The Bottom Line
Pros
- Author admits the sublime as well as the factual and theoretical
- Treatment of geologic research on the Canyon is top-notch
- Photos, art and diagrams are both instructive and luscious
Cons
- Not all the scientific detail is easy to absorb
- Occasional repetition, but not annoying
Description
- Description of Grand Canyon's geologic features that guide theorizing
- Detailed treatment of geologic theories and their relationship to evidence old and new
- Excellent diagrams, maps and artistic depictions of the Grand Canyon
Guide Review - Carving Grand Canyon: Evidence, Theories, and Mystery
Unlike most great geologic landmarks—Yosemite, Kilauea, Uluru, Kilimanjaro—the Grand Canyon is a stubborn, long-standing mystery. In "Carving Grand Canyon: Evidence, Theories, and Mystery," geologist and longtime Canyon guide Wayne Ranney relishes this fact: "I am glad to have lived a good portion of my life in a time when the canyon is not fully understood."Today the canyon is carved by the Colorado River, running westward through it. Yet 60 million years ago, rivers here ran eastward on a low plain. This unique canyon was made in some extraordinary sequence of events involving rivers, landforms and geologic processes: faulting, uplift, erosion, plate tectonics. We cannot yet spell out that sequence, because the canyon has eroded away much of the rock evidence. In the cycle of science, new ideas spark new research to test them. Each generation of researchers has added ideas, but we need more.
Ranney begins with sketches of the canyon, the basic physiographic elements to be explained, and the processes that dig canyons. Then he details the long scientific conversation about the Grand Canyon from John S. Newberry's first sight of it in 1858 to the ferment of this century. Ranney's close study of the literature underlies an unusually deep treatment of the science. A working scenario of the canyon's evolution follows, the best picture we have these days. And speaking of pictures, this well-produced book has wonderful illustrations historic and new.
