Review by Choice Review
Anderson has prepared a well-written, balanced, nicely illustrated, and up-to-date book on Iowa geology. Organization is chronological through about three billion years of geologic time, starting in the Precambrian when the area was vastly different from today, continuing into the Paleozoic and Mesozoic when shallow seas were dominant leaving a rich fossil record, and finally into the Cenozoic climaxed by the great glacial advances. Numerous clear and simple photographs, maps, cross sections, stratigraphic sections, landscape sketches, and especially skillful drawings of fossils in their ancient environments enrich the book. Coal, limestone, gypsum, sand and gravel, clay, and ground water resources are described in summary, but substantively. An excellent bibliography of more than 500 references is included. This incomparable book is a masterful synthesis of geological knowledge scattered through numerous publications that begin in the early days of exploration in the central and western US. It will have wide appeal not only to professional geologists but to the interested public, engineers and developers, and high school and college teachers. All levels. T. L. T. Grose Colorado School of Mines
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
