Okay, I admit it. I thought this book might be a bit niche, even for a rock enthusiast like myself, but I was wrong. Instead of being a dry trail through a lot of specialisms it was entertaining and engaging, as well as very informative.
There seems to be a trend for popular science books to be as much about the people doing the fieldwork as it is about the work itself, and I really like this. The rocks in this book may be billions of years old but the discovery of them is entirely down to human beings.
Simon Lamb focuses mainly on his fieldwork in the greenstones of Eswatini and elsewhere, and in doing so he not only enlivens a potential dull story not only through the stories of his many adventures, but also through his entertaining and accessible descriptions.
He covers a lot of ground and some large-scale and very complex geological, geophysical and astronomical concepts — everything from the Milankovic cycles to plate tectonics via fractional crystallisation and the formation of the Earth’s core, and finishing up with the little matter of the origins of life on Earth. A lot of it is by nature technical but the juxtaposition of science and humanity makes it easier to understand than it otherwise might have been. I was particularly taken by his descriptions of the mining industry in souther Africa, and absolutely gripped by his account of his visit to the giant De Beers diamond mine at Swakopmund in Namibia.
It’s an excellent book, and one that I think can be read by those with a high level of knowledge of the subject but also enjoyed by those who do not.
