USGS MONOGRAPH 53: THE GREAT BOOK OF THE GREAT LAKES

What makes a geological book great? To adapt Mortimer Adler’s tripartite definition to the geological context: the book must have contemporary significance; it must be “inexhaustible” in that it can be read repeatedly with benefit or increased learning; and the book must be relevant to the great ideas and issues of the geological community. To those criteria, we may add paradigm-setting and/or great “normal” science.

USGS Monograph 53, The Pleistocene of Indiana and Michigan and the History of the Great Lakes, is truly THE great book for the glacial geology of the Great Lakes region. Published in 1915 after nearly 30 years of field work, Monograph 53 is co-authored by Frank Leverett and Frank B. Taylor. It is the third and last of the massive quarto volumes describing the glacial geomorphology in the states surrounding the Great Lakes and it is the only one to address completely the chronological stages of the various glacial lakes. Taken together with its two companion volumes, Monograph 38 (1899) and Monograph 41 (1902), it is the capstone study that applies the techniques of surficial feature mapping and observations to an extremely complicated field area to derive a description of the processes and events of the late Wisconsinan in the Midwest.

Does Monograph 53 deserve to be called a “Great Book of Geology”? If the number of citations in current bibliographies is considered, it remains a significant resource for contemporary geological field research in the Great Lakes region. Since Leverett & Taylor described the surface features observed between 1886 and 1915, and many of these features have disappeared under concrete over the last century, the book also has great historical value. Monograph 53 may be considered “inexhaustible” in that so much territory was covered in such detail that modern glaciologists still study the descriptions and maps repeatedly. Additionally, it would be impossible in the present day to repeat the intensive field work. It is a unique combination of acute observation and interpretation that continues to provide inspiration, as well as opportunities for continued research, to modern geologists. Leverett & Taylor’s work represents the finest kind of “normal glacial science” for 1915, with continued relevance for today’s geoscience.