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Vast and majestic, the Grand Canyon represents one of science’s most challenging puzzles: How did this massive canyon come to be? This is the story of the search for the answers, and the first account of the consensus geologists have reached in the last few years.
A scientific detective tale packed with colorful characters, Grand Canyon follows the explorers, adventurers, and geologists whose efforts led to the understanding of the canyon’s mysteries. Modern scientists have revealed that the Colorado River once ran in the opposite direction—and for many years flowed hundreds of feet beneath the ground. These efforts also led directly to the discovery of tectonic plates, one of the most important advancements in the history of geology. An eloquent, breathtaking narrative, Grand Canyon is a fascinating true story that is as epic as its subject.
- Sales Rank: #2240157 in Books
- Published on: 2005-03-25
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.30" h x 1.12" w x 6.30" l, 1.19 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 320 pages
From the Back Cover
The centerpiece of scenic grandeur in the American West is the Grand Canyon, one of the great natural wonders of the world. How it came to be has captured the imagination not only of millions of visitors to the canyon, but for over 135 years, the best American geologists as well. They recognized that the Colorado River carved this scenic masterpiece, but exactly when and how it did so eluded them. Only in the last few years has a consensus begun to emerge and now, for the first time, author James Lawrence Powell tells the fascinating story of how the mystery came to be solved.
Not only have geologists discovered the reasons for the majestic width and depth of the Canyon, they have found that at one time the Colorado River ran through it in the opposite direction. At another time, hundreds of feet of gravel buried an ancestor of today's Colorado River. Then erosion removed the gravel and resurrected the river, in what James Lawrence Powell has dubbed the Lazarus Theory.
Readers of this book will discover and rediscover a great American river—one of astonishing energy and power, a majestic rival to the celebrated Mississippi. Beginning in the Colorado Rockies, the river cuts its way first across the Colorado Plateau and then the Basin and Range Province, finally to reach the sea in the Gulf of California. This river of "liquid sandpaper" today sometimes drops 15 feet per mile; by contrast, the gentle Mississippi rolls across the plains to the Gulf of Mexico at a gradient of a few inches per mile. Ultimately, the waters of the Colorado are not only key to understanding the geology of the West, but also to the management of our most precious western resource.
What makes James Lawrence Powell's narrative so compelling, apart from the grandeur of its subject, is the richness of the characters who participated in this detective story. John Wesley Powell, the most famous of the nineteenth-century Canyon expedition leaders, the man for whom Lake Powell is named, discovered key geologic principles that helped to crack the puzzle. His two brilliant assistants, Grove Karl Gilbert and Clarence Dutton, built on Major Powell's findings to make historic scientific advances. Indeed, James Lawrence Powell shows how Dutton's work in the Grand Canyon led directly to our modern understanding of Continental Drift and Plate Tectonics. Twentieth-century geology of the Canyon culminated at a meeting in 2000 on the Canyon rim at which geologists debated the Lazarus Theory and other ideas far into the night. The solution on which they converged resonated around the world.
The 16 pages of photographs Powell collected for this sweeping tale bring to life the people and places of the story. The maps and geological time charts are useful references as to when and where the action took place. James Lawrence Powell has created a work of nonfiction that is an eloquent, educating, and exciting ride down to the bedrock of the American West and its most spectacular sight.
Praise for Grand Canyon"The Grand Canyon's beauty, grandeur, and striking form have made it one of the greatest tourist attractions in the U.S., and also one of the greatest intellectual challenges to geologists. James Powell's exciting account of the Canyon's development is worthy of the excitement that the canyon itself inspires."
—Jared Diamond, Professor of Geography, UCLA, and Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse
An engaging and lucid account of one of geology's greatest monuments. The story of how the Colorado River cut the Grand Canyon turns out to be a remarkable detective story, complete with red herrings and innocent suspects. The tale of the Grand Canyon encapsulates features of the growth in our knowledge over the whole of the earth sciences."
—Richard Fortey, FRS, Natural History Museum, London, author of Trilobite! and Earth
"Grand Canyon reads like a detective novel as Powell traces the work of the generations of geologists trying to understand our most majestic landscape. In the process, his fascinating book reveals not just how the Grand Canyonhas taken shape, but our planet as a whole."
—Carl Zimmer, author of Soul Made Flesh and Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea
"John Wesley Powell, the pioneer explorer of the Grand Canyon, believed that science could reveal a deeper history of America, one that we should know for our own survival. As this excellent book shows, that prophecy has come true: modern science indeed has revealed just how fragile our civilization is—as vulnerable as the rocks that water has relentlessly washed away in the Canyon. A clear, dramatic, and humbling story of continental discovery."
—Donald Worster, Hall Distinguished Professor of American History, University of Kansas
"As important to the professional scientist as it is to those who simply are bewitched by the Grand Canyon. An expertly woven tale of scientific intrigue."
—Richard A. Young, Dept. of Geological Sciences, SUNY College
© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.
About the Author
James Lawrence Powell is Executive Director of the National Physical Science Consortium, and former Director and President of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. He taught geology for twenty years at Oberlin College, where he also served as Acting President. The author of Night Comes to the Cretaceous and Mysteries of Terra Firma, he lives in Buellton, California with his wife, five horses, three cats, two dogs, and a burro.
© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.
Most helpful customer reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful.
Grand Canyon Geology: Not a Simple Story
By David Morrison
James Powell (no relation to John Wesley Powell) is one of the best authors of popular geology writing today. His previous books, "Night Comes to the Cretaceous" and "Mysteries of Terra Firma", provide fascinating accounts of important ideas in modern geology, such as the age of the Earth, plate tectonics, and the extinction of the dinosaurs. In this book, Powell tackles the complex geology of the Grand Canyon within the broader context of the Green-Colorado River systems. The focus is not on a description of the canyon but on understanding how it was formed.
As Jim Powell tells us, the Colorado Plateau has played a major role in the history of American geology. Much of his book follows the lives and work of the great geologists of the nineteenth century, such as Powell, Gilbert, and Dutton. It was they who gradually came to an understanding of how rivers carve canyons, canyons that sometimes cut right through mountain ranges. Before their work, many people thought that the great canyons were rifts created by other forces, through which rivers later flowed. Most of the first half of the book is a fascinating mix of history and science, using the adventures of men like Powell to illustrate the birth of modern geology.
The second half of the book takes on the more challenging task of explaining the complexities of the Grand Canyon story. As twentieth-century scientists looked more closely at the canyon and measured the ages of rocks through which it cuts, they saw that the simple and elegant theories of the nineteenth century broke down. Perhaps the Colorado River of today did not exist when parts of the canyon were cut. Perhaps the river flowed south-east rather than west, exiting the canyon via the Little Colorado and draining into the Rio Grande. Possibly two separate canyons joined to form the Grand. Maybe the canyon was carved, then filled with gravel and sediment, then cut again within the past few million years. Some of this is heavy going for the geological novice, but the rewards of reading this book are ample. It teaches us that the Earth and its geology are indeed complex, and the process of advancing science is a very human affair. It is sobering to realize that even such a huge geological feature as the Grand Canyon still holds its mysteries and stymies efforts to fit it into a single neat framework.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
highly recommended
By Amazon Customer
Excellent review of the geology and the history of science of the making of the Grand Canyon. Reading it enriched my recent backpacking trip there.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
Worth a read if you're somewhat technically curious
By Martian Bachelor
I think James Lawrence Powell had pretty big ambitions for this book when he set out to write it: to tell an adventure story or two about the early exploration of the Southwest, to give the history of the development of several important geological concepts, to go into the biographical details of a few of the leading figures in the field, and to bring the interested lay reader with some but not too much technical background up to date on where Grand Canyon science stands at the moment, the basic question being "How did this thing get here?". Yes, we know the Colorado River did it, but exactly how and when?
For the most part he was successful at these somewhat disparate tasks, though I don't think I can give a grade higher than B+/A- for the overall product. Here were my "issues" with the book:
1) At times it went off in one direction a little too far for my tastes (mostly in the adventure/biography parts), and it was a bit of a confusing mish-mash at others if you can't keep the whole panoply of figures fully in mind. The multiple objectives led to a little gear-stripping at times as the topic changed back and forth.
2) I was most disappointed with the maps: they seem to be scattered around somewhat at random (I found myself flipping pages a lot trying to find this or that map), and I swear some important features mentioned in the text can't be found on the one where you'd think you'd find it - i.e., the maps don't seem to have been made for the book but rather pasted in from some other source.
3) Finally, while the "grandest puzzle" is at heart a science puzzle involving river system geology, I thought the author avoided going into too much scientific detail for fear of perhaps alienating the reader. I would have liked more science, and sooner in the book. I.e., I don't think downcutting rates (with actual numbers) were even mentioned until the very last pages. Powell has a clear talent for deftly explaining technical concepts and should have used it more. But if you're looking for the current state of the science on the Grand Canyon you'll have to plow through a lot of seemingly marginally relevant material first, as Powell seemed more determined to develop fully the whole history of all the relevant ideas involved. As the book had a "teachy" tone to it, it may have worked better for me if it had been in more of an actual textbook format; fundamental concepts layed out first, then assembled into a comprehensive model. Maybe one has to be an actual practitioner in the field to fully appreciate the history and biography.
Still, Powell is a very good writer and the book is basically not hard reading in the least. I think it would be good for someone who wants to understand how the Grand Canyon came about but wants the telling occasionally spiced up with frequently colorful characters overcoming obstacles and limitations (both physical and mental). If you think this book might interest you, don't let the drawbacks I noted keep you from picking it up as they're not fatal flaws by any means. Almost any book on the Grand Canyon will give you a greater appreciation of it, and this is no different.
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