Dave talks to geologist and author John Dvorak about his new book: How The Mountains Formed: A New Geological History of North America.
The geologic epic intertwines the story of life on Earth and how it has been changed by and also shaped the crustal dynamics, atmosphere and oceans of the planet. Dvorak draws on some of the latest ideas in the geosciences about how the Earth's interior -- far more complex than the simple core, mantle and crust model we learn about in school -- continues to drive the formation of mountains.
North America's Rocky Mountain region gets fascinating treatment in the book because it has never quite been explained adequately by the relatively modern theory of plate tectonics. It's a story 4.5 billion years in the making!
