“Rocks were history books of the earth. They told of volcanoes erupting, seas coming and going, continents moving and mountains forming…One only had to know the language to read them…”.

“There aren't many places like the Grand Canyon, where millions of years of earth’s history is exposed. Archaeologists work in the time scale of humans, but geologists work in deep time.”

With college behind them, Lauren Brown and her husband Kenny booked a river rafting expedition down the Colorado River. Lauren admired the magnificence of the Grand Canyon…the striated layers of rock in the canyons represented mysterious eras of the past. Once she determined that geological studies was her true calling, a male dominated field in the 1970s, she and Kenny seemed to drift apart.

As Lauren's marriage was faltering, she sought comfort in the wrong place, in the company of her thesis advisor. He proved to be vindictive, discounting her fieldwork and controlling her ability to complete her thesis since she resisted his insistent, predatory behavior. He was a thorn in the side of Lauren's best friend and fellow researcher, Chris Connor at Tex Polytechnic College in Pasadena, Texas. The three men in Lauren’s orbit consisted of an intermittent, emotionally distant husband, a vindictive advisor in control of Lauren’s geological progress and a true, compassionate friend, one she could spur with to gain perspective on her work. These challenges would forestall but not diminish Lauren’s joy for her fieldwork in geology. “Exposed rock was ripe for study. It was exciting to think of the antiquity of the earth and its millions of years of history waiting for geologists to explore.”

Lauren Brown continued to pursue graduate work in volcanology. Research cruises included destinations to study underwater volcanoes and mountains of basaltic lava.The Earth’s subterranean movements would be evaluated and rock samples might provide data to bolster understanding of why tectonic plates “converge, diverge, or slide by each other thus causing quakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.”

In “Deep Time” novelist Susan Sizer Bogue provides detailed, well researched information on the study of volcanology and the mapping of basalts. Despite observation of the trends of prior volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens, those camping just outside the Red Zone were ill prepared for the fast moving, catastrophic lateral eruption. This fascinating geological journey follows the imagined fieldwork of Lauren Brown as she analyzes rock samples from summertime geological expeditions, conducts research into Columbia River basalt flows in Oregon and observes harmonic tremors (continuous rhythmic ground shaking that might mean magma is moving under the volcano…) near Mount St. Helens. A fascinating read.

Thank you Caitlin Hamilton Marketing & Publicity, for She Writes Press for a print ARC in exchange for an honest review.