Book Description
From exploring the basic principles of geology to starting a rock and mineral collection, The Practical Geologist is the perfect introduction to the world of earth science.
Beginning with a history of the earth's formation and development, this book explores the substances that compose the planet, movements within the earth, the surface effects of weather and water, and underground landscapes.
It shows you how to search for, identify, and extract samples of various rocks and minerals, and for each rock and mineral type there is a brief mineralogy and explanation of its locations. There are also sections on mapping, preparing, and curating specimens, and geological sites on the six continents.
Packed with more than 200 full-color illustrations, this comprehensive guide is the essential practical companion for natural science enthusiasts everywhere.
Customer Reviews:
Uneven material.......2006-11-28
This book provides a fair introduction to geology with fairly clear diagrams and introduction to basics such as geological time scale and plate tectonics. The book tries to emphasize the practical side of geology: what can be seen and picked up. The introduction to common minerals was perhaps not as practical as I'd hoped, for some of the minerals without picture and just a description of chemical structure, hardness, and gravity I could not identify them. The information level was uneven: "a backpack full of rocks can be heavy" to arcane (The chemical reaction with feldspar to produce clay minerals). The section on different rock types was well done, but the section of mapping didn't seem practical (I couldn't really map a bed of coal). I think this book might be best if used with a very local or state geology guide.
Couldn't Put The Book Down!Great Book!.......2005-10-13
Dougal Dixon has written a wonderful book with detailed
discriptions suited for both the beginner and those already into Geology.This book is a perfect learning tool for all ages.
Perfect for education as well as recreational activilties.
I highly recommmend this intellegent,entertaining and well
written book.
Excellent Book for the Beginning Geologist.......2004-08-07
This is a wonderful book for the beginning geologist or anyone interested in earth sciences. It presents the fundamental concepts of geology in a way that is accessible to the non-specialist, but without being oversimplified or condescending. It's full of lots of great pictures, and the best part of the book is the section where it tells you how to collect and label specimens of rock yourself. People of any age interested in science, especially go out and get grubby do it yourself science, will find this book an excellent addition to their libraries.
Nice book for the beginner.......2000-07-05
I have the habit of buying anything with geology, paleontology, history, etc. in the title, sometimes without thought to where I'm at with my knowledge base. This was one of those times! The book is a lovely, well illustrated, practical guide to geology for the beginner. Much of what the authors dedicate a single paragraph or page to I have had whole courses in already, so needless to say, I was not quite as enthused over the material as a new comer to the field might be. Certainly for the beginner, especially the Junior High natural science enthusiast, this would be a wonderful gift. It might even make a good text for a high school natual science course, as it covers considerable information on the earth sciences. I plan on giving my copy to a close friend with children interested in these subjects.
Great book. Good for beginners........1999-05-16
Today we were at 12000 feet looking into the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, and we decided we needed a book. Any book. A good book. A book that keeps you reading. The Practical Geologist was just the book! We read all night, and the night's not over yet! We learned about geology, and also came a little closer to God. I highly recommend it! p.s. I used to work for Borders.
Book Description
Deep ecology, a term coined by noted Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess, is a worldwide grassroots environmental movement that seeks to redress the shallow and piecemeal approache of technology-based ecology. Its followers share a profund respect for the earth's interrelated natural systems and a sense of urgency about the need to make profound cultural and social changes in order to respore and sustain the long-term health of the planet. This comprehensive introduction to the Deep Ecology movement brings tgether Naess' groundbreaking work with essays by environmental thinkers and activists responding to and expanding on its philosophical and practical aspects.
Contributors include George Sessions, Gary Snyder, Alan Drengson, Dll Devall, Freya Matthews, Warwick Fox, David Rothenberg, Michael E. Zimmerman, Patsy Hallen, Dolores LaChapelle, Pat Fleming, Joanna Macy, John Rodman, and Andrew Mclaughlin. The Authrs offer diverse viewpoints- from ecofeminist, scientific, and purely philosophical approaches to Christian, Buddhist, and Gandhian-based principles. Their essays show how social, technological, psychological, philosophical, and institutional issues are aall fundamentally related to our attitudes and values toward the natural world.
Book Description
A clear, straightforward presentation of concepts and issues in aquatic pollution
This comprehensive introductory text presents a systematic study of pollution in oceans, lakes, streams, and underground aquifers. In a clear, straightforward style that is easily accessible to nonscientists, it describes the sources, features, and effects of thirteen different types of aquatic pollution.
Fully updated to reflect current understanding and recent developments, this Third Edition of Aquatic Pollution covers every aspect of pollution associated with urban runoff, acid rain, sewage disposal, pesticides, oil spills, nutrient loading, and more. Case studies of major pollution sites such as Lake Erie, Three Mile Island, and the Rocky Mountain Arsenal help to illustrate points made in the general discussion. Important features of this new edition include:
* Updated discussions of nonpoint source pollution, industrial pollution, thermal pollution, pathogens, metals, plastics, and more
* New case studies of Chesapeake Bay and the Exxon Valdez
* Beginning-of-chapter outlines
* End-of-chapter study questions
* New special section on units of measurement
* Four chapters on the fundamentals of ecology and toxicology
Aquatic Pollution, Third Edition, is a first-rate teaching and learning tool for courses in environmental science, zoology, oceanography, biology, and civil or sanitary engineering. It is also an excellent primer for policymakers and activists focused on environmental issues.
Customer Reviews:
Nothing else compares..........2000-08-31
I used both editions of Laws's book, Aquatic Pollution, throughout my Master's studies as an introductory text to environmental problems of the hydrosphere. I have found no other book to be equally informative. I recommend it to my undergrad class as a primary reference. The material covered is also suitable for beginning MS students, and the conceptual approach used is quite effective especially for those with no technical science exposure. Easy reading to be supplemented as needed with the more technical books like Stumm and Morgan's Aquatic Chemistry. Very adequate for introductory courses. I'm glad that the 3rd edition is due soon.
a must-own.......1998-11-07
I used this book for a college course and not only found it easy to read and understand, but also enjoyable. The author's style of writing is unmatched among science textbook writers. The book covers an overview of all relevent issues in aquatic pollution for both marine and freshwater environments. Each topic is covered with enough detail and background information to provide a clear understanding of the problems within the field of aquatic pollution.
Book Description
This reader is a lively and stimulating companion to standard classroom texts in human geography. Featuring a dynamic collection of material, the volume is designed to foster a clear understanding of human geography and its concepts, debates and controversies. The topics selected are accessible to introductory students, yet enduring in their insights, influential in the development of the discipline, or relevant to contemporary policy debates. The book includes sections on population and migration; environment, agriculture, and society; cultural geography and place; urban and economic geography; development geography; and political geography. Each chapter contains an introduction by the editors followed by several essays addressing these specific themes. This engaging and thought-provoking resource is an ideal supplement to any introductory human geography textbook. It can also be used very effectively on its own as an introduction for anyone coming to the subject for the first time.
Average customer rating:
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An Introduction to Behavioural Ecology
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Evolution
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Behavioral Ecology: An Evolutionary Approach
ASIN: 0632042273 |
Book Description
This book is a core introductory text which examines basic principles of ecology for first year undergraduates. The authors have expertise in population ecology and plant ecophysiology which will give the book a balanced treatment of plant and animal ecology and a strong applied and evolutionary bias. The book will not present ecology as a tight, predictive science in the way that other areas of biology (such as genetics) can be. Instead, it will aim to give the student a good grounding in the basics of ecology, including patterns in biodiversity, population biology, the ecology of assemblages and the interpretation of ecological data. It will also try to stress the links between different aspects and different levels and also emphasise the overall intellectual coherence of the subject.
Amazon.com
John Holland's Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems is one of the classics in the field of complex adaptive systems. Holland is known as the father of genetic algorithms and classifier systems and in this tome he describes the theory behind these algorithms. Drawing on ideas from the fields of biology and economics, he shows how computer programs can evolve. The book contains mathematical proofs that are accessible only to those with strong backgrounds in engineering or science.
Book Description
Genetic algorithms are playing an increasingly important role in studies of complex adaptive systems, ranging from adaptive agents in economic theory to the use of machine learning techniques in the design of complex devices such as aircraft turbines and integrated circuits. Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems is the book that initiated this field of study, presenting the theoretical foundations and exploring applications.
In its most familiar form, adaptation is a biological process, whereby organisms evolve by rearranging genetic material to survive in environments confronting them. In this now classic work, Holland presents a mathematical model that allows for the nonlinearity of such complex interactions. He demonstrates the model's universality by applying it to economics, physiological psychology, game theory, and artificial intelligence and then outlines the way in which this approach modifies the traditional views of mathematical genetics.
Initially applying his concepts to simply defined artificial systems with limited numbers of parameters, Holland goes on to explore their use in the study of a wide range of complex, naturally occuring processes, concentrating on systems having multiple factors that interact in nonlinear ways. Along the way he accounts for major effects of coadaptation and coevolution: the emergence of building blocks, or schemata, that are recombined and passed on to succeeding generations to provide, innovations and improvements.
John H. Holland is Professor of Psychology and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan. He is also Maxwell Professor at the Santa Fe Institute and is Director of the University of Michigan/Santa Fe Institute Advanced Research Program.
Customer Reviews:
The founder's words.......2005-09-10
This is a wonderful time. We can read about information theory in Shannon's own words, fuzzy logic in Zadeh's, relativity in Einstein's, and genetic programming in Holland's. He created evolutionary algorithms, and shares his thoughts in this brief work.
1975, when he first published this work, was a long time ago. Since then, computing has advanced, computing demands have advanced, and biology has advanced. Biology, because it functions at all the levels from atoms to worlds, has bottomless potential for insight. Because the atoms, the worlds, and everything between are all unfriendly, biology has many problems to solve. It doesn't matter whether you are an oak tree, a virus, or a whale, the solution (at the species level) is the same: evolve. Holland was the first to harness that incredible problem-solving power to computational use.
A huge literature has built up from Holland's founding thoughts. Those thoughts are here, in their original and purest form. It is hardly surprising that Holland anticipated so many elaborations of his work. One, in particular, struck me: the idea of 'hot spots' for genetic crossover. Or rather the opposite: 'cold spots' where crossover is inhibited. As a computer scientist, Holland's first thoughts were written in binary. When you allow points where crossover can not occur, you allow coherent multibit values - maybe even floating point. It's easy to laugh at Holland's initial naivete now, but he was talking about the foundations, not the structure built up from it.
If you have ever programmed genetic algorithms, you have been stunned by their effectiveness in creating good solutions. 'Good' doesn't mean precisely optimal, but pretty damm good anyway.
If you were a hard core creationist to start with, you still are. But now you know that evolutionary problem solving is powerful, broad, subtle, and effective - so much, that it's hard to believe it could ever have arisen by chance.
//wiredweird
Not an Introductory book.......2005-04-13
I am learning by myself the topic of Genetic Algorithms (GA) for my PhD dissertation. Even though this book is written for John H. Holland considered the father of Genetics Algorithms, this is not a basic or easy reading book. The book does not contain any source code and even though it contains some kind of pseudocode, it will not give you a clear idea about how to implement a GA. If you want an introduction book maybe you should look for the Mitchell Melanie's book "An Introduction to Genetic Algorithms" , Fogel's book "Evolutionary Computation vol. 1" or Chamber's book "The Practical Handbook of Genetic Algorithms".
The way the author approaches the development of the framework is sometimes overwhelming because the author does not concentrate in one specific case or concept but he mentions all the different possibilities almost at the same time. I think it is worthwhile to buy the book to have it for advanced understanding of the concepts involved in the study of Complex Adaptive System. My approach to learn GA will be reading the above mentioned books and then study this book in a very detailed and slowly way to digest the huge amount of concepts and information provided by it.
Genetic Algorithms Classic for Engineering.......2000-03-31
This book presents an inspirational synthesis from mathematics, computer science and systems theory addressing genetic algorithms and their role in intelligent engineering/business systems.
Topics include: background, a formal framework, illustrations (genetics, economics, game playing, searches, pattern recognition and statistical inference, control and function optimization, and central-nervous system), schemata, the optimal allocation of trials, reproductive plans and genetic operators, the robustness of genetic plans, adaptation of coding and representations, and overview, interim and prospectus.
Inclusion of a disk of spreadsheet-based examples would have increased user-friendliness to the sometimes moderately-complex mathematics. Otherwise, this book is a well presented, and useful classic for researchers and software vendors seeking to develop more innovative intelligent products.
Book Description
"Very few [photographers] have been successful in obtaining outstanding shots of warblers, and none has accomplished such a superb level of quality photography for the range of warbler species that Mr. Schorre has been able to capture with his camera. . . . His study of Parulinae, represented in this volume, will certainly add to [his] already considerable reputation as a photographic artist of the first rank." --from the Foreword Wood warbler migrations every spring and fall are one of the most anticipated highlights of the North American birder's year. The warblers' frequently colorful appearance and distinctive songs make them especially attractive birds to observe, but their quick, darting movements, often among the highest branches of the trees, can make it difficult to tell one species from another. This book is a handy beginner's pictorial guide to the identification of forty-nine wood warbler species that commonly nest in the United States and Canada. Barth Schorre's outstanding color photographs help you distinguish each species. (Both males and females are usually shown when they differ significantly in appearance.) An accompanying description gives each species' common and Latin names, average length, general range, relative abundance, and identifying characteristics. Schorre also briefly discusses the life history and migratory patterns of warblers, the diminishing numbers of some species, and ways to attract warblers to your yard.
Customer Reviews:
Worth it for the photography!.......2000-02-11
The most stunning photography of warblers you will ever see, bar none. The pictures are worth the price alone. The author lives on the western coast of the Gulf of Mexico and setup a blind with strobes near water in his backyard during migration. If you love warblers, buy this book.
Superb photographs.......1999-03-31
Schorre has taken some of the finest photographs of warblers ever seen. Unlike some of the other bird photographers, he has pictures of wild birds, not mist-netted or aviary warblers. A stunning achievement. Warblers are, next to rails, the hardest birds in North America to photograph, and Schorre has superb photographs of them including the rarest, most secretive warblers. When reading this book, you can sense Schorre's passion for these most-beautiful of birds and for photography.
The photographs are accompanied by some introductory information on each warbler and this book would serve as a richly illustrated guide to these birds.
Book Description
The new edition of this textbook introduces the basic chemical concepts underlying a sound understanding of environmental science and ecology. Chapters contain explanations of fundamental chemical principles and include illustrations of real examples from the environment. From an introduction to atomic and molecular structure, the text progresses to more advanced areas within physical, inorganic, organic, and analytical chemistry. Important new sections include an introduction to the concepts of biogeochemical cycling, and the role environmental chemistry plays with respect to climate, notably global warming and ozone depletion. The case studies have been updated, and a section about toxic chemicals has been added. While the primary aim is to satisfy the needs of the nonchemist, the text also serves to introduce environmental precepts to chemists who wish to apply their expertise to environmental issues. This volume is especially suitable for undergraduates in environmental science, environmental chemistry and ecology.
Amazon.com
Although billed as an introductory guide, Cecil Kuhne's handbook is comprehensive in its advice for both novice and experienced canoe campers. From the best food to pack that won't weigh you down yet won't taste like insoles to how to set up a comfy camp that doesn't serve as a bear beacon, Kuhne has loads of great tips, plus a chapter on helping to preserve the rivers we love. The appendixes contain canoe supplier and site addresses, extra reading, such as The Outward Bound Canoeing Handbook, and the all-important checklists, which can save you from having to open bottles with your teeth 25 miles from the nearest store.
Book Description
An instructive handbook that combines canoe and backpacking skills.
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A Field Manual for the Amateur Geologist: Tools and Activities for Exploring Our Planet
