The Making of a Land: Geology of Norway |
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15 July 2026 - Erlenbach
It took me nearly a decade to read The Making of a Land, despite having hitherto had a great interest in geology and it having been one of the first books I bought in Norway. The problem was, I think greatly due to the book's physical size. It is large and heavy, which means that you can't really carry around and generally I needed a surface to sit it on rather than trying to hold it. It's size also meant it was always at the bottom of my pile, much like Meisner, Thorne and Wheeler's book on Gravitation (this one didn't make it to Norway, much less Switzerland).
The authors, Ramberg, Bryhni, Nøttvedt and Rangnes, have produced a beautifully illustrated and clearly organized book. There is even a large accompanying geologic map of Norway which hung on my wall for the years I lived there. As a source of geologic history for both Norway and the seas surrounding it there is a wealth of information. My main quibble with the organization is that it's purely historical rather than geographical. Since one encounters geology in geographical places, I find geology books that describe things this way more useful for field study. (And a size I can carry into the field). As a book to read at home though, this organization is find and mirrors the structure of a book I read 20 years ago, The Last Billion Years on eastern Canada's geology after my first there with the twins.
The title, The Making of a Land, is also a bit deceptive, because a great deal of the book focuses on the undersea geology off Norway's coast. The book was quite explicitly funded by oil companies though, e.g. Shell, Statoil (now Equinor), ConocoPhillips, PetroCanada, etc. And it is beacuse of this industry that the geology of the undersea areas bearing oil and gas is very well studied. Considering its importance to Norway's economy it would have been silly not to include it. This is much like the Roadside Geology of Florida which I read a decade ago.
Despite my slow reading of it, I highly recommend this opus on the geology of Norway.
Clearly I had other priorities than reading this book...
