Review: Geophysics: A Very Short Introduction

Geophysics: A Very Short Introduction by William Lowrie
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Imagine a science textbook that is chock full of math. Now remove all the math, but leave behind a preponderance of term definitions. That is what you get here. I found the onslaught of geophysics terms to overwhelm my listening to this audiobook. Perhaps audio wasn’t the best medium for this type of book. I quickly lost the connections between, for instance, the variety of named waves rippling through the earth at any point in time, or the counterbalancing twisting that the earth experiences. Were I studying this topic, I can see how this presentation might have helped crystalize meaning, but as a more casual observer I wouldn’t recommend it. I did enjoy the breadth of topics covered, including measurements of earthquakes and volcanoes as well as distances in outer space. A quick read provides some familiarity with the terms and the concepts involved in this branch of science and I suspect would help when starting to study this topic. Interesting bit: the author uses as a measurement of the rate at which huge objects are moving in relation to each other (think tectonic plates or the earth and moon) as “about as fast as fingernails grow”. A great analogy.

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