Markes E. Johnson is the Charles L. MacMillan Professor of Natural Science Emeritus at Williams College. His most recent book is Baja California’s Coastal Landscapes Revealed: Excursions in Geologic Time and Climate Change (2021).
Islands in Deep Time is a deep dive into the logic of geology: how vanished land- and seascapes can be conjured back into existence from the raw rock record. All geologists collect old rocks, but Markes Johnson collects entire ancient islands. This book is an exhibit of a dozen particularly fine specimens, which Johnson holds up and rotates so they can be viewed from multiple perspectives. -- Marcia Bjornerud, author of <i>Geopedia: A Brief Compendium of Geologic Curiosities</i> and <i>Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World</i> Using his lifetime of experience in geology, Johnson illustrates how a landscape can be read as the results of millions of years of geological, biological, and climatological processes. A fascinating and imaginative work. -- Henry Hooghiemstra, emeritus professor in the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam Islands in Deep Time takes readers on hikes to ancient shorelines, featuring possibly the best descriptions and visualizations of field locations I have ever read. -- Gordon Chancellor, coeditor of <i>Charles Darwin's Notebooks from the Voyage of the</i> Beagle [A…] geological tour de force. * Deposits Magazne *