Faculty Book Gallery
A list of books written or edited by faculty and staff in the Department of Earth Science.
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America's First Eclipse Chasers: Stories of Science, Planet Vulcan, Quicksand, and the Railroad Boom
Thomas A. Hockey
In 2017, over 200 million Americans witnessed the spectacular total eclipse of the Sun, and the 2024 eclipse is expected to draw even larger crowds. In anticipation of this upcoming event, this book takes us back in history over 150 years, telling the story of the nation’s first ever eclipse chasers.
Our tale follows the chaotic journeys of scientists and amateur astronomers as they trekked across the western United States to view the rare phenomenon of a total solar eclipse. The fascinating story centers on the expeditions of the 1869 total eclipse, which took place during the turbulent age of the chimerical Planet Vulcan and Civil War Reconstruction.
The protagonists―a motley crew featuring astronomical giants like Simon Newcomb and pioneering female astronomers like Maria Mitchell―were met with unanticipated dangers, mission-threatening accidents, and eccentric characters only the West could produce. Theirs is a story of astronomical proportions. Along the way, we will make several stops across the booming US railroad network, traveling from viewing sites as familiar as Des Moines, Iowa, to ones as distant and strange as newly acquired Alaska.
From equipment failures and botched preparations to quicksand and apocalyptic ‘comets’, welcome to the wild, western world of solar eclipses. -- Provided by the publisher
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Solar System: Between Fire and Ice
Thomas A. Hockey
Combining the latest astronomical results with a historical perspective, Solar System: Between Fire and Ice takes you on a fabulous tour of our intriguing Solar System. Not content with a conventional discourse restricted to the major and minor bodies, astronomers Hockey, Bartlett, and Boice venture beyond the limits of our system to look at exoplanets and to consider future trends in space exploration and tourism. They discuss not only what scientists know about planets, asteroids, and comets but how the discoveries were made. With extensive teaching experience, their accessible prose clearly explains essential physical concepts. Lavishly illustrated as well as carefully researched, Solar System: Between Fire and Ice delights the eyes as well as feeding the mind. Detailed appendices provide additional technical data and resources for your own on-line voyage of discovery. Whether you are an educated layperson, student, teacher, amateur astronomer, or merely curious, you will come away having learned the most up-to-date knowledge and enjoyed the process. The authors bring a unique perspective to this subject, combining their years of experience in research, teaching, and history of planetary science. Prof. Thomas Hockey is a professor of astronomy, specializing in planetary science and the history of science. Dr. Jennifer Bartlett is an astronomer with a forte in dynamical motions of asteroids with liberal arts teaching experience. Dr. Daniel Boice is an active research astronomer in planetary science, especially comets, with considerable teaching experience. "In the 1980s and 90s the Viking and Voyager missions provided droves of exciting information, generating a new level of public interest. Textbooks were rewritten and scientists worked to understand the data during mission poor period that followed. In recent times, however, we have entered a new era. There has been a multinational effort to expand our knowledge of the Solar System. Data from these missions has been freely shared and has again raised the level of public interest. Within this era of renewed interest, it is appropriate, as is done in this book, to provide the public with an effort to present an integrated view of our Solar System and questions that the discovery of extrasolar planets have raised with regard to the Solar System as a whole." Professor Reta Beebe, recipient of NASA's Exceptional Public Service Medal "I understand this book to be aimed at a general audience, but I can also see its use as a text in astronomy classes, especially in a community school or situations where students typically resist reading the textbook. The writing is light and entertaining, and will engage students, yet it thoroughly covers all the basic concepts of a typical Astro 101 class." - Dr. Katy Garmany, winner of the American Astronomical Society's Annie J. Cannon Award. -- Provided by the publisher
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Comets in the 21st Century: A Personal Guide to Experiencing the Next Great Comet!
Thomas Hockey and Daniel C. Boice
The purpose of this book is to bring comets into the living rooms of general households, to familiarize politicians with these fascinating objects when they ponder funding for comet research, to teach children and young students and to provide teaching tools about these very unusual objects in our skies. The presentation is very comprehensive in its description of orbits around the Sun, the development of the coma (escaping atmosphere) from a comet's nucleus and source of all activities, various types of comet tails, trailing as well as leading as a comet orbits our Sun, ancient beliefs and explanations of these phenomena and the most recent discovery of the first interstellar comet.
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Jupiter
Thomas A. Hockey and William Sheehan
Majestic and untwinkling, Jupiter is the grandest of all planets. It is the largest planet in our solar system and among the brightest objects in the night sky. It shines with a noble, steady luster, and its calming presence has inspired humans for centuries. Jupiter was the “beloved star” of the first serious observers of the planets, the ancient Sumerians and Babylonians, and has inspired poetic utterances from eminent writers such as William Wordsworth and Walt Whitman. It also continues to inspire contemporary astronomers and stargazers, and this beautifully illustrated volume brings our understanding of Jupiter right up to date. -- Provided by publisher
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Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, 2nd Edition
Thomas A. Hockey
The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers is a unique and valuable resource for historians and astronomers alike. It includes approx. 1850 biographical sketches on astronomers from antiquity to modern times. It is the collective work of 430 authors edited by an editorial board of 8 historians and astronomers. This reference provides biographical information on astronomers and cosmologists by utilizing contemporary historical scholarship. The fully corrected and updated second edition adds approximately 300 biographical sketches. Based on ongoing research and feedback from the community, the new entries will fill gaps and provide expansions. In addition, greater emphasis on Russo phone astronomers and radio astronomers is given. Individual entries vary from 100 to 1500 words, including the likes of the super luminaries such as Newton and Einstein, as well as lesser-known astronomers like Galileo's acolyte, Mario Guiducci. -- Provided by publisher
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How We See the Sky: A Naked-Eye Tour of Day & Night
Thomas A. Hockey
Gazing up at the heavens from our backyards or a nearby field, most of us see an undifferentiated mess of stars—if, that is, we can see anything at all through the glow of light pollution. Today’s casual observer knows far less about the sky than did our ancestors, who depended on the sun and the moon to tell them the time and on the stars to guide them through the seas. Nowadays, we don’t need the sky, which is good, because we’ve made it far less accessible, hiding it behind the skyscrapers and the excessive artificial light of our cities. How We See the Sky gives us back our knowledge of the sky, offering a fascinating overview of what can be seen there without the aid of a telescope. Thomas Hockey begins by scanning the horizon, explaining how the visible universe rotates through this horizon as night turns to day and season to season. Subsequent chapters explore the sun’s and moon’s respective motions through the celestial globe, as well as the appearance of solstices, eclipses, and planets, and how these are accounted for in different kinds of calendars. In every chapter, Hockey introduces the common vocabulary of today’s astronomers, uses examples past and present to explain them, and provides conceptual tools to help newcomers understand the topics he discusses. Packed with illustrations and enlivened by historical anecdotes and literary references, How We See the Sky reacquaints us with the wonders to be found in our own backyards. -- Provided by publisher
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The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers
Thomas A. Hockey, Virginia Trimble, and Katherine Bracher
The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers is a unique and valuable resource for historians and astronomers alike. The two volumes include approximately 1550 biographical sketches on astronomers from antiquity to modern times. It is the collective work of about 400 authors edited by an editorial board of 9 historians and astronomers, and provides additional details on the nature of an entry and some summary statistics on the content of entries. This new reference provides biographical information on astronomers and cosmologists by utilizing contemporary historical scholarship. Individual entries vary from 100 to 1500 words, including the likes of the superluminaries such as Newton and Einstein, as well as lesser-known astronomers like Galileo s acolyte, Mario Guiducci. A comprehensive contributor index helps researchers to identify the authors of important scientific topics and treatises." -- Provided by publisher
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Galileo's Planet: Observing Jupiter Before Photography
Thomas A. Hockey
Since the earliest times one of the brightest lights in the heavens has been that of Jupiter, mythical king of the gods and the largest planet in the solar system. It was only natural that peoples from the dawn of history would be interested in such a planet and, indeed, Jupiter was one of the first objects to be observed with the telescope. Even today Jupiter captures the public interest like no other planet: a vast gaseous world, home to violent storms (larger than the Earth) that have raged for centuries. Galileo's Planet: Observing Jupiter before Photography presents the history of humankind's quest to understand the giant planet in the era before photography, a time when the only way to observe the universe was with the human eye. The book provides a comprehensive and fascinating account of the people involved in this quest, their observations, and the results of their findings. Many of the planetary features studied in detail by today's space probes were once glimpsed by keen-eyed, amateur astronomers. These Earth-bound explorers made up for their modest instruments and viewing conditions with their patience, perseverance, and passion for the night sky. Their greatest challenge was the fifth planet from the Sun and the search for its imagined surface-a revelation of the "real Jupiter." In the process, these part-time observers redefined the meaning of the word "planet." The book recounts their story from the earliest times right up until the invention of the camera. -- Provided by publisher
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Iowa's Geological Past: Three Billion Years of Change
Wayne I. Anderson
Iowa's rock record is the product of more than three billion years of geological processes. The state endured multiple episodes of continental glaciation during the Pleistocene Ice Age, and the last glacier retreated from Iowa a mere (geologically speaking) twelve thousand years ago. Prior to that, dozens of seas came and went, leaving behind limestone beds with rich fossil records. Lush coal swamps, salty lagoons, briny basins, enormous alluvial plains, ancient rifts, and rugged Precambrian mountain belts all left their mark. In Iowa's Geological Past, Wayne Anderson gives us an up-to-date and well-informed account of the state's vast geological history from the Precambrian through the end of the Great Ice Age. Anderson takes us on a journey backward into time to explore Iowa's rock-and-sediment record. In the distant past, prehistoric Iowa was covered with shallow seas; coniferous forests flourished in areas beyond the continental glaciers; and a wide variety of animals existed, including mastodon, mammoth, musk ox, giant beaver, camel, and giant sloth. The presence of humans can be traced back to the Paleo-Indian interval, 9,500 to 7,500 years ago. Iowa in Paleozoic time experienced numerous coastal plain and shallow marine environments. Early in the Precambrian, Iowa was part of ancient mountain belts in which granite and other rocks were formed well below the earth's surface. The hills and valleys of the Hawkeye State are not everlasting when viewed from the perspective of geologic time. Overall, Iowa's geologic column records an extraordinary transformation over more than three billion years. Wayne Anderson's profusely illustrated volume provides a comprehensive and accessible survey of the state's remarkable geological past. -- Provided by publisher
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The Comet Hale-Bopp Book : Guide to an Awe-Inspiring Visitor from Deep Space
Thomas A. Hockey and Thomas Bopp
The Comet Hale-Bopp Book is a fascinating introduction to the recently discovered Comets Hale-Bopp, one of the most-studied and perhaps brightest of the comets. The Comet Hale-Bopp Book tells the story of the comet's discovery, astronomer's reaction to it, and their preparation for its arrival. Written in a lucid, accessible style for the non-technical general reader, The Comet Hale-Bopp Book is a compendium of biographical details and first-person quotes from Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp, (and many others) humanizing the science behind the comet and capturing the "feel" of what could well be the astronomical event of the decade. The Comet Hale-Bopp Book provides charts and tables to locate and observe the comet. The comets Shoemaker-Levy 9 and Hyakutake are also discussed to explain their significance as well. -- Midwest Book Review
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Instructor's Manual to Accompany Essentials of the Dynamic Universe: Introduction to Astronomy
Thomas Hockey and Siobahn Morgan
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Tropical Seas to Prairies : a Natural History Field Trip in Black Hawk and Bremer Counties, Iowa
Wayne I. Anderson, James C. Walters, and Daryl Smith
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The Book of the Moon: A Lunar Introduction to Astronomy, Geology, Space Physics, and Space Travel
Thomas A. Hockey
Presents a nontechnical overview of intriguing information about our natural satellite, from the dawn of time to the day Neil Armstrong set foot on its surface, to 2001 and beyond. Fully illustrated with charts and photographs that clarify scientific points. Also explores exciting possibilities in years ahead--for the mining, colonization, and whatever its compelling, silvery presence inspires! - Provided by publisher
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The Cedar Valley Formation (Devonian), Black Hawk and Buchanan Counties; Carbonate Facies and Mineralization
Wayne Anderson and Paul L. Garvin
