Geology of the Glen Shee district by A. Crane, S. Goodman, S. Krabbendam, A. C. Leslie, I. B. Patterson, S. Robertson and K. E. Rollin, Memoir of the British Geological Survey for 1:50,000 Geological Sheet 56W together with adjacent parts of sheets 55E, 65W and 64E (Scotland). The Stationery Office, London, 2002. No. of pages: 131 (soft covers). ISBN 0 11884546 2

✍ Scribed by Jack Treagus

• Book ID: 102222447
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 38 KB
• Volume: 40
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0072-1050
• DOI: 10.1002/gj.982

✦ Synopsis

Many of these essayists emphasize how a new breed of Earth scientist emerged through this revolution-indeed, made it possible. These were geophysicists with backgrounds in geology as well as physics, and geologists with some understanding of geophysics-and essentially, each saw the need to collaborate with the other. Dan Mackenzie and Tanya Atwater make the case for this synergy with eloquence.

But this collection is not just an historical or nostalgic exercise. Most of the essays have points to make about the present state of the Earth sciences, and their future. In this context John Dewey and Peter Molnar make timely contributions. Dewey largely reiterates points from his retiring presidential address to the Geological Society, and they are no less relevant or important for being repeated. Molnar's contribution lurches close to polemic, but is a singularly pithy analysis of our current malaise. As more than one essayist points out, much of the research that led to this revolution was 'curiosity driven'. Getting it funded today through NERC, NSERC or the NSF would be near impossible. It had no immediate commercial or industrial application, and industrial funding was conspicuous by its total absence. Most of the ocean mapping, whether at Lamont-Doherty, Scripps, Woods Hole, Princeton or Cambridge, was funded by the US Office of Naval Research-military funding that in our enlightened times would be considered highly suspect. Maurice Ewing's obsession with data collection and archiving would raise more than a few peer-reviewing eyebrows today, yet his archive of bathymetric and geophysical data from the ocean basins, stored and curated at Lamont, became an invaluable and unique resource once the ability to interpret this data existed. Try floating the idea of such an archive today and getting it funded and adequately staffed by any research institution, be it in government, universities or the private sector. Blessedly absent too was the micro-managing that is reducing our modern universities to self-justifying bureaucratic sclerosis.

This book manages to be an entertaining, enlightening and provocative read. It should be of interest to anyone concerned about the recent history, the present state, and future of the Earth sciences.