Naked Earth: The New Geophysics FROM OUR EDITORS
Full of visual prose as well as scientific information, this fascinating tour to the center of the Earth describes geophysicists' emerging views of our dynamic planet--its mysterious earthquakes, volcanoes, and its tumultuous inner landscape.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Naked Earth offers an illuminating and thoroughly riveting account of the pioneering geophysicists of today. Around the globe, from the California desert to the Siberian tundra, the enthralling picture of inner earth emerges through their breakthrough investigations and heated debates. We learn of outdated theories that have been disproven by bold new scientific concepts, dazzling detective work, and immensely powerful technology, which have radically altered our insights into the deepest mysteries of our planet. We see how continents have formed and split, oceans expanded and shrunk, ice ages come and gone, compass points wildly swung, earthquakes erupted where none were thought possible - all because of tumultuous forces that, until recently, have been beyond our understanding. In a beautifully crafted work that is at once impeccably authoritative and wonderfully accessible, Shawna Vogel provides readers with new explanations to ancient mysteries and the latest geophysical hypotheses. Just as Jacques Cousteau made oceanography a romantic and swashbuckling enterprise, Vogel opens a window to the turbulent world beneath our feet.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Geophysics is undergoing a ``whole-earth revolution,'' with changes at Earth's molten core increasingly linked to what is going on at its surface. Vogel, a former editor for Discover, brings a weighty subject vibrantly to life in this exciting report. It is common knowledge that the continents once formed a giant landmass, called Pangaea, 180 million years ago, yet many readers will be unfamiliar with the Supercontinent Cycle-the belief, now shared by many geophysicists, that the Pangaean supercontinent was a recurrent, not a one-time, phenomenon. Furthermore, the existence of Pangaea seems to be stored like a memory in inner Earth's rocks and may be dictating where enormous floods of magma (molten rock) erupt. These eruptions in turn have been linked to the reversal of Earth's magnetic poles, a flip-flop that supposedly has occurred 300 times in the last 200 million years. Vogel evokes a dynamic underworld of powerful currents of liquid rock; colliding tectonic plates; fossil volcanoes that have spewed out natural diamonds; and 30-foot-tall mineral chimneys soaring above the Pacific Ocean floor, natural warm-water vents for dispersing heat from Earth's core. This is top-notch science journalism. (May)
Library Journal
The earth as portrayed by Vogel is a dynamic and fascinating entity. Beginning with the advent of plate tectonics theory in 1960, Vogel chronicles subsequent advances in geophysics. Her experience in writing about science for Discover magazine is obvious in her use of a minimum of scientific terminology and excellent analogies to illustrate what is now known about the earth and its interior workings. Science becomes an active endeavor when seen through this account of how scientists have learned what they know. Naked Earth would have been strengthened by inclusion of references for the key publications of the scientists mentioned in the text; quotations are attributed to the authors but sources are not provided. Despite this shortcoming, Vogel has done an admirable job of making a highly technical field accessible to most readers. Recommended for most collections.-Jeanne Davidson, Oregon State Univ., Corvallis
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