Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. Introduction ix
4. 1. Landscapes of Internal Fire
5. On the Spot: Over a River of Lava 1
6. Prologue 3
7. Imagining the Interior 5
8. On the Spot: At the Edge of an Overthrust Belt 15
9. Mundus subterraneus 18
10. On the Spot: Among the Aeolian Islands 23
11. The Globe, Tectonic Plates, and Mountain Building 26
12. On the Spot: Along the Disturbance Gradient 35
13. Volcanoes and Their Eruptions 37
14. On the Spot: Approaching Chaitén Volcano 45
15. Hot Springs and Geysers 48
16. 2. Climate and Ice
17. Prologue 57
18. On the Spot: Up and Down the Himalaya 58
19. How the Climate Works 60
20. The Ghosts of Climates Past 68
21. On the Spot: On the Burren 76
22. Our Ice Age 79
23. Landscapes Shaped by Ice 84
24. On the Spot: In the Channeled Scablands 90
25. Ice-Age Humans 93
26. On the Spot: On the Arctic Tundra 103
27. The Little Ice Age, Glaciology, and the Sublime 105
28. On the Spot: Toward a Glacier’s Edge 111
29. The Story Now 113
30. 3. Wet and Fluid
31. Prologue 120
32. On the Spot: In the Rocky Intertidal Zone 122
33. The Water Cycle 125
34. On the Spot: Along a Rain Forest Stream 132
35. The Moving Waters of Rivers 135
36. The Dream of Water in Deserts 145
37. The Slow Water of Wetlands 151
38. On the Spot: At the Bog on Céide Fields 156
39. Peat, Mires, Bogs, Fens 159
40. On the Spot: At Wicken Fen 163
41. Marshes and Swamps 165
42. Wet/Dry 172
43. On the Spot: At the Billabong 178
44. 4. Desert Places, Desert Lives
45. Prologue 182
46. On the Spot: Down a Desert River Canyon 185
47. Dry, Hot, Windy, and Dusty 188
48. On the Spot: In Jabal Ajā 191
49. What We See 196
50. On the Spot: In the Chihuahuan Desert 205
51. Clever Plants 208
52. On the Spot: In the Red Center 219
53. Clever Creatures 223
54. On the Spot: In the Negev Desert 231
55. The Human Desert 233
56. 5. The Complexities of the Real
57. Prologue 241
58. Underfoot 241
59. On the Spot: In Antarctica’s Dry Valleys 244
60. Oceans of Grass 247
61. The Shapes of Complexity 250
62. On the Spot: On the Chalk Downs 253
63. Evolving Together . . . 255
64. On the Spot: In the Tallgrass Prairie 258
65. . . . And Moving Apart 260
66. On the Spot: On the Tibetan Plateau 267
67. Among Trees 270
68. On the Spot: In a Eucalypt Forest 274
69. Zooming In 277
70. Return to Wonder 285
71. Epilogue: In a High Flower Meadow 293
72. Sources 296
73. Contributor Biographies 306
74. Acknowledgments 309
75. Index 311