This is earth science for rock watchers. The rocks won't tell you (but this book does) about poets, playwrights and plagiarists; mad (maybe) and devious (certainly) scientists; altitude sickness; ringing bells in Boston; walking on and inside volcanoes; elephants in stiletto heels; golf in space; rocks in exotic locations; a tourist authority conspiracy; a quiz show that got it wrong; the art of making aqueducts; finding water in a desert; poison wells; fat strippers and oil wells; hot spots; fake fossils; pretending to be a wizard in Coimbra in Portugal (where the undergraduates wear Harry Potter cloaks); how (and why) the author smuggled a fossil; stone fortifications, monuments, bridges and buildings; rock inscriptions and art, and what they tell us; behaving oddly in art galleries; mapping the planet's surface and interior; gravity and finding exoplanets; telling the truth about cholera and lies about SARS; why climate matters and more.
To be blunt: nowhere else will you read how Eunice Foote (yes, a 19th century woman!) was the first to explain how carbon dioxide would cause warming, and there's lots more. This book is written with adult readers in mind, but there is nothing here that I would not have understood when I got interested in rocks at 14. So bright teens and upwards...
Get it here:
To be blunt: nowhere else will
An ebook in full colour for Kindle; $5 and
A print-on-demand paperback, $25.
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