Exploring Earth: An Introduction to Physical Geology

Exploring Earth takes an integrative, process approach to teaching physical geology by presenting the traditional breadth of topics using plate tectonics as a unifying theme. These highly respected researchers and teachers explore the science of geology with the reader via clear, comprehensible prose and an exceptional art program.

Jon P. Davidson received his undergraduate degree in Geology from the University of Durham and a Ph.D. in Geology from the University of Leeds. He has held a Visiting Assistant Professorship at both Southern Methodist University in Texas and the University of Michigan. He joined the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1988 and taught courses in Earth Science, Historical Geology, Igneous Petrology, Isotope Geochemistry, Volcanology, and the Regional Geology of Britain and New Zealand. In 2000 he was appointed Chair of Earth Sciences at the University of Durham, U.K. Professor Davidson has led field trips to the Cascades, the southwestern United States, Hawaii, New Zealand, and Britain.

In 1994 Professor Davidson received the UCLA Harriet and Charles Luckman Outstanding Teaching award, and in 1998 he received the Wager Medal of the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior. Davidson is an igneous petrologist and geochemist, with a keen interest in volcanology. His work focuses primarily on volcanoes in the Caribbean, the Andes, Ascension Island in the south Atlantic, Iran, and Kamchatka in Russia. In his spare time, he enjoys travel, photography, cricket, football (both types), and music.

Walter E. Reed received his Ph.D. in 1972 from the University of California, Berkeley and joined the faculty of the Department of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1973. Prior to his arrival at UCLA, he worked in an oil company research laboratory for four years and worked for two years for the Department of Defense on the Nuclear Test Site and at the National Reactor Test Range. He has won two "best paper" awards, one in organic geochemistry and one (with his graduate student) in structural geology. Professor Reed has taught continuously since arriving at UCLA, and his courses include Introductory Geology, Sedimentology and Sedimentary Petrology, and Field Geology, spending six to eight weeks each summer with students in the Sierra Nevadas with the latter course.

Professor Reed is a field geologist with experience throughout the western United States, the Aleutian Islands, Spitsbergen, Norway, and Israel. His recent work focuses on California's western Transverse Ranges and on a tectonically emplaced metamorphic-plutonic complex in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Professor Reed's hobbies include trout fishing, skiing, ice climbing, and building and riding Harley Davidson motorcycles.

Paul M. Davis is a Professor of Geophysics at the University of California, Los Angeles. He received his Ph.D. in Physics at the University of Queensland, followed by postdoctoral studies at both the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of Alberta and the Department of Geodesy and Geophysics at the University of Cambridge. He joined the faculty at UCLA in 1980 and has recently served as the Vice-Chair and Chair of the Department of Earth and Space Sciences. He teaches Seismology and Applied Geophysics.

Professor Davis received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1995 to conduct research in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford. Upon his return to UCLA, he assumed the position of senior editor of the American Geophysical Union Journal of Geophysical Research (Solid Earth). His research uses geophysical experiments to study lithospheric dynamics. He has installed magnetometer arrays on volcanoes on Kilauea, Hawaii and Washington's Mount St. Helens and has carried out seismic array studies of the Mount Etna volcano and the Rio Grande, East African, and Baikal rifts. Professor Davis' interests include racquetball, sailing, hiking, and backpacking with his family.