Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Parsons, I. Search for Related Content

Dyar, M.D., Gunter, M.E. and Tasa D. Mineralogy and Optical Mineralogy.

Mineralogical Society of America, Chantilly, Virginia, USA. 708 + xxiv pages. Price US$90, members $67.50. ISBN 978-0-939950-81-2.

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

A comprehensive student textbook from MSA has to be regarded as a major publishing event for mineralogy. This substantial book, 700+ A4 size pages, by Darby Dyar and Mickey Gunter, with illustrations by Dennis Tasa, starts with a lengthy Preface (which we are exhorted to read in the preamble to Chapter 1) which explains how it differs from a ‘traditional mineralogy textbook’. It contains "(1) an integrated DVD-ROM with colour animations of all the figures; (2) a searchable printable mineral database is included on the same DVD-ROM; (3) we use modern pedagogy; (4) it is written so that the more advanced chapters build on information learned in the earlier chapters."

As the authors point out, several existing mineralogy books now include DVDs but as stand-alone items; this one is integrated directly into the textbook. The reader becomes aware of its importance early on, because the diagrams in the main text are universally reproduced in shades of grey, including the pictures of mineral hand specimens which need to be in colour. The effect is dreary, and in static form some diagrams are hard to interpret. The DVD is essential to bring this book to life (the package is called ‘Interactive Mineralogy’). This is something of a mixed blessing. Having to crank-up your computer is tedious, and it is all too easy to leave the disk in the drive after a session, a problem for students working in communal computer space, or readers like me who regularly use several PCs. It is, however, possible to copy the DVD to your hard drive and I strongly recommend you do this–it runs silently and much faster, worthwhile when chapters have up to 90 figures that have to be stepped through sequentially.

The colour illustrations of minerals are beautiful and the ability to rotate crystal . . . [Full Text of this Article]