Basin and RangeThe first of John McPhee’s works in his series on geology and geologists, Basin and Range is a book of journeys through ancient terrains, always in juxtaposition with travels in the modern world—a history of vanished landscapes, enhanced by the histories of people who bring them to light. The title refers to the physiographic province of the United States that reaches from eastern Utah to eastern California, a silent world of austere beauty, of hundreds of discrete high mountain ranges that are green with junipers and often white with snow. The terrain becomes the setting for a lyrical evocation of the science of geology, with important digressions into the plate-tectonics revolution and the history of the geologic time scale. |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
appeared basalt Basin and Range began called Cambrian canyon Carlin Carson Sink continent continental drift cottonwoods craton Cretaceous crust crustal Death Valley deep Deffeyes deposits Devonian earth edge Eocene eventually fault blocks feyes fifty flat formation formed fossils geologists geology granite happened hill Humboldt hundred miles hundred million Hutton Hutton's theory interstate island Jersey Jurassic Kleinspehn land layers limestone look Lovelock mantle melting Meramecian million years ago miner Miocene Mississippian moun mountains move Nevada ocean Oligocene Oquirrhs Orogeny paleomagnetic Palisades Sill Pennsylvanian Permian plate tectonics Playfair present ridges River road roadcut rock Salt Lake samples sand sandstone seafloor sediments shale Siccar Point side Sierra sill silver snow species spreading center story strata stream summits supergene surface tains thousand feet tilting tion Tobin Range trench Triassic tuff ture turned unconformity volcanic wall Wyoming zeolite