In this collection of essays M. Dane (`Duke') Picard takes the reader on journeys across
deserts mountains canyons and rivers from the American Southwest to Italy and France. His
blend of vivid description and humor evokes the rugged days of field petroleum geology in the
Great Plains and pastel Badlands of Utah and Wyoming in the 1950s and later days unlocking the
geological secrets of sandstone in the Rockies. Along the way he pokes gentle fun at the
academic life in stories that will make anyone smile who's ever sat on a faculty committee or
chaired a professional meeting. The final essays on his travels through Provence and Italy are
rich with details of the beauty and the history - both human and geological - of the regions.
M.D. Picard is the author of numerous professional articles and books and has served as
president of the National Association of Geology Teachers the Society of Sedimentary Geology
and the Rocky Mountain section of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. He is well
known to the geological community for the essays and book reviews he has published over the
last ten years in geoscience journals and magazines.
