scmrak's Full Review: Darwin Spearing - Roadside Geology of Texas
Texas is a big place; a wayyyy big place. It's so big that it becomes difficult, oftentimes, to treat the state as if it were a single geographic entity. Therein lies the single biggest problem with Darwin Spearing's revised version of Roadside Geology of Texas (1991, Mountain Press).
The book is one of a series of reference volumes released by Mountain Press; other entries cover the geology visible out your car windows as you motor across such states as Utah, Kentucky, Massachusetts, or Colorado (I've already reviewed Halka Chronic's Roadside Geology of New Mexico, see http://www.epinions.com/content_32225201796 ); I have seven or so of them on my bookshelf. The series is, as a rule, quite good for a popular science overview. The science is presented in accessible language and the text is profusely illustrated; a necessity for a discipline that's highly visual. It rather pains me to suggest that this member of the series, though, is probably one of the least useful -- partly because I've known Dar Spearing off and on for about twenty years... but, then, it's not his fault.
A Daunting Task
Mountain Press allowed the first version of this book (written in 1979 by Robert Sheldon) go out of print in the 1980s. But, since Texas has lots of people, and tons of geologists -- that awl bidness thing -- the lack of a roadside book for the state was a glaring omission. They contracted with Darwin Spearing, then a geologist with Marathon Oil in Houston, to update the book. The revised version was released in 1991, a second printing was issued in 1992.
Now, except for Alaska, all the other states covered in this series are considerably smaller than Texas, and have lots less "roadside," as it were. Trying to write a "roadside" geology book for a state that has about 75,000 miles of paved roads (and thus 150,000 miles of roadside) was tough. Dar put his all into it, and the result is pleasant -- as far as it goes.
The Layout
The text of Roadside Geology of Texas is divided into seven chapters:
Chapter 1: The Big Picture The first chapter -- standard for the books of this series -- is a brief (34-page) introduction to basic geology and the general geologic history of the state of Texas. Trust me, there have been millions, perhaps billions of words written on the geologic history of Texas, but Spearing did a good job of distilling a complex subject into a coherent synopsis. He did so by simply introducing the geologic time scale (PreCambrian, Cambrian... Tertiary) and writing a paragraph or two about what was happening in (future) Texas at the time. Spearing also addresses one of the most important aspects of the Texas economy (Enron notwithstanding), the oil industry; with a short but informative discussion of the geology of hydrocarbons called "Why So Much Oil in Texas?"
The remaining six chapters are subdivided on the basis of the physiographic divisions of Texas. Within each chapter, Spearing opens with a general geological discussion of the causes and effects of the geological features one might glimpse while driving across the region. He then provides miniature road logs along important highways in the region (Interstate and major US highways, usually) with discussions of specific features along the route.
Chapter 2: The Gulf Coast This 78-page section covers Texas starting at the Gulf of Mexico and projecting some 100 to 150 miles inland; to about Austin and San Antonio. The geologic features Spearing discusses are (at the surface) beaches and barrier islands, dunes, and river erosion and deposition. He also talks about salt domes, subsurface features responsible for much of the oil accumulation in this part of the state. Road logs follow Interstates 10, 45, 37, and 35; US 59, 77, 83, and 290; and sections of TX 36, 48, and 100. Cities in the area include Houston, Galveston, Beaumont, Victoria, Corpus Christi, and Laredo. There are special sections on South Padre Island National Seashore and the Aransas national Wildlife Refuge.
Chapter 3: Central Texas Spearing writes a 72-page section on the geology of the Texas Hill Country (the Llano Uplift and Edwards Plateau country). The geology discussion delves into the details of the Edwards aquifer and caves and Karst, plus the erosional features creating the steep-sided, narrow canyons of the Hill Country. Road logs follow Interstate 10; US 78, 90, 183, 281, and 290; TX 16, 29, and 46; FM 965, and local park roads. Cities in the area are Fredricksburg, Johnson City, Kerrville, Mason, Marble Falls / Burnet, and Boerne, with San Antonio and Austin on the edges. There are also sections on the highland lakes (Buchanan & Inks) and local parks such as Longhorn Caverns and Pedernales Falls.
Chapter 4: Northeast Texas The Piney Woods and lignite coal country rate a 25-page chapter, with a geologic discussion of "geobiology" and its effects on the plants growing at the surface. Spearing also talks about the low-quality coal (lignite) beds in the area. Road logs cover Interstates 20, 30, 35, and 45; and US 59 and 259. Cities in the area include Tyler, Lufkin, Nacogdoches and Dallas and Texarkana (on the edges).
Chapter 5: Northcentral Texas The area west of Dallas but north of the LLano Estacado gets some 44 pages of coverage. Most of the geological discussion is of the sedimentary rocks known as "red beds" with some coverage of dinosaurs and vertebrate paleontology. Road logs cover Interstate 20; US 84, 183, 180, 283, 287, and 377; TX 16 and 144. Cities in the area include Abilene and Wichita Falls, with Fort Worth on the edge. A special section is devoted to Dinosaur Valley State Park.
Chapter 6: West Texas A big country rates a big chapter -- 99 pages, opening with a discussion of mountain building in the area, though most details accompany the road logs. This is the part of the state that is most sparsely settled, and also where the geology is most visible. Road logs cover Interstates 10 and 20; US 62/180, 90, 285, and 385; TX 17, 54, 118, and 170; plus park roads. Cities in the area include El Paso, Monahans, Marfa, Alpine, Terlingua, Fort Davis, and Fort Stockton. There are special sections on the two national parks in the region: Big Bend National Park (25+ pages) and Guadalupe Mountains National Park (about six pages).
Chapter 7: Northwest Texas The flats, the caprock country, and a little bit of sand dunes. Even though many have the impression of Texas as mountainous (or at least hilly) and covered with cattle and oil wells -- blame it on "Dallas" and cowboy movies -- this is the quintessence of the state: flat, windy, and dry. Yet Spearing still found thirty-three pages of stuff to say about it! Road Logs cover Interstates 20 and 40; US 84 and 287; and TX 18, 86, 136, 217, and 349; plus local roads and FMs. Cities in the area are Amarillo, Lubbock, Big Spring, and Midland-Odessa. Special discussions are provided of Monahans Sandhills State Park, Odessa Meteor Crater, Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument, and Palo Duro Canyon State Park.
There are also, as in other books of the series, a glossary of unfamiliar scientific terms and an index.
The Good Points
Spearing writes with clarity and precision, not infrequently leavening what might seem to be a rather dry subject with a mischievous sense of humor. He's quick as well to point out sites of historical interest. His sentence or two of historical background often serves to place the rocks in historical context as well as geological. Dar comes by the historical interest naturally; he's married to a historian.
Certain portions of the state are very well covered, especially the expanse nof Basin and Range country along the southern and western edges of the state. It is in these places that the geology is most visible and exposure is nearly constant. Rather than struggling to fill empty miles with brief references to distant vistas, Spearing is almost forced to pick and choose; omitting detail for lack of space. The coverage of Big Bend National Park (as seen from the roads, anyway) is superb.
The Problems
The greatest problem of this book stems from the vast size of the state of Texas; it's simply too large to compress its geology into a single book (at 400-plus pages, it's one of the largest books in the series). The logistics are complicated by another, somewhat subjective observation: vast areas of the state are -- at least to the layman -- geologically boring as heck! There are no mountain vistas, no fascinating roadcuts, even very few rock outcrops over a large chunk of the state. Because of the paucity of exposures, road logs dwindle to paragraphs describing the local geology in fifteen or twenty-mile increments. For example, the stretch of Interstate 20 from Dallas to the Louisiana state line (132 miles) comprises ten paragraphs in less than two pages. It's hard to stay interested when geology it takes twenty minutes to drive through can be described in two sentences requiring less than a minute to read. But, as I said above, it's not Dar's fault.
Other complaints with the series in general concern the reproduction of black and white photographs -- universally muddy and of low contrast. This, however, is a function of the publisher's need to keep the book costs low, I'm told.
Conclusions
It's a good book that suffers from the publisher's drive to pack all of Texas geology into a single volume. My suggestion would be to split the text in two, and expand both halves. One section would be the west and south -- the mountains and the Rio Grande Valley; the other would be the rest of the state. There is precedent; California is to be split into at least two parts, though only the Roadside Geology of Northern California has been published to date. Likewise, an entire book is dedicated to one corner of Wyoming: Roadside Geology of Yellowstone Country.
This doesn't mean I don't recommend Roadside Geology of Texas; I do -- I simply wanted to let you know that large sections of the book -- like large sections of the state it covers -- are pretty barren. There's little out there on the shelves of your bookstores, however, that is as accessible to the non-geologists this series. Besides, the writing in this book is the best I've seen in the series so far.
The textbook, Roadside Geology of Texas, by Darwin Spearing, available in Paperback. Published by: Mountain Press Publishing Co., Inc.. Edition: ....More at Textbooks.com
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