Discovering the Geology of Baja California
Discovering the Geology of Baja California

Author: Markes E. Johnson

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 9780816522293

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Baja California: wild, desolate, and a treasure-house of geological wonders. Along its ancient shorelines, careful observers can learn much about how the Gulf of California came into existence and what the future of the Baja California peninsula might be. For those who wish to unlock the mysteries of Baja California, geologist Markes Johnson offers the key. He has taken a body of technical research on the geology and paleontology of the region and made it accessible in plain language for anyone who visits the peninsula, whether for study or recreation. His book teaches general concepts in coastal geomorphology and tectonics, as well as the basic geological and natural history of the Gulf of California, in a conversive, intellectually stimulating fashion. Johnson's guide takes the form of six day-long hikes in the area of Punta Chivato on the east coast of the southern Baja California peninsula. Punta Chivato is presented as a microcosm of the entire region; it can enable visitors to better understand major themes in the natural history of the Gulf of California and its geological past. All of the hikes begin at the southeast corner of the Punta Chivato promontory and loop out in different directions. Each circuit is designed to minimize overlap with adjacent hikes and to maximize the visitor's exposure to instructive variations in the landscape. Each chapter features additional reflections on a geologist of another time and place who has advanced the field in a way that elucidates the material covered in that chapter. Through these asides, readers will learn the basic lessons about how geologists read the secrets hidden in landscapes. Discovering the Geology of Baja California invites visitors to these shores to explore not only rocks and fossils but also the continuum of past ecosystems with the ecology of the present. It offers both an unparalleled guide to a remote area and a new understanding of life caught in an endless cycle of change.

Atlas of Coastal Ecosystems in the Western Gulf of California
Atlas of Coastal Ecosystems in the Western Gulf of California

Author: Markes E. Johnson

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 9780816525300

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The Gulf of California is one of the most beautiful places in the world, but it is also important to earth and marine scientists who work far beyond the area. In text and an accompanying CD-ROM with stunning satellite images, this atlas captures the dynamics of natural cycles in the fertility of the Gulf of California that have been in near-continuous operation for more than five million years. The book is designed to answer key questions that link the health of coastal ecosystems with the regionÕs evolutionary history: What was the richness of ÒfossilÓ ecosystems in the Gulf of California? How has it changed over time? Which ecosystems are most amenable to conservation? With an emphasis on the intricate workings of the Gulf, a team of scientists led by Markes E. Johnson and Jorge Ledesma-V‡zquez explores how marine invertebrates such as corals and bivalves, as well as certain algae, contribute to the operation of a vast Òorganic engineÓ that acts as a significant carbon trap. The Atlas reveals that the role of these organisms in the ecology of the Gulf was greatly underestimated in the past. The organisms that live in these environments (or provide the sediments for beaches and dunes) are mass producers of calcium carbonate. Until now, no book has considered the centrality of calcium carbonate production as it functions today across multiple ecosystems and how it has evolved over time. An important work of scholarship that also evokes the regionÕs natural splendor, the Atlas will be of interest to a wide range of scientists, including geologists, paleontologists, marine biologists, ecologists, and conservation biologists.

Baja California's Coastal Landscapes Revealed
Baja California's Coastal Landscapes Revealed

Author: Markes E. Johnson

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2021-11-16

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 081654252X

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Expert geologist and guide Markes E. Johnson takes us on a dozen rambles through wild coastal landscapes on Mexico's Gulf of California. Descriptions of storm deposits from the geologic past conclude by showing how the future of the Baja California peninsula and its human inhabitants are linked to the vast Pacific Basin and populations on the opposite shores coping with the same effects of global warming.

Baja Legends
Baja Legends

Author: Greg Niemann

Publisher: Sunbelt Publications, Inc.

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9780932653475

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The author of Baja Fever shares his extensive knowledge of the peninsula, its colorful past and booming present, in this fascinating reference book. History, lore, and amazing stories make it a "must-have" for Bajaphiles as well as armchair travelers.

Baja's Wild Side
Baja's Wild Side

Author: Daniel Cartamil

Publisher: Sunbelt Publications

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 101

ISBN-13: 9781941384329

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Featuring more than 100 breathtaking images and stories by shark biologist Dr. Cartamil chronicling Baja California's Pacific coast region, this book examines a fragile paradise of remote landscapes, wildlife, and cultural treasures on the verge of being overtaken by modern civilization.

Natural History and Natural Resources through the Earth Sciences in Modern China after 1900
Natural History and Natural Resources through the Earth Sciences in Modern China after 1900

Author: Markes Johnson

Publisher: Ethics International Press

Published: 2024-10-03

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 1804418161

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This book provides an overview of major changes in mainland China since the start of the modern era in 1900, as leaders grappled with how to harness natural resources requiring equal development in the pure and applied sciences based on fundamentals in geology. On one hand, China was put on the global stage with discovery of Peking Man fossils in the 1920s but has continued to win global acclaim for more recent discoveries of feathered dinosaurs and the earliest examples of metazoan life. At the same time, China struggled against outside exploitation to take full control of its own mineral and oil reserves -which today are increasingly imported from abroad to maintain oil and steel production through the Belt and Road initiative. The book concludes with a a discussion of what the ‘Chinese Dream’ may mean in comparison to what many in the United States consider as a birthright with the ‘American Dream’.

Assembling California
Assembling California

Author: John McPhee

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2010-04-01

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 0374706026

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At various times in a span of fifteen years, John McPhee made geological field surveys in the company of Eldridge Moores, a tectonicist at the University of California at Davis. The result of these trips is Assembling California, a cross-section in human and geologic time, from Donner Pass in the Sierra Nevada through the golden foothills of the Mother Lode and across the Great Central Valley to the wine country of the Coast Ranges, the rock of San Francisco, and the San Andreas family of faults. The two disparate time scales occasionally intersect—in the gold disruptions of the nineteenth century no less than in the earthquakes of the twentieth—and always with relevance to a newly understood geologic history in which half a dozen large and separate pieces of country are seen to have drifted in from far and near to coalesce as California. McPhee and Moores also journeyed to remote mountains of Arizona and to Cyprus and northern Greece, where rock of the deep-ocean floor has been transported into continental settings, as it has in California. Global in scope and a delight to read, Assembling California is a sweeping narrative of maps in motion, of evolving and dissolving lands.

Baja California Plant Field Guide
Baja California Plant Field Guide

Author: Jon Paul Rebman

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780916251185

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The Baja California Plant Field Guide is a manual to native and naturalized plants of the Baja California peninsula, Mexico. It is a useful guide for the entire Sonoran Desert and for Southern California, as over 50% of the species covered also occur in these regions. Over 715 different plants in 111 plant families are identified (most in both English and Spanish), with both scientific and common names and detailed descriptions. Many species are illustrated with color photographs. Descriptions entail plant habit and height; stem, leaf, flower, and fruit morphology; range; elevation; pollination biology; ethnobotanical uses; and discriminating comparisons with close relatives. This book is intended for everyone from the interested novice to the professional botanist.