THE ROCKS DON'T LIE

Surprising perspective on how the mystery of the Bible's greatest story shaped geology.

In Tibet, geologist David Montgomery heard a local story about a great flood that bore a striking similarity to Noah's Flood. Intrigued, Montgomery began investigating the world's flood stories and, drawing from historic works by theologians, natural philosophers, and scientists, discovered the counter-intuitive role Noah's Flood played in the development of geology and creationism. Steno, the grandfather of geology, even invoked the Flood in laying geology's founding principles based on his observations of northern Italian landscapes. Centuries later, the founders of modern creationism based their irrational view of a global flood on a perceptive critique of geology. With an explorer's eye and a refreshing approach to both faith and science, Montgomery takes readers on a journey across landscapes and cultures. David R. Montgomery is a professor of Geomorphology at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he lives. The author of Dirt and King of Fish, he was a 2008 MacArthur Fellow.