Book review: Vertebrate Palaeontology (2nd edn) by Michael J. Benton, Chapman and Hall, London, 1996. No. of pages: 452. Price £24.99 (paperback). ISBN 0-412-54010-x. Biotic Recovery from Mass Extinction Events edited by M. B. Hart, Geological Society Special Publication No. 102, Geological Society, London. No. of pages: 392. Price: £79.00 (hardback). ISBN 1-897799-45-4.

✍ Scribed by C. Underwood; D. K. Williamson

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 64 KB
• Volume: 33
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0072-1050
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1034(199807/09)33:3<195::aid-gj764>3.0.co;2-o

✦ Synopsis

how they are analysed in the ®eld, theories for their formation and evolution. Thrust faults, normal faults and strike-slip faults all have their own special features and problems. A chapter on folds is followed by a chapter on cleavage, foliation and lineation. Shear zones follow and then, moving up-scale, plate tectonics is presented illustrating its links to structural geology. In Part III of the book, we step away from interpretation and gain a thorough grounding in how to actually record structural data whilst undertaking ®eld study. This is useful, limited only by the fact that there is no substitute for actual ®eld-based training to learn how to work in the ®eld. This brief summary disguises the depth in which each topic is treated Ð the book has 776 pages! It forms a ®ne introductory text for undergraduates but is equally viable as a reference text for many aspects of structural geology. It is focused more on `structural geology' than the closely related but (arguably) larger scale subject of tectonics. For example, one will not read this text for an integrated view on how orogens evolve (even if such a view exists), but would certainly appreciate how structural data and interpretation feed into such tectonic issues. However, what this book sets out to do is achieved with clarity, depth, style and humour.