A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO ROCK MICROSTRUCTURE: by Ron H. Vernon. Cambridge, 2004. 594 pp. Hardbound $130, softbound $70.

Ron Vernon’s A Practical Guide to Rock Microstructure is a very clearly written and well-illustrated book. The goals of the author are pretty much implied in the book’s title as a text that can assist the reader in accurately observing and interpreting the microstructures seen in thin-sections of rock. To this end I think the book succeeds admirably. The book is pitched for advanced undergraduates and first-year graduate students who need an introduction to this very complex and much studied aspect of geology, and I think it would be an appropriate source for professionals whose work may require a review of the subject to get them back into the literature. For this purpose, there is also an extremely useful glossary of terms, and an up-to-date, comprehensive bibliography, both of which are gold mines of information and a great resource on the subject. The book is organized into five chapters, starting with a background chapter followed by chapters on the microstructures found in sedimentary, igneous, …