Geology Illustrated

If you open this book in the middle and just start reading, chances are you'll find something great. Maybe it's a landslide that came down into a valley with enough momentum to run up the other side. Or an orange grove that's been split by a fault and because of the rows you can see how the earth's moved. One interesting thing after another. It also works if read from beginning to end, which I did recently after randomly dipping into it for years. It's excellent that way too. The format is mostly black and white aerial pictures explained by clear, descriptive prose. As a non-geologist, I usually just skipped over the words I didn't understand. It was still great. The author opens one's eyes to landforms, the shapes of hills and mountains, of rivers and valleys. I see so much now when I travel that I would not have seen without this book. I particularly recommend it for those who've just bought an RV and are about to travel through the American southwest.

A recent hiking trip to the Colorado Plateau spurred me to remove this volume again from my boxes of old college textbooks. I purchased this book in 1966 for my college studies in geography and geology, and it will follow me to my grave. Bar none, it is the best book ever printed for graphically displaying, in high-quality black and white, the intricate and wondrous patterns of earth's structure as seen from the air. Forget written theories of uniformitarianism, cataclysms, expanding and contracting earth, plate tectonics; this book displays the resulting landforms as no less than art, and provides graphic definitions that cannot be equaled with words. By all means, find a copy and keep it...forever.

Despite the plate tectonics revolution, which occurred after GI was published, I'll never give up my copy. GI is still valid and well-done for describing less than continent-scale geological processes. I only wish that someone would get it back in print and restore the original quality of the photos. And hey, no colorizing!In my opinion, Shelton's GI, along with McPhee's Annals of the Former World series, is Nirvana on Earth.

I've taken this book through the Southwest and Midwest, visiting several of the sites photographed (largely from the air), while educating both my children and myself. It's all 90% of amateur geologists will ever need. John McPhee, step aside, please.

This book provides excellent photographs of interesting geologic phenomena including catastrophic flooding, inverted topography, massive landsliding, overthrusting and other features. The photographs are top-notch, and the text is helpful and informative for those unschooled in geology. An excellent coffe table book that also maintains high academic standards. It is a shame that it is no longer in print.