Field Guide to Rocks and Minerals of Southern Africa
By Professor Bruce Cairncross, Struik Publishers, November 2004
Reviewed by: Garth Cambray
As a biological scientist I was a bit wary opening a book on rocks, with the
intention of reviewing it. What did I know? Well that was the point - this book
provides a very clever, well written and informative entry into the exciting
world of rocks and minerals for people who have little knowledge of these
things. It is also a very useful addition to the knowledge chest of the more
serious collectors and geologists out there.
The book is logically structured starting off with a general introduction
that defines terms of importance to the book (such as what a rock and a mineral
are). The introduction then focuses in on reasons why one would be interested in
rocks and minerals and finally how they are collected, named and curated. For
those into the ethereal there is a table explaining birth stones.
The text then slides into the interesting topic of minerals. This section
first consists of a summary of what minerals are. This is followed by a long
list of minerals and then a description of the six crystal systems. This is
followed by about 200 pages of descriptions of various minerals listed in
alphabetical order, with a 10 page summary of the characteristics of each
mineral in a well thought out easy to navigate table. Below this, another 5
pages of production statistics, and general availability statistics are
included.
The section on rocks begins with a very detailed map of Southern Africa
showing the dominant rock types across the region. This is followed by a quick
introduction featuring a number of text boxes describing important concepts such
as the geological time scale and rock cycles. A general account is given of how
rocks are classified. This is followed by a detailed set of descriptions of the
various rock types of the region which stretches for 30 or so pages. This
section is gives a special focus on the so called 'Dimension stone' - rocks used
for domestic, architectural and engineering purposes.
Finally there are decent glossaries and indexes.
General points in favour of the book are a clever set of numbers on the sides
of the pages. For the minerals section, which comprises the majority of the
book, there are circled letters (such as A for minerals starting with A) and
then Minerals is written next to that. For the rest of the book, the side of the
page will say what section that is in (eg Introduction, Glossary, Rocks etc).
In general, this is a well thought out, useful text that has definitely
inspired me to go out and scratch below the trees in the ground and do some
serious 'rock watching' next time I go out into nature.
More information
http://www.struik.co.za/
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