Elements Of Physical Geology

By James H Zumberge & Clemens A Nelson
John Wiley & Sons, Inc
1976 ISBN 0-471-98674-7

James H Zumberge & Clemens A Nelson writes:

This book is a direct outgrowth of our Elements of Geology, Third Edition. It is intended for a one-term course in physical geology for the nonmajor. Because we think that a historical perspective is essential to the understanding of earth science, a number of items commonly reserved for books on earth history are included in Chapter 6, Geologic Time. To provide for an appreciation of geologic time in the earlier chapters, the geologic time scale is introduced in the first chapter.

Although many recent text have used the exciting developments in sea floor spreading and place tectonics as a theme around which to organize the subject matter of physical geology, we have preferred the more traditional approach for pedagogic reasons. We believe that an investigation of the earth from the inside out provides a better basis on which student can begin to understand his environment. Thus, the first nine chapters deal with the fundamental materials of the earth and its internal characteristics and processes; the following seven chapters deal with processes that have shaped the surface of the earth and provided its infinite variety of topographic forms.

It is also common practice for current texts to devote a single unit to Environmental Geology. We believe that geology has always been a fundamental environmental science and that the subject of the environment, including geologic hazards, is better served by its inclusion in the chapters where it is natural part of the subject under discussion. Thus, the reader will find environmental problems treated in the chapters on volcanoes, earthquakes, climate, landslides, groundwater, rivers, wind, glaciers, oceans, and resources.

The text of most chapters from Elements of Geology has been revised, and new illustrations have been added. The materials can structures of the crust of the earth are treated in chapter 3, Materials of the Earth’s Crust, and chapter 4, Structures of the Earth’s Crust. These subjects were incorporated into a single chapter in Elements of Geology. Chapter 9, Global Tectonics and Mountain Building, has been revised and expanded and includes a historical account of mountain building theories and a detailed account of the new revolution in geology—that of sea floor spreading and plate tectonics. In each of the chapters dealing with surface processes (chapters 10 to 16), examples from the geologic record have been included to illustrate the uniformitarian relationships between present observations and the past record of the earth.

Chapter 17, Resources from the Earth, is new; it incorporates a number of separate discussions from Elements of Geology and current problems of environmental geology and mineral and energy resources.

We are grateful to the people who supplied photographs for this book. We particularly thank Tad Nichols of Tucson, Arizona, for providing many outstanding photographs of geologic features and phenomena. Sources are given for all photographic illustrations except the ones taken by us. We also thank the National Geographic Society for permission to use parts of their colored maps of the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean floors, which appear as Plates V and VI, preceding Chapter 9. Again we thank Derwin Bell of the Department of Geology at the University of Michigan whose excellent illustrations from Elements of Geology have served so well. We also thank Jeanie Martinez of the Department of Geology, University of California, Los Angeles, for several additional illustrations, and Kathyryn Brown at the University of California, Los Angeles, for help in manuscript preparation.

A great many people have made general and specific contributions in the preparation of the book. Our colleagues in the College of Earth Sciences at the University of Arizona, the Department of Geology, University of Nebraska, and the Department of Geology, University of California, Los Angeles, have been especially generous of their expertise. Don Deneck of Wiley has been both a spur and helpful associate during the many stages of preparation. We express our gratitude to our wives, Marilyn Zumberge and Ruth Nelson, for their patience and understanding while this book was being written.