Sand: The Never-Ending Story - Couverture souple

Welland, Michael

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0520265971 ISBN 13 : 9780520265974

Editeur : University of California Press, 2009

Synopsis

From individual grains to desert dunes, from the bottom of the sea to the landscapes of Mars, and from billions of years in the past to the future, this is the extraordinary story of one of nature's humblest, most powerful, and most ubiquitous materials. Told by a geologist with a novelist's sense of language and narrative, "Sand" examines the science - sand forensics, the physics of granular materials, sedimentology, paleontology and archaeology, planetary exploration - and at the same time explores the rich human context of sand. Interwoven with tales of artists, mathematicians, explorers, and even a vampire, the story of sand is an epic of environmental construction and destruction, an adventure in staggering scales of time and distance, yet a tale that encompasses the ordinary and everyday. Sand, in fact, is all around us - it has made possible our computers, buildings and windows, toothpaste, cosmetics, and paper, and it has played dramatic roles in human history, commerce, and imagination. In this luminous, kinetic, revelatory account, we do indeed find the world in a grain of sand.

A propos du livre

À propos de l?auteur

Michael Welland is a geologist who has worked around the world in the energy industry. He is a fellow of the Geological Societies of America and London and the Royal Society for the Arts and Commerce.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: University of California Press
• Date d'édition: 2009
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0520265971
• ISBN 13: 9780520265974
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 360
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible