Customer Reviews

Regolith, Soils and Landforms

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The publisher should've had the contents up and running by now. Here you have it:
Outline of regolith studies, Intro to weathering, Mechanisms of weathering, Mineral and rock weathering, Hydrology and regolith, Landforms and surficial sediments, Slopes and plains, Soils, Applied soil studies, Duricrusts stratigraphy and the age of the regolith, Tectonics and models of landscape evolution, Ores and geochemical exploration, Techniques, Regolith maps, The big picture: regolith in the geosystem.

Ollier and Pain succeed in bringing attention to the entire mantle, or regolith, that covers bedrock. That is, soil, weathered rock (saprolite), residuum, transported surficial sediment, and chemical products. Essentially this is a complete reworking of the now dated title WEATHERING.
The economic importance of regolith studies in Australia has paid off for mining concerns. But the authors include much here for pedologists, geographers, and sedimentary geologists working in arid and semi-arid environments. I liked their concept of 'whole continent' evolutionary geomorphology (p 274) which was introduced previously in ANCIENT LANDFORMS.


Try REGOLITH GEOLOGY AND GEOMORPHOLOGY to round out the coverage of a resource being destroyed faster than it's created.

In my opinion, this is one of the better books available for soil scientists, geomorphologists, and engineering geologists who need a good desk reference book on soil pedogenesis and landforms. The only weakness is the dearth of discussion on landslides and their role in landscape development.