Customer Reviews

The Geochemistry of Natural Waters: Surface and Groundwater Environments (3rd Edition)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I suspect regarding some of the negative (1 star) reviews this book has received a bit of guerrilla marketing.

This is an excellent text on the subject and easy to read. It is far less confusing than most texts on the subject and makes a perfect text for upper undergraduate or graduate level geochem classes. It's a shame it is out of print at the moment. For presenting geochem in an understandable light, it is far Superior to some of the more popular texts.

It is unfortunate that acceptable texts in this subject for the advanced undergraduate or graduate have become so hard to find. If Drever comes back into print, I would recommend giving it a good look.

BTW, this is not a "do it yourself" book as some may surmise, it is a text that, while easy to understand, is best with a professor/staff/faculty member as a guide.

Drever's has long been a valuable reference in my own work and in the classes I teach. It is one of several references I use for understanding geochemical processes. The first sentence of the preface states that the text is intended for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate courses. I first used this text when I took Aqueous Geochem in grad school and it really made a difference in understanding applications. Spend an hour with Stumm and Morgan and then look at Drever. You'll almost see the lightbulb go on over your head. The example calculations are great and the addition of the geochemical models enhance the applicability of the text.

However, I would note that if you need to start with introductory chemical concepts this isn't the book for you.

If you are weak in chemistry start elsewhere.

Still... two thumbs up from this reviewer.

I had used this text book for a graduate class in Chemical Hydrogeology while doing my Masters. I found this to be a very poor text to use. The textbook presents a very qaulitative approach to geochemistry of natural waters and does not lend itself to quanititative problem solving. I purchased other texts on ths subject so that I could cross-reference and determine how to setup problems for equilibrium chemistry. I would not recommend use of this text.

This book does not lend itself to an introductory class in geochemistry for the graduate student. The material does not present comprehensive derivations of calculations, but relies on prior knowledge and assumption not generally available,or known by the graduate student first being introduced to Geochemistry. The majority of the book is normally only comprehensable to the student after the material has been described by persons knowledgable in the subject mater. In other word this book is worthless to read prior to the lecture on the subject mater. Furthermore, the appendices are full of errors and contradictions to other references, and the book has numerous typos and difficult language constructs that make the text incomprehensible at times. I hope there is a better book for the introductory graduate class in geochemistry out there, because this book does not cut it.

Libro muy sencillo de leer y sus ejemplos son muy didacticos

This book fails to explain topics in a manner suitable for beginners in this field. I recomend choosing any other book over this one.