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Book Review:
Death Assemblage
Nontechnical Guide to Petroleum Geology, Exploration, Drilling and Production

Maps

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Death Assemblage by Susan Cummins Miller. Texas Tech University Press (2002). ISBN 0-8967-2481-6. Hardcover $23.95. Sarah Andrews

It is rare in our experience as geologists to find ourselves reflected in popular culture, much less to be accurately portrayed. Death Assemblage by Susan Cummins Miller, therefore, arises as a rare goodie for us to carry along in our field gear, sustenance for our hearts to be savored around the collective campfire of the profession.

While Death Assemblage will be for most readers a work of mystery fiction, it is, for us rock hounds, also a rollicking pentimento of fieldwork gone afoul. Miller’s protagonist, stratigrapher Frankie MacFarlane, is scrambling to find the last bits of evidence to clinch her doctoral thesis. She must find a marker bed full of fossil shells that were transported after death, hence the alluring title of the book. She is working in the back of nowhere in Nevada, and must return each evening to a tiny town full of, well, the usual suspects. We’ve all been there, and have met these people. The motel manager, the local sheriff, the saloonkeeper, the local riffraff. Because this is Nevada, we even meet the local whore, who deliciously was an English lit major and sports a tattoo of Our Lady of Sorrows across her back. No worry, she’s a killer shot at pool.

Other than the virtual visit to a part of the universe I have tremendously enjoyed, what I liked best about Death Assemblage, is Miller’s use of language. I’ve read enough works of the mystery genre to know that while many are good examples of storytelling, few are truly well written. Miller turns a phrase. Her prose is a pleasure to read. And when she dips into her knowledge of mineralogy — which she must have acquired while she was earning her degree in history, anthropology and geology at the University of California-Riverside — to find metaphors and similes to illuminate character, watch out: “Lon always reminded me of a mica flake — shiny, sheet-like, and flexible. In my opinion, most politicians are mica-people because constituents want to see their own views reflected back at them. Voters don’t care what lies behind the mirror. The problem with a mineral that has perfect basal cleavage is that only two dimensions are strongly developed; depth is rarely an issue. But I wasn’t sure about Lon — that shiny surface might just hide a very complex personality.”

It’s often said among mystery writers that if the reader cares enough to get mad at a character in the book, that’s a good thing. In the case of Frankie MacFarlane, I often wanted to kick her; in particular, I wanted her to keep a better eye on the gathering clouds, as rain in the desert is almost always a problem. That means she was all too real to me, taking risks I’ve taken and paying for them the way I’ve seen my colleagues pay (largely a matter of luck on my part that I never paid Frankie’s price, I must admit). But the payoff is the ultimate field day from hell, a good laugh and cry for any among us who has gone off-road in a four-wheel-drive vehicle.

I hope to see more of Frankie MacFarlane. As the story ends, she’s off to a teaching post, which, I trust, cannot fail to serve up another ample ration of murder and mayhem.

Norman J. Hyne has done a wonderful job on the second edition of his book the Nontechnical Guide to Petroleum Geology, Exploration, Drilling and Production. I highly recommend this book for geology students and professionals in the field of petroleum geology. Additionally, non-geoscientists who would like to learn about the oil and gas industry would benefit from this book. Hyne presents the material in an easy-to- read format with many illustrations to aid the reader in visualizing subsurface geologic conditions.

Well written, concise, and with little fluff, the Nontechnical Guide to Petroleum Geology, Exploration, Drilling and Production is an excellent addition to any library. It provides the first step toward gaining a better understanding of oil and gas exploration, and how much time, effort and skill is required by petroleum geologists to exploit these natural resources.

The book contains 27 chapters with an extensive glossary, index, and four-color plates that show common minerals, rocks, 3-D seismic views of the subsurface, and 3-D visualization centers. The first 10 chapters of the book integrate basic geologic concepts and terms with the occurrence of oil and gas.

The remainder of the book focuses on petroleum geology, exploration, drilling and production. Hyne tackles issues such as how oil and gas migrate through the subsurface, what constitutes a prospect, how to drill a well, the latest technologies for recovering oil, and much more.

I-2645-A. UTAH. Geologic map of the central Marysvale volcanic field, southwestern Utah by P.D. Rowley, C.G. Cunningham, T.A. Steven, J.B. Workman, J.J. Anderson, and K.M. Theissen. 2002. Scale 1:100,000. One color sheet available for $7 as print on demand, or download for free.

I-2730. MARS. Geologic map of MTM -40252 and -40257 quadrangles, Reull Vallis Region of Mars by S.C. Mest and D.A. Crown. Prepared for NASA. 2002. Scale 1:1,004,000 at 255° longitude Transverse Mercator Projection. One color sheet available for $7 as print on demand.

I-2746. MARS. Geologic map transecting the highland/lowland boundary zone, Arabia Terra, Mars: Quadrangles 30332, 35332,40332, and 45332 by G.E. McGill. Prepared for NASA. 2002. Scale 1:1,004,000 at 50° latitude Transverse Mercator Projection. One color sheet available for $7 as print on demand.

I-2751. CALIFORNIA. Geologic map of the Yosemite quadrangle, central Sierra Nevada, California by Dallas L. Peck. 2002. Scale 1:62,500. One color sheet available for $7 as print on demand.

I-2762. GANYMEDE. Controlled color photomosaic map of Ganymede. Prepared for NASA. 2002. Scale 1:15,000,000 at 0° latitude Mercator projection; 1:8.388,000 at -56° and 56° latitude Polar Stereographic Projection; 1:9,172,068 at -90° and 90° latitude Polar Stereographic Projection. One color sheet available for $7 as print on demand.

MF-2340. COLORADO. Geologic map of the Frisco quadrangle, Summit County, Colorado by K.S. Kellogg, P.J. Bartos, and C.L. Williams. 2002. Scale 1:24,000. One color sheet available free, or for $20 as print on demand.

MF-2344. CALIFORNIA. Geologic map of the Sheep Hole Mountains 30’ x 60’ quadrangle, San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, California by K.A. Howard. 2002. Scale 1:100,000. Two color sheets available free, or for $40 as print-on-demand.

MF-2387. ARIZONA. Geologic map of Hidden Hills and vicinity, Mohave County, northwestern Arizona by G.H. Billingsley, J.L. Wellmeyer, Michelle Harr, and S.S. Priest. Prepared in cooperation with the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management. 2002. Scale 1:31,680. One color sheet accompanied by 23 pages of text available free, or for $20 as print on demand.

MF-2388. COLORADO. Generalized surficial geology map of the Pueblo 1° x 2° quadrangle, Colorado by D.W. Moore, A.W. Straub, M.E. Berry, M.L. Baker, and T.R. Brandt. 2002. Scale 1:250,000. One color sheet accompanied by 25 pages of text available free, or for $20 as print on demand.

To order USGS maps: contact USGS Information Services, P.O. Box 25286, Denver, CO 80225. Phone: 1-888-ASK-USGS (1-888-275-8747). Maps identified as print on demand maps may be downloaded from the Internet, but the USGS can also run a copy for a charge as noted.

“Textbooks and Heaven only are Ideal;
Solidity is an imperfect state.
Within the cracked and dislocated Real
Nonstoichiometric crystals dominate.”

Our second quote is from Joseph Briskey, a scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey, a Geotimes Corresponding Editor and the originator of the GeoQuotes idea.
Briskey’s GeoQuote is from South Wind by Norman Douglas.

“‘I could take geology by the throat just now. It’s disgusting not to know things!’

His companion, meanwhile, beheld the panorama in all its nightmarish splendour, as it drifted past him. He saw the bluffs of feathery pumice, the lava precipices — frozen cataracts of white, black, blood red, pale grey and sombre brown, smeared over with a vitreous enamel of obsidian or pierced by oily, writhing dykes that bleed with metallic scintillations. Anon came some yawning cleft or an assemblage of dizzy rock-needles, fused into whimsical tints and attitudes, spiky, distorted, over-toppling; then a bold tufa rampart, immaculate in its beauty, stainless as a curtain of silk. And as the boat moved on, he looked into horrid dells which the rains had torn out of the loose scoriae. Gaping wounds, they wore the bright uses of corruption. Their flanks were blotched with a living nitrous efflorescence, with flaring sulphur, unhealthy verdure of pitchstone, streaks of arsenical vermilion; their beds — a frantic maze of boulders.

He beheld this crazy stratification, this chaos of incandescence nature, set in a flame of deep blue sky and sea. It lay there calmly, like some phantasmagoric flower, some monstrous rose that swoons away, with upturned face, in solar caress.”

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