Field work has always been a central part of university geology courses. Without it, students can never hope to understand geological relationships at scales from metres to hundreds of metres, however many thin sections, hand specimens, aerial photographs or seismic profiles they see. Despite the dual threats of reduced financing and increased safety concerns for field work, most students spend many days in the field: a minimum of 60 days through a UK three-year course to qualify for professional accreditation. Traditional onshore field work has occupied geological researchers less over the past couple of decades, but it still survives, with sampling work predominating over geological mapping.
Since the 1980s, the standard books on geological field techniques have been the Geological Field Guide series led by Barnes & Lisle (Reference Barnes and Lisle2003) on Basic Geological Mapping and including companion volumes on sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rocks, and on structures, field hydrogeology and field geophysics. Most of these volumes have gone through several editions, and are still reliable guides. However, the average student geological mapper might need at least two or three of these volumes, now at around £20 each, in the average mapping area. The new volume by Angela Coe and Open University colleagues Tom Argles, David Rothery and Robert Spicer, aims to combine much of the necessary information into one volume.
There are introductory chapters on field equipment and safety, making field observations, and on keeping a field notebook. Five central chapters then cover the recording of palaeontological and structural information, and the features of sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rocks. Only then is there a chapter on making a geological map, before concluding chapters on instrumental observations, photography and sampling. There are seven appendices containing tabulated, diagrammatic and photographic reference material for the central and mapping chapters.
Overall, the content of Geological Field Techniques is excellent. The book is admirably suited to undergraduate students and amateur geologists, but research students and professionals will find much of interest. In the earlier part of the book, I particularly liked the chapter on keeping a field notebook. This is a skill as important as it is difficult to teach. Here some clear guidelines and copies of notebook pages from a variety of geologists are very effective. Similarly clear instructions on how to make a graphic lithological log are also welcome. I was nervous that geological mapping was not covered until two-thirds of the way through the book, the philosophy clearly being that by then the component observational skills had been taught. I was relieved to find that exposure mapping is encouraged in suitable terrain and that feature mapping is explicitly covered. I would have liked to see a section on using stereographic plots of structural data to tune up the mapping of major structures. I was also disappointed to see little guidance on mapping superficial deposits. Most of the solid rocks in temperate regions are covered in ‘drift’ which has its own fascinating geological story to tell, and which is often of more applied geological relevance than the bedrock. In more arid regions, distinguishing bedrock from regolith is one of the problems that students find most vexatious, and some guidance would have been helpful.
These criticisms, however, are minor in the context of a generally excellent book. It is highly informative, attractively designed and illustrated, reasonably priced and has its corners already rounded to survive in the rucksack. It deserves to be widely used.
