Rising from the Plains
by McPhee, John - 1950-
pub. Farrar. Strauss. Giroux, NY, 1986. ,     isbn - - LCCN 86-14891 - - Map before p.1 - front end paper Cenozoic Era and Mesozoic Era geologic times more recent - back of book endpaper Paleozoic Era older half of the geologic time - this book has no index which makes its use as a proper non-fiction book difficult. It is also not divided into chapters as the subject under discussion changes, again making it difficult to navigate. Total size 214 p.
This book describes the geological situation of Wyoming and surrounding States, including the Yellowstone National Park. It is the most incredibly complicated geological display in USA. At one place or another all rocks and strata known to geologic time are represented, as is very complicated faulting and rock folding.
This is presented as the McPhee, the author, travels with David Love ( John David Love b. 1913 - d. 2002), a geologist and at least a second generation resident of Wyoming who over more than 30 years traveled over, prowled, and climbed the area to describe the geology the area presents. He walked over, rode horse over and climbed many of the mountains in the area to properly explore the surface geology and get a reading of the subsurface geology. He is the major author of the Geological Map of Wyoming published 1955 and again in 1985.

David Love descends from one of the first families to settle in the area, and operate a large ranch in central Wyoming. Perhaps as much as 20 percent of the book describes the arrival of his mother, a teacher who was educated at Welsley in Massachusetts, and life on the Love ranch over many years.

Toward the end of the book David describes how field geology is different from remote sensing and office geology. He also discusses how plate techtonics does not answer all the questions in geology and notes how earth crustal hot spots occur.
This is a very good read.
~2019-08-23~

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