Publishers Weekly
06/10/2024
In this stimulating blend of memoir and science, Bjornerud (Geopedia), a geology professor at Lawrence University, meditates on the rock formations she’s encountered throughout her life and what they reveal about natural and human history. She recounts traveling to the Canadian Arctic to study turbidites (“distinctive, repetitively layered, sedimentary rocks” that form around the edges of continental shelves) and describes how in the 1960s, research on such rocks led to the discovery that mountains are created by continental collisions. Other chapters focus on humanity’s relationship with the land, as when Bjornerud laments how oil companies have destroyed farmland around her northwestern Wisconsin hometown by mining it for sandstone, which they use to prop open underground fissures in fracking operations. Bjornerud’s distinctive perspective encourages readers to view rocks as active protagonists in Earth’s history. She notes, for instance, that surging basalt lava flows 250 million years ago expelled huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and triggered the largest mass extinction the planet has ever experienced. Throughout, the lithe prose impresses (she writes of the sandstone-lined creeks she frequented as a child, “Great cascading icicles would form on the banks, some like stately architectural colonnades, others suggesting the fangs of monstrous creatures”). It’s a remarkably human take on the geological world. Agent: Eric Henney, Brockman, Inc. (Aug.)
From the Publisher
"Marcia Bjornerud masterfully weaves together the story of her own life and that of the Earth's long, often tumultuous history. “Turning to Stone” is a beautiful book — at once intimate and sweeping, informative and moving."
— Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky
“This lyrical, wise book will change your relationship to the living Earth. Marcia Bjornerud offers a nuanced celebration of the languages of stone, from the subtle whispers of sand grains to the delightfully complex inner lives of mountains disclosed by eroding outcrops. Her careful attention not only reveals unexpected stories of stone, but teaches us what it means to be boundlessly curious and caring about our world and one another.”
— David George Haskell, author of Sounds Wild and Broken
"Marcia Bjornerud has done it again! With flowing grace, technical mastery, and poetic insight, she takes us on a geological odyssey across the vastness of deep time and to the literal ends of the Earth. Turning to Stone interweaves the profound testimony of ancient rocks—granite, basalt, sandstone, and flint—with her inspiring personal journey from curious youth to avid student, from struggling junior faculty member to master field geologist and revered educator. In the process, we share in the eventful, poignant life journey of a gifted scientist who has gained the expertise and nurtured the passion to share astonishing stories of Earth in a unique and timeless book."
— Robert Hazen, author of The Story of Earth
