Earth: An Intimate History

This geological history explains how the Earth's crust has moved and changed by taking the reader to particular landscapes rather than offering a purely abstract survey. Fortey works from volcanoes, mountain belts, ancient collision zones, ocean floors, and mineral veins, using fieldwork at sites such as the Bay of Naples, the Alps, Newfoundland, and Hawaii to show plate tectonics, the rock cycle, and deep time. Fossils, earthquakes, and the chemistry of minerals sit beside the human uses of stone and metal. The book is a narrative of Earth as a physical system, told through places a geologist can walk and strike with a hammer.

Quarter-bound in cloth with pictorial paper sides. Dark orange slipcase. The presentation volume for 2012.