Novelists, poets, artists, anthropologists, traditional elders, philosophers, and naturalists come together to create a geological portrait of the Earth — from the violence of earthquakes and erupting volcanoes to epochal patterns in stone and the sinuous flow of rivers. With insights from many cultures and across time, Bedrock wonderfully illuminates the geology of our home planet.

The book is organized into sections that deal with rock and stone; deep time; earthquakes and faults; volcanoes and eruptions; rivers to the sea;...