Canada Rocks: The Geologic Journey (Paperback)

by Nick Eyles (Author), Andrew Miall (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"Every page of the volume sparkles with information and entertainment. . . Just reading the captions in this profusely illustrated volume provides an education in the geological forces that have shaped our land for four billion years."
From "The Year's best Science books" - The Toronto Star

"The spectacular geological diversity that constitutes what we call Canada is captured in photography (some of it quite stunning), charts, maps and sketches. Meteorites, climate change, glaciers - they're all here, in layman's language."
-- The Globe and Mail

"What a labour of love is this meaty geologic journal of Canada. . . This weighty tome is a must-have reference text for anyone curious about the country's geological makeup. Of particular interest to Albertans is the book's no-nonsense treatment of mining and the oilsands resources of Western Canada."
-- Alberta Country Magazine

"Canada Rocks is a valuable reference work, illustrated with more than 500 maps, photos, and charts, and should be of use to the general reader for its clearly written explanations of why things are the way they are. . . For a better understanding of the country we live in, or of our own neighbourhoods, Canada Rocks is a valuable guide to the land around us, and to our own history."
-- The Chronicle-Journal (Thunder Bay, ON)

"This is a book that should be in every Canadian household. It presents the science of geology and the geology of Canada in a very colourful and easy to understand fashion, a feat never before accomplished. I have no doubt that any geologist who flips through the book will not be able to resist the urge to purchase it. It is the ideal source book for a basic understanding of the geology of every region of Canada and it may well inspire young people to pursue a career of studying Canadian rocks. We owe Eyles and Miall a debt of thanks for portraying our science and our rocks in such a fine fashion."
-- Reservoir the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists magazine

"Canada Rocks is at once a beautiful and well-illustrated coffeetable-quality paperback, and a dense and ponderous college-level text. Its attraction, however, is in the sheer range of its palette -- four billion years and counting."
-- The StarPhoenix, Saskatoon

"I really enjoyed this book. I caught up on topics that I have not thought about since my undergraduate degree, and I learned new things about climate and recent earthquakes. I enjoyed the sections on how geology and humans interact. Historical snapshots help bring the science alive. Almost everyone could find something to enjoy in this book, and it will give students and amateur geologists an important entry point into the fascinating story of Canada's past."
-- Arctic Magazine

Product Description
For anyone curious about the geological history of our country, Canada Rocks is a marvelous portrait of what the authors describe as the incredible 4 billion year 'construction project' that gave shape to the continents, mountains, and oceans of planet Earth, and created the world's second largest country - Canada.

Profusely illustrated throughout with full colour and black and white photographs, charts, maps, graphs and sketches, the book explores the country from north to south, and from east to west, exploring that incredible history through modern day sites and land shapes created in our distant past.

Read about:

• Rocks in Point Pleasant Park in Halifax were once part of Morocco, left behind when the Atlantic Ocean came into being.

• Canada's Arctic regions were formerly part of what today is Siberia. Greenland was once a part of Labrador.

• Fossils in a road cut in Cache Creek, British Columbia once lived in a sea that covered China.

• The violent collisions of continents and other land masses, the growth and decay of enormous mountain ranges, the impact of meteorites, and the comings and goings of vast ice sheets are explored in fascinating detail, as is the creation of our rocky resources from coal to diamonds.

An essential reference for students and anyone fascinated with the geological forces that created our country, the book includes a great many sites that can be visited for close-up study, making it an invaluable field guide for exploring our history and the world around us.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 450 pages
• Publisher: Fitzhenry and Whiteside; 1 edition (October 22, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1550418602
• ISBN-13: 978-1550418606
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #804,998 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We live on the United Plates of Canada, April 3, 2008

By	Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

What is now "North America" has had a long, nomadic career. To palaeogeologists, "North America" began forming about 2.7 billion years ago as part of a large landform known as "Kenorland". Kenorland was well south of the Equator at the time - in fact it seems to have partly enclosed the South Pole. From that distant beginning, "Kenorland" was joined by other continents, notably Europe, Australia, Siberia and "Baltica" to form a supercontinent geologists call Rodinia. Over time, and renamed "Laurentia", the landmass was pushed across the face of the globe in a northwesterly direction. It is still moving.

Nick Eyles and Andrew Miall have chronicled the movements of our mobile foundation in this stunning volume. Superbly written and lavishly illustrated, the authors explain why Canada's situation brought it to the forefront of geologic science. Nearly everything that is known about plate tectonics, in both a broad view and in countless details is found here. As they note, many Canadian geologists have been in the lead in understanding and explaining how the Earth functions.

Although at first glance, this book appears to be a textbook on geology, "Canada Rocks" is far from that. The title, of course, is the first indication this is going to be a book for everybody. Is "Rocks" a noun or a verb? Well, yes. The first two chapters depict the formation of our planet and what forces are involved in shaping it. They show how continental plates are formed and explain why it's important to understand that. It is an ideal introduction to what follows. The third chapter presents the formation and movements of the first continents and supercontinents and how we know of their former existence. "Former" is important, because those land masses laid down the base on which we stand.

The "Canadian" Shield is the visible surface for this continent. Stretching across vast expanse, from the Arctic into northern Mexico, it overlies the "North American Craton" of deeper, older rock formations. That craton comprised the proto-continent Laurentia driven over the globe by spreading oceans. As it travelled, it encountered other landmasses at its edges, making new supercontinents before breaking off on another phase of its journey. Over 600 million years ago, Laurentia broke free for a time. Its new freedom carried a price - the wearing down of old mountains and the intrusion of a massive sea. Shallow and warm, that sea was invested with life, leaving an extensive fossil record.

Laurentia wasn't finished, however. Forces pushing it about on the globe were being applied everywhere in varying degrees. Eastern Canada was built when the Atlantic Ocean's central rift pushed it away from Europe and Africa. The map of the Atlantic coast of North America resembles a patchwork quilt of formations originating far from their present location. The breakup of Pangaea by the Atlantic Ocean wasn't as "clean" as today's shorelines suggest. The eastern region resulted from pieces of many continental plates broken off and interspersed with other bits arriving later. It is in describing this melange that the authors introduce John Tuzo Wilson, the pioneer who first recognised what bizarre patterns of trilobite fossils implied. In a similar manner, western Canada, today a glorious visage from any vantage point, was "built" by the arrival of several smaller land bodies. Geologists in the 19th Century wondered why mollusc and other sealife fossils were appearing in rocks 500 kilometres from any coast. Later analysis indicated they had arrived from far out in the Pacific many millions of years ago. "Sub-continents" Wrangellia and Stikinia rammed into the western edge of the Craton, pushing up mountains and delivering the fossils to locations now far inland.

The authors further explain how all this geologic activity has meaning for us today. Gold and other precious metals are exploited and a new diamond industry is emerging. Mining is a major Canadian industry, but not all of it is due to shifting continents. Sudbury, Ontario, is home to several mining companies, which are utilising a resource delivered from space. All that nickel, copper and zinc arrived in a meteorite smacking the Craton over a billion years ago. The ice sheets pushed Canadian topsoil into what is now the United States, but they also formed the seaway that lets the agricultural and mining products float to the sea instead of travelling overland.

While all this information and depictions of movement over time may sound intimidating, the authors have put a great deal of effort into making it understandable. The illustrations, whether drawings or photographs, provide excellent supportive material. Each chapter has a useful "Further Readings" appended, allowing the reader to expand on what's been learned. This is more than merely an explanation of how Canada and the rest of North America formed. It's a knowledge investment any family will benefit from. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Excellent photography, sketchy details, January 14, 2008

By	Michael Pettitt - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I love this book. It has detailed information on Canada's physical environment that would be hard to match anywhere else. However, there are a number of typos (mis-spelling Silurian, for example) which suggest it was put together in haste. Some inaccuracies as well: on page 295 is a picture of Mt Yamnuska, demonstrating the McConnell thrust fault which has Cambrian carbonates overlying Cretaceous shales and sandstones (75 million years old) [...]. The caption below the photograph tells the reader the shales are Jurassic, which is incorrect. There is also a reference to a drumlin field near Livingstone lake in Saskatchewan, claimed to be in Alberta.
I shudder to think what else is wrong with this work. I would advise anyone planning to purchase this book to wait for a later edition which hopefully will correct these problems.
Otherwise, however, this is an excellent source of information for those who know their geology a little bit, and the photographs are superb!

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Canada Rocks: The Geologic Journey , January 14, 2008

By	Jeff Binder "terra ferma" (overland park,KS) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is an outstanding overview of the geology and the impact of the geologic conditions in Candada.