given. Content: In 1996 award-winning author and photographer Michael Collier set out in his forty-year-old Cessna seeking an expanded understanding and perspective on the Colorado River Basin - a region spanning the states of Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and California - which he had come to know intimately through twenty-five years of river running. Twelve thousand photographs and more than a year later, Collier hadlearned another way of knowing that magnificent landscape and now shares his altered vision. For the first time, through this astonishing collection of aerial photographs, the 244,000 square miles of the basin, including its tributaries and the lands adjacent to them, can be seen for what they are: an integrated bioregion with a natural history fascinating in its complexity and a majestic beauty astounding in its diversity. These are images that provide unforgettable lessons in transcending our often delimiting cultural, political, and scientific worldviews. Flying over the Painted Desert at 150 miles per hour, Collier observes and photographs the entire life span of a thunderstorm: the weighty anvil cloud emptying itself on a parched redrock escarpment and, a few miles downstream, the ensuing flash flood, an erosive tumult of water and detritus. Above the Escalante Canyon, he captures the sinuous, incised meanders of the river, the choreography of a dance twenty million years old between relentless water and uplifting bedrock. The waters of the Colorado River now rarely reach the Sea of Cortez, depleted as they are by hundreds of upstream reservoirs and diversions - and Collier documents this as well: the stark, muddy delta of the river; the feathery channels that remain as the tides withdraw back to the sea. One hundred forty captivating images are accompanied by six essays, written by experts in various fields of natural history and ecology, that illuminate chosen aspects of the landscape: the life cycle of a razorback sucker; the conditions that shape the meanders of a river; the sensory feast of rock, air, water, leaf, and bird that may nourish the human soul. WATER, EARTH, AND SKY is a mosaic of splendid parts, a unique and dynamic assemblage like the Colorado River basin itself, which, viewed from the right distance, resolves itself into the patterns that make it a marvelous and inspiring whole. [1 copy available]
23.29 + $ 3.29 media shipping.