地質学

「土」を掘るのを仕事にしている。こう言うと、何を好き好んで土なんて掘っているのかと思われるかもしれない。家や道をつくるためでもなければ、徳川埋蔵金を捜すためでも……ない。100億人を養ってくれる、肥沃な土を探すためだ。

２０１１年の東日本大震災によって、日本列島は地震や火山噴火が頻発する「大地変動の時代」に入った。これから日本列島は大変な局面を迎える。

With 1350 active volcanoes on Earth and 50-70 erupting annually, this volume delves beneath the surface, explaining what makes these natural forces tick. Volcanoes: What Everyone Needs to Know guides the listener through one of nature's most fascinating and powerful forces, explaining...

Around 30 years ago, two things happened that were to revolutionize the understanding of our home planet. First, geologists realized that the continents themselves were drifting across the surface of the globe and that oceans were being created and destroyed. Secondly, pictures of the entire...

"[An] extraordinary book . . . Mr. Gould is an exceptional combination of scientist and science writer . . . He is thus exceptionally well placed to tell these stories, and he tells them with fervor and intelligence."-James Gleick, New York Times Book Review High in the Canadian Rockies is a...

In this Very Short Introduction audiobook, Jan Zalasiewicz gives a brief introduction to the fascinating field of geology. Describing how the science developed from its early beginnings, he looks at some of the key discoveries that have transformed it before delving into its various subfields...

How well do you know the ground beneath your feet? A primer for every Earth resident, by Harvard’s acclaimed geologist. “A sublime chronicle of our planet."" –Booklist, STARRED review Odds are, where you’re standing was once cooking under a roiling sea of lava, crushed by a towering...

Over 4.5 billion years, Earth's climate has transformed tremendously. Before our more temperate recent past, the planet swung from one extreme to another-from a greenhouse world of sweltering temperatures and high sea levels to a "snowball earth" in which glaciers reached the equator. During...

Spanning millennia and continents, here is a stunningly revealing history of how the distribution of water has shaped human civilization. Boccaletti, of The Nature Conservancy, “tackles the most important story of our time: our relationship with water in a world of looming scarcity” (Kelly...

A herd of bison standing in the snow. Layered bluffs of multicolored sandstone. A silver Airstream trailer on a mountain highway. These are familiar sights for Neil Mathison and his wife, Susan. Newly retired, their son in college, they embark upon a great American road trip "uncoupled from the...

Few of us have any conception of the enormous timescales in our planet's long history, and this narrow perspective underlies many of the environmental problems we are creating for ourselves. The passage of nine days, which is how long a drop of water typically stays in Earth's atmosphere, is...

New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice A riveting narrative about the biggest earthquake in North American recorded history—the 1964 Alaska earthquake that demolished the city of Valdez and swept away the island village of Chenega—and the geologist who hunted for clues to explain how...

An engaging natural and cultural history of soil that sweeps from ancient civilizations to modern times, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations explores the compelling idea that we are, and have long been, using up Earth's soil.

The author of Cod and The Basque History of the World takes an extraordinary look at an ordinary substance — salt, the only rock humans eat — and how it has shaped civilization from the very beginning....

Scientists have long attempted to understand Earth’s past, and in service to that effort, they have divided the world’s history into eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages. For example, the current eon is called the Phanerozoic Eon, which means “visible life”....

In Whispers from Hollow Earth, Book 3 of The Hidden Bloodlines of Bigfoot series, author Shawn Thomas takes you deep into high-altitude mysteries, vanishing trails, and unexplained silence that seem to echo from within the Earth itself.

The thrilling story of the charismatic explorer who Simon Bolivar called "the true discoverer of South America" and the daring expedition that altered the course of science....

From the author of Apocalyptic Planet, an unsparing, vivid, revelatory travelogue through prehistory that traces the arrival of the First People in North America 20,000 years ago....

It is hard to imagine that the busy townscape of South London was once a great wood, stretching almost seven miles from Croydon to Deptford or that, scattered through the suburbs, from Dulwich to Norwood, a number of oak woodlands have survived since before the Norman Conquest. These woods were...

A gripping history of the polar continent, from the great discoveries of the 19th century to modern scientific breakthroughs....