The purpose of this book is to introduce civil and environmental engineering students – and those active in engineering – to the fundamental principles of the earth sciences as they affect their practice. In particular, this book is intended for the use of geotechnical and geoenvironmental students and those in that practice. Hopefully, the reader will come to appreciate the complex problems that exist in engineering practice in a geological environment and find them intellectually rewarding.

This book is concerned with the deformation of rock in the Earth’s lithosphere, as viewed from the atomic scale, through the grain scale, the hand specimen scale, the outcrop scale, the mountain range scale, and the tectonic plate scale. A deformational feature observed on one scale typically reflects processes occurring on other scales. For example, we can’t understand continental deformation without understanding mountains, we can’t understand mountains without understanding folding and faulting, and we can’t understand folding and faulting without understanding ductile and brittle deformation mechanisms at the atomic scale. This book attempts to integrate topics pertaining to all scales of rock deformation, emphasizing the linkages between structural geology and tectonics.

Данная книга рассматривает деформацию пород в литосфере Земли , которая наблюдается на атомном уровне, переходя на масштаб зерна, образца, обнажения, горного хребта и тектонической плиты. Деформационные особенности, наблюдаемые в одном масштабе, закономерно отражают процессы, возникающие в другом масштабе. К примеру, мы не можем понять деформацию континента без понимания процессов горообразования, мы не можем понять горообразование без понимания процессов образования складок и разломов, и мы не можем понять процессы складкообразования и разрывных нарушений без понимания механизмов пластичной и хрупкой деформации на атомарном уровне. Эта книга пытается объединить темы, касающиеся деформации пород на всех уровнях, подчеркивая связь между структурной геологией и тектоникой.

This edition benets from the expertise of a new coauthor, Dr. John A. Luczaj, from the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay. John’s added knowledge and experience in many areas of geology have brought a fresh view to many aspects of the textbook.
We coauthors share not only an intellectual passion for the history of our planet and its life, but also an aesthetic and romantic excitement about our subject, with its immense scale in time and space. Our goal is to instill similar enthusiasm in students.

This volume represents the final contribution of the International Geological Correlation Program Project 260 'Earth's Glacial Record'. The project was active from 1987 until 1991. It succeeded IGCP Project 24 'Quaternary Glaciations in the Northern Hemisphere', and Project 38 'Pre-Pleistocene Tillites'. Thus, its goal was to promote further research on glaciations, whatever their age and location, and to encourage geologists working in Modern or Quaternary sequences and those working on Pre-Pleistocene rocks to share their experience and different approaches. In this way we hoped to emphasize and illuminate global aspects of glacial phenomena in addition to facies description and regional problems.