A guide to more than six hundred specimens includes detailed descriptions and illustrations.
This updated identification guide incorporates advances in the geological sciences and nomenclature since its 1999 publication as Cambridge Guide to Minerals, Rocks and Fossils (Cambridge U. Press). Well-illustrated entries on minerals and rocks include details on their distinguishing features, properties, field occurrence, and safe collecting. Information on how fossils are formed and why they are studied introduce representative types. The reference includes a geological timescale and further reading. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
A detailed and extensively illustrated handbook.
The colors, shapes and properties of minerals vary from the bland to the magnificent. Guide to Minerals, Rocks and Fossils is a practical and authoritative handbook that is both comprehensive and easy to use.
Each of the 600 specimens is shown in full color, sometimes in two or more forms. There are also drawings that show the structure of the crystalline specimens. It covers the basics like granite, as well as oddities like meteorites and tektites.
Fossils include sponges, corals, arthropods, brachiopods, and fossil land plants.
Each is described in detail, with notes on:
- color and transparency
- grain size
- hardness
- structure
- occurrence
- mineralogy
- distinguishing features
- habit
- cleavage
- texture
- alteration
- luster
Mineral names, chemical formulae and structural data accord to international standards. This is a very complete, but attractive and useful volume in a respected series.
Illustrated, descriptive guide to minerals, rocks and fossils from all over the world.
