For example, she brings up (as monotonically do so many other books) the unconformity at Siccar Point, Scotland (figure 1), and how it ‘confirmed’ to James Hutton that the earth must be very old. The author effortlessly confuses observation and interpretation whenever she discusses geology. About the only positive feature of this book is the recognition that the crystals in pegmatites can grow at rates of inches per year. This comes out to a 1 cm crystal grown from the magma in 1–12 days. (Throughout my years of undergraduate geology training, I was taught, as indisputable fact, that millions of years are necessary for crystals in a cooling magma to grow to macroscopic size.) In contrast, a cited study 1 arrives at galloping crystal growth rates of 10 -6 cm/sec to 10 -5 cm/sec. Rapidly crystallized macroscopic igneous mineralsĪbout the only positive feature of this book is the recognition that the crystals in pegmatites can grow at rates of inches per year (p.

She also throws in some jibes against creationist scientists, including her dislike of creationist uses of evidences that support the creationist position. The latter includes her prejudices against fracking, which features an uncritical repetition of claims about the alleged environmental damage that it causes. With this, the author attempts to connect historical geology with her obvious climate change and environmentalist agendas.

This lite book is a rather superficial overview of natural history, as viewed through the lenses of the evolutionary-uniformitarian paradigm. Marcia Bjornerud is identified as professor of geology and environmental studies at Lawrence University. Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2018 Rigid uniformitarianism and a hysterical fear of the scientific creationist bogeymanĪ review of Timefulness: How thinking like a geologist can help save the world

Timefulness by marcia bjornerud