McPhee uses a conversational approach to tackle the broad topic of geology. This is just one book of the Pulitzer-winning tome, Annals of the Former World. McPhee, a pioneer of creative nonfiction, uses personal anecdote to describe some of the issues in geology: field work vs computer modeling; the use/misuse of continental drift theory; government vs academic vs for-profit geological work. McPhee’s wryly humorous tone and focus on certain personalities makes this book more engaging than I expected.

I finished this entire book about the origin of the Rocky Mountains before realizing that I still don't have much idea how they were made! Partly that is because McPhee's geological exegesis is interspersed with the details of geologist David Love's family history -- which turns out to be a combination of _The Virginian_ and _Little House on the Prairie_. Let me put it this way: in a work about the geology of the western United States, the fact that John Muir was Love's great-uncle barely has room to be squeezed in en passant.

In terms of geology, most of what I learned is that the Rockies have nothing in common with the Cascades -- the mountains I'm most familiar with from childhood -- despite their common height and relative proximity. The Cascades are basically volcanos located right on the famous Ring of Fire and explained by plate tectonics. The Rockies are... not. Their history includes eroded previous mountains in the same area, miles-deep sedimentary layers, and "hot spots" including the infamous so-called Yellowstone supervolcano that has made many Discovery Channel watchers lose a lot of sleep.

This third volume in McPhee's series really brings out his running theme of how plate tectonics split the geological profession into lab geologists who knew a lot about physics and computer modeling -- at one point David is quoted about his fellow graduate students, "Their field geology was, let's say, incomplete" -- and field geologists who know a rock from a hard place, usually from a childhood spent in remote and even desolate spaces where close observation of nature was pretty much all there was to do. McPhee's main geologists were expert at reading rocks in the field but were all nearing the ends of their eminent careers when he took his famous cross-country trips with them, and it's not that clear whether they could be or were replaced as they retired.

So far the best of the bunch. I love the way he bounces back and forth between the stories. Incredibly well written. Feels like reading this book is like someone cranking an electromagnet in Wyoming, dragging me willingly to the geology. I love it.

Much better than the second book in the series, though maybe not quite as fresh and exciting as the first book. I like the science best. He's so good at describing complex geological phenomena. There's also some great evocations of the Old West: Wyoming, circa 1905.

Read on the drive to and from the Tetons last weekend. Interesting, as always seems to be the case with McPhee.

I found it sad that Love lamented some of his work, but it was also a relief to hear that he did.

Good book.

A solid 4.5, just a bit too technical at times to follow 100%. Makes this cabined-up COVID desk jockey dream of a life spent outdoors in the unbelievable geology wonderland of Wyoming. The strongest piece of Annals of the Former World so far, with Assembling California still to go.

This one is about Wyoming. The Love family geologists, Scottish stubborn survivalists, living rough and ranching. Jackson Hole and how it formed, how the Rockies got exhumed, how oil and uranium were unexpectedly found in Wyoming’s basins. Also the theory of hot spots, how plates move over them to form island chains, and how the deep theory works until it is / isn’t proven. Also some reflections on office vs field geology, and how one might regret a uranium gold rush in your childhood backyard & the attendant ecological fallout.

Mind-numbingly abstruse. I don't see how anyone who is not in the geology field could find this book remotely accessible. Maybe I just lack the intellectual curiosity or capacity for this book. Or maybe it's just a slog of a book that few regular folks would find appealing.

This is the third time I've read Rising from the Plains and it seems as fresh today as when I first read it for a geology class back in the mid-90's. John McPhee, who wrote for the The New York Times for many years, is an engaging writer and in this book weaves the geology of the high plains with the story of famed Rocky Mountain geologist David Love and his family, who settled in central Wyoming in the first decade of the twentieth century.

Having lived in Wyoming myself, I am familiar with the area about which he writes. Wyoming is filled with unexpected landscapes that are awesome, forbidding and beautiful. Even if you don't understand the geological terms or timeline, the book can be enjoyed for its depiction of ranch life in one of the harshest environments in the continental U.S.and the pure pleasure of McPhee's prose.

The Wyoming landscape is unique in the world and is composed of many mountain ranges in addition to the well-known Rockies and Tetons. The Rocky Mountains are new mountains, relatively speaking, that have covered older ranges. That is the case across the state; new ranges moved or enfolded older ranges pushing them every which way. Water has carved anomalies like the Devil's Footprint and Flaming Gorge. Wind has played an even larger role in shaping the landscape. There are fossils galore and along the I-80 corridor one views rock stratification created over millions of years, from the earliest days of our continent through later ages until more recent geological time - 10 million years ago.

I highly recommend this book, it's one of my favorites not only because of the memories it evokes but also because geology fascinates me and John McPhee, who does an excellent job of showing why.

Hot spots are cool. So is the exhumation of the Rockies and other mountains. It’s crazy to think about all the different ways things can be made and how we think we know things but then we don’t. How Wyoming has more oil than Saudi Arabia! But also uranium and fossils and lots of red rock. Loved the story of this Wyoming geologist and how he stays in the field, such an invaluable part of our world that we take for granted.

A classic western cowboy story married to a scientific textbook on geology, this book chronicles the amazing life story of geologist David Love. His origin story is riveting - written like the best western movie you’ve ever seen. The geology story is certainly drier - but you can skim those parts and take away what you want. For me: the short, destructive flash of human existence is nothing compared to the long history of the earth.

I love John McPhee's writing. My wife and I just finished a tour of Wyoming where we hiked seven of these regions so to understand the geology in this book and why there are so many broad valleys due to the miocene fill was fulfilling.

I knew that Yellowstone was a unique global geologic feature but I did not know that the Wind River Range is believed once to have been taller than Mt Everest today - at least once upon a geologic time.

There is a lot of limestone in Wyoming and it was too dry to dissolve so it remained as caprock when the other rock turned to rubble from erosion, so in several places the prairie merges with the limestone near the continental divide which is also unique geologically

5 stars