Ice on the Equator: Quaternary Geology of Mount Kenya, East Africa

Sister Bay, Wisconsin, U.S.A.: William Caxton Ltd, 1990. Apparent First. Hard Cover. Very Good +/No Jacket. 386 pages incl. bibliograpgy; VG+, has p o name and Ex Libris written inside front cover, otherwise unmarked, very nice solid copy in light green cloth-covered boards, trace of reading/handling wear. From the author's foreword: "This book is based on fifteen years of environmental research on Mount Kenya, one of the principal high mountains of East Africa. The Mount Kenya Quaternary History Project started when I began to gather published and unpublished information on all the East African mountains, and developed what turned out to be a lengthy correspondence and collaboration with other East African specialists. I selected Mount Kenya for a detailed glacial geological/environmental survey because it is one of the highest mountains in East Africa with an extensive .Afroalpine zone, and a lengthy geologic history, spanning the whole of the Quaternary Period. What I originally intended to be a three to five year project slowly lengthened to a decade, and now shows no sign of terminating. The Mount Kenya Quaternary History Project which I have directed since 1970 is fortunate to have numerous collaborators in different parts of the world, many of whom have never seen the mountain. Yet these associates continue to produce new and exciting information in many different disciplines." This book surveys a long glacial and periglacial sequence on Mount Kenya, its geological and environmental settings, sequences of paleosols and their significance in understanding the multiplicity of glaciations. In addition, it provides a discussion of relative and absolute age-dating methods used to refine the stratigraphy and interpret the paleoclimate under which deposits evolved over the last two million years. At this time new information on Mount Kenya becomes available almost daily, as samples are processed in laboratories in Africa, Europe, and North America, and as as old data are viewed in novel ways within the light of this knowledge. The next decade will see the development of a refined time- stratigraphy for Mount Kenya that will provide even more precise information on the sequence and timing of geologic events that continue to shape one of the most imposing and beautiful places on earth. 4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall.