Written in Stone: A Geological History of the Northeastern United States

Third Edition, Revised and Updated. By Chet Raymo and Maureen E. Raymo. Imagine yourself standing on the bank of the Connecticut River near Hartford, Connecticut. The river flows placidly through green-mantled hills to the sea. The air is scented by flowering plants, and grasses weave and wave on the shore. Deer graze at the water's edge; birds sing. In the distance are the skyscrapers of the city, the airport and highways, and the sprawling suburbs, all energized by human activity.

 Now imagine yourself standing on the same piece of land 200 million years ago. Tall mountains cast long shadows across a bleak desert valley. Volcanoes spew noxious gases into the air, and rivers of lava burst from the rent earth. The land shakes. Dinosaurs cease their feeding and fearfully test the air. More remarkably, the piece of crust on which you stand is much nearer the Earth's equator, 1,000 miles south of where it is today.

In vivid, non-technical prose, Written in Stone traces the geological changes in the American northeast since the continent perched on the equator and dinosaurs were young. Grand events unfold as continents collide, oceans disappear, mountain ranges rise and fall, and mass extinctions decimate entire species. The events are grand, but the features of the landscape created by these events are as familiar as the hill behind your home, the rocks in the stone walls that enclose your yard, and the grains of sand on the beach where you go to swim. The history of the landscape is written in all the rocks and stones of the Northeast. This is an indispensable reference to an understanding of the forces that shaped our familiar landscape from Maine to New Jersey. 6" x 9", paper, 176 ppg., illustrated.