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Have you ever driven the eight to ten hours between Salt Lake City and Reno and wondered not just, “Are we there yet?” but how did this vast basin come to be?  Then this is the book for you. DeCourten tells the geological history of this area in the western United States in a way that gives the reader a chance to understand the area and to share DeCourten’s deep appreciation of the Great Basin and its geology.  What many of us have seen as a wide expanse of desert that takes eons to cross has many geologic marvels and natural wonders.  This book explores them in such a way that the reader can both understand the development of the area and can locate present-day sites.

The seemingly infinite Great Basin is actually only about 160,000 square miles that encompasses most of Nevada and parts of California, Idaho, Oregon and Utah and is bounded by the Sierra Nevada mountains on the west and the Wasatch Range on the east.  It began forming some 3 billion years ago and is still changing today.  DeCourten uses the Great Basin as an example in which evidence of the rifting process by which continents are formed and reformed is remarkably clear.  The Broken Land explores  “how utterly different were the various landscapes of the Great Basin from the alternating mountains and basins that we know today” (page 239).  DeCourten notes that, “The crust of the region has been so thinned, weakened, and stretched that it appears ready to pull apart completely in the geological future.  No matter how ageless and enduring the Great Basin seems, we are undoubtedly on the threshold of a new landscape” (page 243). “The majestic Great Basin,” he adds, “is slowly, and inexorably, vanishing” (page 245).  

Although the scope of this book is limited to one small geographic area of the planet, it is thorough in its exploration and examination of that region and in relating changes in the region to developments of the whole earth.  It follows the geologic changes from the formation of the earth in the Hadean Eon 4.6 billion years ago through the Phanerozoic Eon, which comprises only the most recent 13 percent of the earth’s geological history. 

Detailed maps and charts show the geologic history and topographical shifts across the history of the Great Basin. Line drawings illustrate geological features.  Black and white and color photographs show features as they appear today.  One colored illustration depicts an artist’s rendition of Ice Age flora and fauna in the hills above Lake Bonneville. These illustrations are exceptionally clear and valuable supplements to the text.  The book includes a six-page glossary of terms and a short bibliography, divided by chapter, for anyone interested in pursuing the subject.

DeCourten brings geology to the layperson, but this is a book that could be used as a text in a course on the Great Basin geology or geology in general.  I would recommend this book for purchase by academic and public libraries. 

Anyone who has an interest in the geologic past and in the Great Basin in particular will enjoy reading The Broken Land: Adventures in Great Basin Geology. The reader who enjoys this book might also like DeCourten’s Dinosaurs of Utah.  Another companion book for anyone driving through Nevada is Roadside History of Nevada by Richard Moreno.  There may still be moments on the drive when we might wish that Scotty could beam us directly to our destination, but until then we can benefit from the guidance and companionship of books like these.