great textbook for the student of structural geology

books:


	• Structural Geology of Rocks and Regions, 2nd Edition George H. Davis, Stephen J. Reynolds Wiley, 1996 - 800 pages average customer review:based on 5 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Good Book for undergrads

This book is one of the complete books in structural geology in the sense that it covers structural geology exhaustively follwed by tectonics which allows you to understand the importance of structural geology in the context of larger scales. Another good quality of the book is that a lot of techniques required for solving practical lab problems are explained lucidly.
All in all a very good for undergraduates with no knowledge of geology. Might seem wordy at times but it sure helps.

MY ALLTIME FAVORITE!!

This structure book is truly the finest example of what an academic text should be. The content is thorough with no categorical difficiencies. Organization is logical and somewhat unique. However, what makes this work so special is the first author's personal style of creativity. Artwork and the written words are done with a joyful flair. Instead of dry technicalities, students find humor and "common sense" descriptions throughout. How-to descriptions are quite successful. It all goes to show that being a good text author has more to do with conveying the heart of a gifted teacher than with being an "expert". In this particular case, the book is a wonderful product of accomplshed experts who happen to be gifted communicators as well. I wish publishers and aspiring authors would use this text as a model in all subjects.

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One of the best!!!!

This book is a really nice reference for undergrads and also for grads students that are interested to go into the structural geology.
Nice graphs and cartoons that show the difficult concepts with simplicity.
A book that verybody should have in your references in structural geology.

great textbook for the student of structural geology

I took structural geology at the University of Washington spring quarter 1997. Book was excellent and contributed to a reasonably good grade (3.3) for the course. Recommend for students or professors of structural geology

Fabulous

What should a textbook be? Comprehensive. Authoritative. Clear, readable, and hopefully interesting. Great pictures. Funny.

Well, the last two might not be requirements, but "Rocks and Regions" has all the above attributes. It covers the theory from stress/strain through all forms of deformation structures (joints, faults, folds, foliations & lineations, shear zones) to a part on plate tectonics (that subject really belonging in a geodynamics textbook). If that wasn't what all you wanted there is a short section at the end on things like primary sedimentary structures, mapping (cross-sections and the like), and a chapter on stereographic projection. Much the same material as that which is in pocket guides like the one by Ken McClay, but handy to have in textbook style. Authoritative? Aye. It's 23 years old this year, and in its second edition.

And now to the important stuff. Clear, readable, and interesting. Absolutely. Essential terms are in bold type when defined. As for readability and interesting, I'm so used to the stellar standard of expression used here now that other - previously decent - textbooks are almost unreadable. Interesting examples often not directly from geology are on every few pages. Funny as well. Most importantly, it reads like real people have written it. After describing the process of stress/strain experiments: "For sick fun you might want to try to calculate how much a limestone specimen of 3.00 cm original length will shorten in the first 5 minutes of shortening at a strain rate of 10^-14 s^-1. Then again, you might not want to." Sarcasm and wit abounds, which is better than riveting wonders like Telford's "Applied Geophysics zzzzzzzzz

Sorry about that. Did I mention it was full of great pictures? Unfortunately the edition has no colour illustrations, but it's not a critical drawback. Unlike the poor and often useless quality of many B&W photos in the Geological Society of London handbooks I have, virtually all photographs in Davis & Reynolds are clear and informative. Their sketches are also splendid, plentiful, and always relevant. Even small things are great, like the typeface and page layout.

This is one of the few (very few... okay, perhaps the only) textbook I've paid AUS$100+ for that was worth it.

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When author George Davis conceptualized the cover illustration for the first edition of Structural Geology of Rocks and Regions, he wanted to emphasize that the human adventure of learning comes from doing; and that new insight springs from careful, detailed examination of field relationships, viewed at all scales from rocks to regions. He asked illustrator David Fisher to combine four photos into the single painting, you see here. The geologist is enveloped by challenging structural relationships of folded rocks in outcrop; the curvature of back and neck, torqued as eyes and brain move closer and closer to clipboard, is the classic language of geologic mapping. When George Davis and new co-author Steve Reynolds contemplated the cover illustration for the second edition of Structural Geology of Rocks and Regions, they asked: "Who else is in the picture?" Stepping back, and handing David Fisher a couple of additional photos, the scene suddenly changed. The original geologist who had been sitting on the outcrop recording data is now up and walking around, gathering new data. A second geologist has moved into the new foreground, mapping and sketching a system of small-scale imbricate faults. Again, the head is torqued to handle the requirements of fine description and careful mapping. Like so many structural geologists, she seems to thrive on visualization of three-dimensional relationships.

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