17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bretz's Flood: An outrageous hypothesis proves true, June 22, 2009
This review is from: Bretz's Flood: The Remarkable Story of a Rebel Geologist and the World's Greatest Flood (Hardcover)
Bretz's Flood: The Remarkable Story of a Rebel Geologist and the World's Greatest Flood. By John Soennichsen (Sasquatch Books, 2008, 290 pp.)
John Soennichsen has written a colorful geological detective story featuring a Michigan farm boy born Harley Bretz, who changed his name to J Harlen Bretz and, under that name, became the University of Chicago's legendary Professor of Geology.
Bretz, when fortyish, under took to explain the origin of what he called the 'channeled scablands' around Spokane, Washington. To explain the mystery, Bretz adopted T. C. Chamberlin's 'Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses', marshalling every hypothesis that he or others could devise, then going out in the field to look for features that negated them. One negation, and that hypothesis was discarded. Amazingly, every hypothesis failed, if based on Geology's revered dictum of 'Uniformitarianism', namely, the 'present is the key to the past.' Left standing was what he himself called an 'outrageous hypothesis'. The channeled scablands had been formed by a flood of a magnitude never before witnessed on Earth!
Geologists, particularly those from the U. S. Geological Survey, attacked Bretz and his sacred-cow-slaying theory to the extent that Bretz nearly suffered a nervous breakdown. From James Gilluly the words "preposterous", "incompetent" and "wholly inadequate" crackled in the air. Bretz challenged the doubters to go into the field and check for themselves. This fell on deaf ears until finally Gilluly did what Bretz asked. After that Gilluly had the grace to say of himself: "How could anybody have been so wrong?"
Aerial photos of Mars, taken in 1971 by the Mariner 9 spacecraft were identical to aerial photos taken of the channeled scablands. Bretzian floods had once occurred on Mars!
in 1979 the farm boy from Michigan received the Geological Society of America's highest award the Penrose Medal. Still feisty at 97, he complained all his enemies were dead. There was no one to gloat over.
And why have I told you this? Bretz was my hero. In 1939 as a 19-year-old freshman I took Bretz's course in geology and found his presentation so fascinating that I changed my major from English to geology. And while I was a soldier overseas, he was the only professor who wrote letters to me. Moreover even while I was a freshman he predicted I'd be a famous geologist and I've tried to live up to that prediction (not in geology but in mineralogy).
F. Donald Bloss
Alumni Distinguished Professor Emeritus
Geosciences, Virginia Tech
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Channeled Scablands and the Spokane Flood, April 2, 2009
This review is from: Bretz's Flood: The Remarkable Story of a Rebel Geologist and the World's Greatest Flood (Hardcover)
Engagingly-written account of the maverick geologist who rocked his world in the 1920s with theories of how the "channeled scablands" of eastern Washington came to be. J Harlen Bretz spent 10 summers with graduate students mapping and writing about the area. For his trouble, he earned the scorn of the USGS for having stepped outside of uniformitarian orthodoxy. The catastrophe he proposed had scoured the "frosting" of loess (wind-driven soil) off thousands of square miles of land now making up the Quincy Basin and surrounding land. Much later in his career, he settled on Lake Missoula as the source of the tremendous volume of water responsible for carving out the dramatic coulees and cataracts.
Soennichsen gives us a self-confident professor greatly loved by his students and very effective in his Socratic method of teaching. Bretz was also a family man who enjoyed 66 years with his "Fanny Girl." An atheist who worshiped nature, it was one of the ironies of his life that his theory was at first rejected because it seemed to support the Noahic flood. Not until 1979 when he was in his 90s was he finally awarded the Penrose Medal, the GSA's most prestigious award.
This book will be enjoyed by geologist and layman alike. All those interested in the Ice Age Floods Geological Trail announced by President Obama in March of 2009 will want to get this book.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gives the reader a solid understanding of the event, and of the man who unraveled the mystery, November 4, 2008
This review is from: Bretz's Flood: The Remarkable Story of a Rebel Geologist and the World's Greatest Flood (Hardcover)
Author Soennichsen brings to this work both the science of a significant geologic event and his considerable skills as a biographer. The result is a captivating account of J. Harlan Bretz's lifelong determination to convince a doubting scientific establishment that one of the postulates of their field was in error - that the earth's physical condiditon today could result at least in part from a catclysmic event, rather than only from predictable slow processes. While I knew the story of the event well from other readings (particularly David Alt), Soennichsen brought to me the character of the man who withstood the barbs and arrows of doubt and lived to see vindication.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
