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TEACHING EARTH SCIENCES ● Volume 31 ● Number 4, 2006 Reviews Groundwater in the Environment. Paul L Younger Blackwell Publishing, ISBN 1-4051-2143-2 paperback. £27.99. 318 pp. This book achieves its stated aim of introducing the reader to the concepts of hydrogeology, the study of underground water, without resort to mathematics. Indeed, the author prides himself in the fact that not one letter of the Greek alphabet is present in the text. Surprisingly, the principles of both conceptual and numerical groundwater modelling are dealt with at length – again without quoting any formulae. The author has drawn heavily from his own teaching experience and accumulated notes from his extensive career at Newcastle University. Teaching, supervising a post-graduate research team and maintaining an extensive consultancy portfolio has kept the author at the front of his science, both at home and overseas. This is reflected in the book which includes many facets of hydrogeological science which are only now becoming topical. There is, for example, a whole chapter devoted to groundwater and wetlands including the ecological aspects of wetlands, another to groundwater as a hazard and another on groundwater degradation. Even climate change gets a mention. The book is targeted at “junior level bachelor’s degree programme students”. It is also of significant value to practitioners at the edge of hydrogeology who are working in the environment sector, as well as an introductory text to higher education students of any level. Although there are a flush of introductory groundwater texts available at the moment, with more on the way, the Younger text is refreshing in its approach to the subject, is written in an infectious style that attracts the reader to the page, uses clear and interesting graphics and directs the reader to an abundant resource of follow-up reading in specific areas. In addition, teachers can obtain digital copies of the artwork from the publisher for use in class. The author makes no bones about occasional political comments. On the traditional divide between hydrogeology and the study of hydrology, Younger reports: “It is high time we did away with maintaining a discipline boundary between groundwaters and surface waters. ...that, with very few exceptions, it is not possible to disturb a groundwater system without also affecting a surface water system...”. However, the greater political influence of Brussels on its member states is nowhere mentioned and the reader does not hear about the Water Framework Directive, although there is mention of the recent South African Water Act. One small niggle is the use of the American none-SI notation ‘L’ for litre, rather than the accepted ‘l’ which will only encourage students to use this sloppy notation. This is a valuable text book which is clearly laid out, indexed and easy to read and use. It will find its niche in the undergraduate lecture theatres, but will also provide a valuable introductory text for other levels. Nicholas Robins British Geological Survey Maclean Building Wallingford Oxfordshire OX10 8BB Soils in the Welsh Landscape (A field-based approach to the study of soil in the landscapes of North Wales) J.S. Conway ISBN 0-9546966-1-1 Published by Seabury Salmon & Associates SY8 1PP It is notoriously difficult to present the study of soils to a general audience, but John Conway has made an excellent attempt here. He concentrates on the field aspects, and has come up with a colourful and useful guide to the British soil classification, and an extremely useful resource for teachers and students wishing to see and interpret soils in north Wales. This brief survey fills a niche, as there has been an unfortunate dearth of good photographic material to illustrate the soils themselves, and their relationships with landscape. Soil profiles are surprisingly colourful, and the old cliché about pictures and words is well supported by this publication. It is clear from the format and content that the author was restricted in how much material he could present, but the bilingual nature of the book is admirable, and it may introduce the rather arcane concepts of soil classification to a wider audience than has been possible in the past. There is a brief, accurate and useful introduction covering the definition of soil and the ways in which it varies across our amazingly diverse countryside. This is followed by a summary of soil horizons and their designations. The main section then illustrates some of the ten Major Groups of the British (England and Wales) soil classification, which is now used for authoritative mapping in the country. Unfortunately, such mapping is no longer carried out on a routine basis, so perhaps it is especially important to enthuse students to learn how to do it. This material is brief, but admirably accurate, and explained in largely non-technical terms. A few pages at the end are devoted to “soil landscapes”. Excellent landscape photographs are annotated with inset soil profiles, referring back to the classification section: a particularly useful feature of the book, which does, in colour, what the far more comprehensive and technical Soils and their Use in Wales does rather less Cont. on page 35 www.esta-uk.org 34
TEACHING EARTH SCIENCES ● Volume 31 ● Number 4, 2006 successfully in black and white. There are, of course, a few quibbles with the details: surface-water gley soils are not “usually clay soils”, in fact clay is decidedly rare in north Wales. Conway does not point out that most of the thin soils over limestone are leached of their surface carbonates, and therefore mapped by the Soil Survey (now the National Soil Resource Centre) as Brown rankers rather than Brown rendzinas, although the rendzinas certainly occur in the unit: the soil described as “Marcham series” should more properly be Elmton series as Marcham is sandy loam. This publication would have been a good opportunity to cement the standard Welsh translations of soil taxa used in the National Atlas of Wales. Unfortunately this has not been done consistently. These are minor gripes, however, and the author and sponsors are to be applauded for producing a pioneering publication which should help bring the study of soils to its rightful place in the forefront of landscape and land-use research. References Board of Celtic Studies, 1983 National Atlas of Wales University of Wales Press. Rudeforth C.C., et al., 1984 Soils and their Use in Wales Harpenden. Richard Hartnup 11 Maesceiro, Bow Street, Ceredigion AQA Science for GCSE-GCSE Science texts published by Heinemann in 2006 – reviewed for their Earth Science content only. AQA Science for GCSE: Higher. Series Editor Keith Hurst, ISBN 0 435 586009, paperback, £15.99, 246pp. AQA Science for GCSE: Foundation. Series Editor Keith Hurst, ISBN 0 435 58601 7, paperback, £15.99, 246pp. Imade such a nuisance of myself in and volcanoes. The origin of the chatting up the representatives at the atmosphere is covered in the usual way, Heinemann stand, next to the ESTA and treatment of carbon dioxide levels display, at a recent conference, that they leads into a debate about global climate gave me a couple of books to go away! change, which is continued in the I have been seeking to check the Earth biology section. The biology section also science content of some of the newly deals with evolution and includes a published textbooks for the new GCSEs generalised mention of fossils. and this is the second of such reviews. The chemistry section contains the At this rate, the GCSE will have changed usual list of useful materials from the again before I have finished! Earth, and in spite of the subtitle In common with most other texts, “Chemistry to the rescue”, the origins of two versions are issued – Foundation a range of metals and building materials Level with fewer words per page to are outlined, as are the environmental encourage the weak readers and Higher problems associated with their extraction. Level for everybody else. These books The physics section contains no Earth are published to support the specification science, now that AQA has seen fit to of the AQA, since there is now remove seismic waves from its syllabus. considerable disparity between the The only exception is “Energy from the various Awarding Bodies. Earth”, which describes geothermal The Earth science sections in the two energy from volcanic sources, but misses books are closely parallel and many of the opportunity to show that energy the same graphics are also used in each from ground-based heat exchangers is version. now rapidly being developed in the U.K. The main Earth science chapter, My overall impression of the Earth headed Earth and Atmosphere, is found science coverage is that the publisher has in the chemistry section and comprises tried hard to meet the requirements of 14 pages of text and pictures plus AQA’s specification, which I personally question pages. It starts with Wegener find a little dull and disjointed. The and leads into plate tectonics, then the layout and presentation are quite internal structure of the Earth. “Our attractive, with the text being broken up restless planet” deals with geohazards into boxes all over the place. Most of the such as the Indian Ocean tsunami and material is reasonably accurate, although the difficulty of predicting earthquakes I felt that students would not be challenged to think for themselves as much as in some other texts. Thus, many “facts” are listed, with very little evidence being presented in enough detail to arouse curiosity. There are, however, several areas where students are encouraged to seek patterns in data, such as the relationship between water levels in wells and the onset of an earthquake. The usual niggles persist, such as plates being referred to as consisting of crust only and the avoidance of the concept of the lithosphere. The Mid Atlantic Ridge is referred to as the Mid Atlantic Rift and the only diagram to show a subduction zone is pretty awful. The publishers claim that, “This book has been designed to cover the new AQA GCSE Science curriculum in an exciting and engaging manner...” This may be true for some of the other science topics, but I felt that although the Earth science was adequate, it was rather bland and would not switch on students (nor perhaps their teachers either!), unless they already had an interest in the subject. Peter Kennett 142, Knowle Lane Sheffield S11 9SJ 35 www.esta-uk.org
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