Today, knowing your gems, being absolutely sure about what you are buying and selling is essential. Major changes in the gem world - new synthetic stones, new treatments to enchance and conceal, new gems and more stones available in every hue and tone of colour - make accurate gem identification more important than ever to both buyers and sellers. family-run business, someone who enjoys collecting or acquiring gems for personal pleasure, or a seriouos investor, insufficient knowledge can be costly. It can result in a bad purchase, damage to a reputation, and equally significant, failure to recognise and opportunity. learn to separate real from imitation, one look-alike from another, dyed from natural, and so on. Sometimes, just a basic knowledge of how to use a simple instrument is all that is needed to avoid an expensive mistake or recognise a profitable opportunity.

Become a whiz at finding Lake Superior agates! Keep this tabbed booklet close at hand on your next rock-hunting adventure. Based on Jim Magnuson’s Agate Hunting Made Easy and featuring the professional rock photography of Carol Wood, this guide helps to turn agate hunts into successful ones. You'll learn to pick up on those clues valuable to beginners and experts alike: Learn the common agate features to look for, see what rough agates look like in the field, recognize the different varieties of Lake Superior agates, and identify the agate imposters that might fool you. The easy-to-use format means you’ll quickly find what you need to know. Plus, the quick guide is much easier to use than laminated foldouts, and the tear-resistant pages help to make the book durable in the field.

Did you know culinary salt is the mineral halite? Or that the pigment vermillion is powdered cinnabar, a mineral whose name comes from the Persian for "dragon's blood"? Discover the extraordinary mineral treasures that form our planet and that today we use in everything, from makeup and cookery to agriculture and high-tech. Rocks and Minerals is your essential collector's companion, with illustrated entries on hundreds of minerals, gems, and rocks from actinium to zirconium. Its breathtaking array includes organic minerals, such as pearls and corals, as well as silicates and "native elements" like gold. Browse to find wonderful gems, including opals, or pyropes - a deep-red garnet the size of a hen's egg. Rocks and Minerals reveals each mineral's defining characteristics, and explains how and where they were formed, how they were first identified, their uses, and their chemical composition. Whether you are a geology student, or starting your own collection, this fact-packed book is both a fascinating read and an essential identification guide.

Rock physics encompasses practically all aspects of solid and fluid state physics. This book provides a unified presentation of the underlying physical principles of rock physics, covering elements of mineral physics, petrology and rock mechanics. After a short introduction on rocks and minerals, the subsequent chapters cover rock density, porosity, stress and strain relationships, permeability, poroelasticity, acoustics, conductivity, polarizability, magnetism, thermal properties and natural radioactivity. Each chapter includes problem sets and focus boxes with in-depth explanations of the physical and mathematical aspects of underlying processes. The book is also supplemented by online MATLAB exercises to help students apply their knowledge to numerically solve rock physics problems. Covering laboratory and field-based measurement methods, as well as theoretical models, this textbook is ideal for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in rock physics. It will also make a useful reference for researchers and professional scientists working in geoscience and petroleum engineering.

Clays and clay minerals are the most abundant natural reactive solids on the Earth's surface. This comprehensive review considers clay science in the context of the Critical Zone - the Earth's permeable near-surface layer. Providing information on clays and clay minerals related to geological, biological and material sciences in the Critical Zone, it's well suited for graduate students and researchers interested in clay science, and environmental and soil mineralogy. The book starts with an introduction to clays and clay minerals, their historic background, and a review of how clay science impacts the Critical Zone. Examples and applications demonstrate how clays regulate habitats and determine the availability of other resources. These examples are supported by quantitative field data, including numerical and graphical depictions of clay and clay mineral occurrences. The book concludes by covering Critical Zone clay geochemistry and clay sequences, including the industrial, synthetic medical and extra-terrestrial world of clay science.

This is the story of a single pebble. It is just a normal pebble, as you might pick up on holiday - on a beach in Wales, say. Its history, though, carries us into abyssal depths of time, and across the farthest reaches of space. This is a narrative of the Earth's long and dramatic history, as gleaned from a single pebble. It begins as the pebble-particles form amid unimaginable violence in distal realms of the Universe, in the Big Bang and in supernova explosions and continues amid the construction of the Solar System. Jan Zalasiewicz shows the almost incredible complexity present in such a small and apparently mundane object. Many events in the Earth's ancient past can be deciphered from a pebble: volcanic eruptions; the lives and deaths of extinct animals and plants; the alien nature of long-vanished oceans; and transformations deep underground, including the creations of fool's gold and of oil. Zalasiewicz demonstrates how geologists reach deep into the Earth's past by forensic analysis of even the tiniest amounts of mineral matter. Many stories are crammed into each and every pebble around us. It may be small, and ordinary, this pebble - but it is also an eloquent part of our Earth's extraordinary, never-ending story.

This is a richly illustrated reference book that provides a unique, comprehensive, and up-to-date survey of the rocks and structures of fault and shear zones. These zones are fundamental geologic structures in the Earth's crust. Their rigorous analysis is crucial to understanding the kinematics and dynamics of the continental and oceanic crust, the nature of earthquakes, and the formation of gold and hydrocarbon deposits. To document the variety of fault-related rocks, the book presents more than six hundred photographs of structures ranging in scale from outcrop to submicroscopic. These are accompanied by detailed explanations, often including geologic maps and cross sections, contributed by over 125 geoscientists from around the world.

The book opens with an extensive introduction by Arthur W. Snoke and Jan Tullis that is itself a major contribution to the field. Fault-related rocks and their origins have long been controversial and subject to inconsistent terminology. Snoke and Tullis address these problems by presenting the currently accepted ideas in the field, focusing on deformation mechanisms and conceptual models for fault and shear zones. They define common terminology and classifications and present a list of important questions for future research. In the main, photographic part of the book, the editors divide the contributions into three broad categories, covering brittle behavior, semi-brittle behavior, and ductile behavior. Under these headings, there are contributions on dozens of subtopics with photographs from localities around the world, including several "type" areas.

The book is an unrivaled source of information about fault-related rocks and will be important reading for a broad range of earth scientists, including structural geologists, petrologists, geophysicists, and environmental specialists.

Originally published in 1998.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Combining stunning photographs with expert knowledge, this book is a dazzling guide to precious stones, organic gems, and precious metals. Discover the intriguing stories of the world's most famous and fabulous gems, including the mysterious Hope Diamond, the stunning Koh-i-Noor of the Crown Jewels, and exquisite Fabergé eggs. Trace the history of gemmology, learn all about the key characteristics of precious and semi-precious stones, and discover the science behind some of their more unusual and mysterious properties. With a foreword by antiques expert Judith Miller, co-founder of Miller's Antiques Price Guide, and a regular presenter on BBC's The Antiques Roadshow, this sumptuous celebration of gems and jewels is guaranteed to bring sparkle to both your life and your library. Dive deep into the pages of this dazzling book on jewels to discover: - Hundreds of specially commissioned, spectacular photographs. - Intriguing features on the history of gemstones, and the fascinating real-life stories behind them. - Stunning photography showcases the brilliance of semi-precious and precious stones, minerals, and metals. - Fascinating features on the most famous (and infamous) gems, and on the history of gemmology. - Optional 80-page directory section Jewel is the ultimate guide to gemstones, jewels, and jewellery - combining mineralogy with culture, history, and symbolism, and proves the perfect addition to the library of jewel lovers of any ages. Whether you're interested in gems, jewellery, and making jewellery, or a student of gemmology or geology, this gorgeous gem gift book is sure to delight.

Everywhere in Yorkshire are clues to vanished worlds in the rocks, fossils and landforms. This accessible, well-illustrated book is a beautiful guide to the geology.

Beginner or expert, this is your guide to Lake Superior Agates. The book features four pages of photos and facts for every type of agate found in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and southern Ontario. The easy-to-use format means you'll quickly find what you need to know and where to look, while the authors' photographs depict the detail needed for identification - no need to guess from line drawings. Identify your finds quickly and easily with this all-in-one resource!

More than 60 million members of the species "felis domesticus" - house cats - live in the United States alone. Welcomed into homes as part of the family and revered as gods by the ancient Egyptians, domestic cats are descendants of a proud lineage that includes the giant sabre-toothed tiger, the graceful cheetah of the African plains, and the powerful bobcat of the Americas.;Acclaimed artist Mauricio Anton and renowned paleontologist Alan Turner collaborate to produce the first book of its kind - a fascinating natural history linking extinct larger feline species with those still living, including lions, tigers, cougars and cheetahs. Using superb illustrations and photos to supplement lucidly written text, "The Big Cats and Their Fossil Relatives" chronicles 25 million years of evolution, revealing the common ancestry of today's familiar big cats.;In addition to a compelling account of the evolution and anatomy of big cats past and present, "The Big Cats and Their Fossil Relatives" also explores the behaviour of these magnificent creatures. Living species and fossil remains make possible the reconstruction of the cats' social and predatory behaviour, supplementing the reader's unde

"The ultimate dino tour."--Library Journal, Best Reference 2019 "Perhaps the easiest way to glimpse . . . all this new knowledge is to leaf through Norell's The World of Dinosaurs. . . . One of the principal paleontologists of our time."--New York Review of Books "A delight."--Open Letters Review "Possibly the best general audience dinosaur book of 2019."--Paleoaerie Dinosaurs have held sway over our imaginations since the discovery of their bones first shocked the world in the nineteenth century. From the monstrous beasts stalking Jurassic Park to the curiosities of the natural history museum, dinosaurs are creatures that unite young and old in awestruck wonder. Digging ever deeper into dinosaurs' ancient past, science continues to unearth new knowledge about them and the world they inhabited, a fantastic time when the footprints of these behemoths marked the Earth that we humans now walk. Who better to guide us through this ancient world than paleontologist Mark A. Norell? A world-renowned expert in paleontology, with a knowledge of dinosaurs as deep as the buried fossils they left behind, Norell is in charge of what is perhaps America's most popular collection of dinosaur bones and fossils, the beloved displays at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In The World of Dinosaurs, he leads readers through a richly illustrated collection detailing the evolution of these ancient creatures. From the horns of the Protoceratops to the wings of the Archaeopteryx, readers are invited to explore profiles of dinosaurs along with hundreds of color photographs, sketches, maps, and other materials--all rooted in the latest scientific discoveries--sure to both capture the imagination and satisfy a prehistoric curiosity. The World of Dinosaurs presents an astonishing collection of knowledge in an immersive visual journey that will fascinate any fan of Earth's ancient inhabitants.

The characteristic landscape of the Lake District is influenced by its geology. The huge array of different rocks found there determines the shape and appearance of the fells and dales. Also, as the dominant building material in the region, rocks impact both the local architecture and the economy through quarrying. A simple easy-to-read guide to the rocks of the English Lake District, with nearly 200 colour illustrations including diagrams, maps and photographs, this book provides an understanding of the main types of rock and characterizes over sixty of the most common rocks. It describes where to find them and how to recognise them in the landscape. Details are given of the use of rocks in local buildings and how the rocks are still quarried today, and finally, their importance to the local economy.

From the outback of Australia to the Gobi Desert of Mongolia and the savanna of Madagascar, the award-winning science writer and dinosaur enthusiast John Pickrell embarks on a world tour of new finds, meeting the fossil hunters who work at the frontier of discovery. He reveals the dwarf dinosaurs unearthed by an eccentric Transylvanian baron; an aquatic, crocodile-snouted carnivore bigger than T. rex that once lurked in North African waterways; a Chinese dinosaur with wings like a bat; and a Patagonian sauropod so enormous it weighed more than two commercial jet airliners. Other surprising discoveries hail from Alaska, Siberia, Canada, Burma, and South Africa. Why did dinosaurs grow so huge? How did they spread across the world? Did they all have feathers? What do sauropods have in common with 1950s vacuum cleaners? The stuff of adventure movies and scientific revolutions, Weird Dinosaurs examines the latest breakthroughs and new technologies that are radically transforming our understanding of the distant past. Pickrell opens a vivid portal to a brand-new age of fossil discovery, in which fossil hunters are routinely redefining what we know and how we think about prehistory's most iconic and fascinating creatures.

How do planetary scientists analyze and interpret data from laboratory, telescopic, and spacecraft observations of planetary surfaces? What elements, minerals, and volatiles are found on the surfaces of our Solar System's planets, moons, asteroids, and comets? This comprehensive volume answers these topical questions by providing an overview of the theory and techniques of remote compositional analysis of planetary surfaces. Bringing together eminent researchers in Solar System exploration, it describes state-of-the-art results from spectroscopic, mineralogical, and geochemical techniques used to analyze the surfaces of planets, moons, and small bodies. The book introduces the methodology and theoretical background of each technique, and presents the latest advances in space exploration, telescopic and laboratory instrumentation, and major new work in theoretical studies. This engaging volume provides a comprehensive reference on planetary surface composition and mineralogy for advanced students, researchers, and professional scientists.

The Evolution of the Igneous Rocks, by N. L. Bowen, appeared in 1928 and had a profound influence on later generations of petrologists. Drawing on his series of lectures at Princeton University in the spring of 1927, Dr. Bowen identified, outlined, and applied the principles of physical chemistry relevant to petrological processes. Whereas the major petrochemical questions he discussed are still relevant today, the answers appear to change with time. The purpose of the present volume is to provide an updated view of those questions, in the light of almost fifty years of accumulated observations, using the principles Bowen set forth. Originally published in 1979. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In this attractively illustrated volume, eminent biologist Sir Richard Southwood offers a remarkable survey of life in all its forms, ranging from the earliest single-celled bacteria, to the evolution and extinction of animals such as the dinosaurs, to the variety of life today.
The book follows the major geological periods--such as the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, and Devonian--explaining how great planetary changes such as the movement of the continents, the rising and falling of sea level, and the periods of glaciation, affected the forms of life on Earth. Beginning with the earliest and simplest forms of life, Southwood discusses such amazing creatures as bacteria that live around geysers and thermal vents and can survive in boiling water. He explains how the development of skeletons triggered the Cambrian Explosion, when animals such as trilobites, sea scorpions, shellfish, cephalopods first spread around the earth. He also examines such landmarks of evolution as the appearance of eggs in shells and of insects in flight. We read about the great dinosaurs and the arrival of the mammals and the primates, and the great extinctions, including the Permian (the largest in fossil history, wiping out 95% of animals) and the Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) extinction (the one that wiped out the dinosaurs). Southwood concludes by examining the impact of humanity on Earth, considering if we ourselves might not unleash the next major extinction.
Southwood's love for his subject, for the life he describes so vividly, shines through this carefully crafted story. Generously illustrated with line drawings showing the fauna and flora of the Earth, both past and present, The Story of Life will enthrall anyone interested in nature and natural history.

A comprehensive pocket guide to dinosaurs and prehistoric animals and the world they inhabited millions of years ago. Packed with more than 700 full-colour illustrations, this definitive pocket guide paints a vivid portrait of extraordinary dinosaurs and prehistoric animals, and the ecosystems they lived in millions of years ago. Journey back in time and discover the incredible lives and habitats of dinosaurs, pterosaurs, marine reptiles, and prehistoric beasts. This fascinating guide explores every era of prehistoric life, from the Precambrian and Palaeozoic eras, when animals first began evolving to the Jurassic and Mesozoic era, which first saw the flourishing and then the eventual extinction of the dinosaurs. Learn more about prehistoric animals and the world they inhabited millions of years ago through detailed profiles of 200 dinosaurs and other ancestors of modern animals. These profiles are jargon-free and based on the latest science. This dinosaur encyclopedia is filled with crystal-clear artwork and photographs, fossils, and replica models showing the unique features of the different species. A Visual Guide to 200 Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals Part of the relaunched series of the popular DK Handbooks, this fact-filled book features a refreshed design and updated content. Packed with jaw-dropping images, fascinating dinosaur facts and straight-forward explanations, it's the perfect gift for budding palaeontologists of all ages or geology students. Inside the pages of this dinosaur encyclopedia from DK Books, you'll discover: - Maps indicating the location of where each animal's fossils have been found - Illustrations detailing the size of each animal in comparison to humans - Detailed, jargon-free profiles of 200 species with fun facts for quick reference

The Gulf of Mexico Basin is one of the most prolific hydrocarbon-producing basins in the world, with an estimated endowment of 200 billion barrels of oil equivalent. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the basin, spanning the US, Mexico and Cuba. Topics covered include conventional and unconventional reservoirs, source rocks and associated tectonics, basin evolution from the Mesozoic to Cenozoic Era, and different regions of the basin from mature onshore fields to deep-water subsalt plays. Cores, well logs and seismic lines are all discussed providing local, regional and basin-scale insights. The scientific implications of seminal events in the basin's history are also covered, including sedimentary effects of the Chicxulub Impact. Containing over 200 color illustrations and 50 stratigraphic cross-sections and paleogeographic maps, this is an invaluable resource for petroleum industry professionals, as well as graduate students and researchers interested in basin analysis, sedimentology, stratigraphy, tectonics and petroleum geology.

"Seit den vierziger Jahren des 19. Jahrhunderts wird die geologische Fazieskunde wissenschaftlich im strengsten Sinne des Wortes betrie- ben, doch findet man auffallenderweise auch heutzutage die groesste Unklarheit und Unordnung in den Methoden und die groessten Lucken bei den bisherigen Ergebnissen dieser Wissenschaft . . . Es bestehen nebeneinander die verschiedensten Angaben uber die Bildungsweise gewisser Schichten und man bringt tagtaglich neue Meinungen hervor, ohne die anderen zu widerlegen . . . Es ist hoechste Zeit, dass die Prinzi- pien der Faziesforschung eindeutig bestimmt werden und dass die um- fangreiche Literatur, die solche Fragen behandelt, revidiert werde. " Diese der "Geologischen Fazieskunde" von Laszlo Strausz (1928) vorangestellten Satze haben auch heute Gultigkeit. Dies gilt auch fur die vom Schliffbereich ausgehende Mikrofazies-Analyse von Karbonat- gesteinen. Auch hier bestehen methodische Schwierigkeiten, sind die Interpretationsmoeglichkeiten, bedingt durch den raschen Fortschritt der Paloekologie und der Karbonatsedimentologie, einem steten Wech- sel unterworfen, und fehlen zusammenfassende UEbersichten uber die aus verschiedenen Gebieten der Geowissenschaften stammende um- fangreiche Literatur. Das vorliegende Buch soll keine Synthese darstellen, sondern die derzeitigen Moeglichkeiten mikrofazieller Untersuchungen zeigen und auf sinnvolle neue Entwicklungen aufmerksam machen. Dies gilt so- wohl fur die Prazisierung von Mikrofazies-Typen und fur die auf diesen Typen aufgebauten Fazies-Modelle als auch fur die wechselseitigen Beziehungen zwischen biogenen und abiogenen Faktoren der Karbo- natsedimentation. Wesentliche Entwicklungsmoeglichkeiten bestehen fur Untersuchungen uber die Zusammenhange zwischen physikalischen Parametern von Karbonatgesteinen und Faziestypen und zwischen geochemischen Kriterien und in der Mikrofazies zum Ausdruck kom- menden sedimentaren und diagenetischen Merkmalen.