Reading the Rocks

From the author of Turning to Stone, a mediation on the stories that rock can tell us about the deep history of our planet

To many of us, the Earth’s crust is a relic of ancient, unknowable history. But to a geologist, the Earth’s crust, and every stone within it, is a richly illustrated narrative, telling gothic tales of cataclysm and reincarnation. How can we decode these stories? 

In Reading the Rocks, geologist Marcia Bjornerud shows us. Taking the reader on an eye-opening tour of Deep Time, Bjornerud explains in elegant prose what we see and feel beneath our feet. Both scientist and storyteller, she reminds us that our home is a living thing with lessons to teach. She shows how our planet has long maintained a delicate balance between creation and destruction, and how the global give-and-take has sustained life on Earth through eons of upheaval.

Today, however, with the rapidly escalating effects of human beings on the planet, that great balance is being threatened—and the consequences may be catastrophic. Reading the Rocks reveals how heeding the messages in rocks can help us correct our course.