Over the Coasts: An Aerial View of Geology

Geology comes alive as Michael Collier flies over North America's coasts.

Geology usually takes its time -- about a few million years, generally. Yet there is one place where the geological processes often occur right before our eyes: along the coastline of a great body of water.

The latest book in this acclaimed series takes the reader on aerial tours over the coastlines of the Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf, Great Lakes and Alaska. Along these coasts the earth is in perpetual motion, for example:

• Barrier islands are constantly torn apart and reshaped by violent storms
• Powerful waves jackhammer rocks into smithereens, carving coastal cliffs
• Deltas, marshes, beaches, dunes, bays, lagoons, estuaries and fjords are created and recreated by the action of water against land.

Over the Coasts combines beautiful images with natural history and makes geological science readily accessible to the general reader. Science that is most apparent in these spectacular aerial portraits of our restless coasts.

Michael Collier has won the National Outdoor Book Award, the National Park Service Director's Award and the U.S. Geological Survey's Communications Award. In 2005 he received the American Geological Institute's Outstanding Contribution to Public Understanding of Geosciences Award for his decades of work. He lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.