A Tectonic History of the Earth

Graham Park is a veteran of several textbooks.For more than a decade, I assigned his text "Foundations of Structural Geology" to my undergraduate students and so I am aware of his impressive skills of being able to present difficult concepts and distill the information that separates the wheat from the chaff.His direct and focused writing style is ideally suited for a textbook in structural geology where the foundational concepts are reasonably well understood, enabling the course instructor to build on that foundation by selecting topics of their choice to embellish the course content.The very economic and linear writing style of that textbook was very popular with students.When I was asked to review this book, my expectation was that if anyone could tackle the monumental task of writing a book on the tectonic history of the Earth, Park would be my best bet.I was also curious how his writing style would translate to the field of tectonics in which many foundational concepts, such as when modern-style plate tectonics began on Earth, are debated.My high expectations have been exceeded.I strongly recommend this book for all engaged in tectonics research from the newly minted graduate student to the most wrinkled professor.The text benefits from the same economic, linear writing style that characterizes "Foundations".As such, it provides the foundational knowledge that would underpin many future research topics in tectonic processes and provides a global context for those working on more focused topics within specific orogenic belts.Thus, this book would be a valuable starting point for virtually any subject that the researcher would want to explore.The trade-off for a parsimonious writing style is that many concepts are presented and explained briefly.Also, the reader may not agree with all its contents but, as I used to tell my students, in those disagreements lie the seeds of future research topics.If I were to teach a graduate course on tectonics, I would definitely assign this as a textbook.On specific topics where I would want to foster debate in the class, I would bolster its content with papers from the literature that advocate contrasting models or approaches.As I started to compile a list of such papers, I noted that several were recommended by the author as "Additional References".The book has eleven chapters, arranged in time sequence, starting with the birth of planet Earth (chapter 1) and concluding with a speculative chapter on Earth's future (chapter 11).Each chapter is lavishly illustrated with coloured figures.In most chapters, these illustrations are tectonic reconstructions, including palaeogeographic maps and cross-sections, and some photographs of rocks and field relationships.