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Sites of Impact: Meteorite Craters Around the World | 
| Author: Stan Gaz
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
List Price: $60.00
Buy New: $31.08
as of 11/24/2009 09:23 CST details
You Save: $28.92 (48%)
New (27) Used (12) from $29.95
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Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 104316
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 146
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.2
Dimensions (in): 13.1 x 10.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 156898815X
Dewey Decimal Number: 779.36092
EAN: 9781568988153
ASIN: 156898815X
Publication Date: May 4, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The Earth is pockmarked with the evidence of ancient collisions: huge craters blasted into its surface by thousands of pounds of meteorite fragments traveling at approximately 50,000 miles per hour. Ranging in age from those formed in this century to billion-year-old specimens, the Earth's meteorite craters are eroding at a rapid pace. The best-preserved impact sites are often difficult to access buried under ice, obscured by foliage, or baking in desert climes. These desolate landscapes are connected to another place outside of our world, and for photographer Stan Gaz they are sites of pilgrimage steps in a journey begun as a curious young boy accompanying his father on geological expeditions, and culminating in a six-year journey traveling the globe in search of these sites, much of that time spent leaning his twenty-pound, handheld Hasselblad medium format camera out of an open-sided helicopter.
The eighty-five astounding black-and-white photographs collected in Sites of Impact transcend the purely documentary and intersect the sublime. They are large-scale, aerial landscapes infused with a child's sense of wonder and an adult's preoccupation with the fragility of life. Like the sites themselves natural monuments to explosive destruction and concomitant creation the images speak to the vulnerability of the Earth and the significance of our place in the universe. In addition to photographs of the craters and their surrounding landscapes, Gaz includes photographs of actual meteorites and of his own carefully crafted sculptures that recreate their often dynamic form and mimic their specific mineral content. Anecdotal passages about the artist's experiences photographing each crater are interspersed with scientific data regarding the crater's location, age, structure, and condition. An essay by Earth scientist Christian Koeberl summarizes what we know and do not know about meteorite impact events, while an essay by photo historian Robert Silberman places Gaz's pictures within the traditions of landscape photography and the aesthetics of the sublime.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Prehistoric images November 11, 2009
A. G. Sanchez (Golden, Co. USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was interested in this book because I worked with D.W. Arthur, a Planetary Geologist with the U.S.G.S. in the 1970's, who was compiling a world atlas of "Astroblemes" (ancient impact structures). As far as I know it was never published. It was much more of a catalog that this book. I had always hoped that it looked more like "Sites of Impact", but it was a "Scientific Work and didn't need to look appealing to the user", to quote Mr. Arthur!!
This is a large format, beautiful book with outstanding, artistically created imagery. It does NOT have much technically related text with regard to the 10 selected impact structures, they are well known enough that the geologic information regarding them can be found elsewhere.
The images are very similar to images taken of other Solar System members (Mercury, Mars, our own Moon) and give a sense of isolation to the features depicted. I've spent ground time at several of these sites and the aerial views fill in a gap in my knowledge of them.
This is an artistic treatment of a scientific subject. It is NOT a textbook of impact sites. There are several other titles that fit that bill.
An outstanding presentation September 18, 2009
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
Both photography and science libraries will appreciate the full-page, full-color displays in SITES OF IMPACT, a survey of asteroid collision points around the planet. Aerial expeditions by photographer Stan Gaz offers images of the sites in black and white in an outstanding presentation.
 Art not Science July 24, 2009
Peter Sullivan (Wichita, KS USA)
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
Be aware that this book is an art photography book, not a science book. The brief section by Christian Koeberl concerning meteorites and craters is excellent, but the rest is pure art, including the frontispiece photo of an object purported to be a meteorite given to the artist by his father when he was a child. This object is not a meteorite, and in fact appears to be nothing more than a ball of crumpled aluminum foil. This calls into question the artist's claim that this gift kindled a lifelong interest in meteorites. The story is part of the art, making a very clever package. The photographs are beautiful, and this volume is well worth the price, but internet shoppers not having the opportunity to browse the book may be taken by surprise. If you are looking for something along the lines of Kathleen Mark's "Meteorite Craters" or "Meteorite Craters and Impact Structures of the Earth" by Paul Hodge, this is not it. For the serious meteorite collector looking for a unique and aesthetic addition to the meteoritics library, here it is. If not, save your money for a nice chondrite.
more detail July 14, 2009
play fair
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
Great subject, but a heads up for you readers out there. The photos are black and white. Sometimes that can be a plus, giving a ghostly or otherworldly feel, but sometimes it is a minus given the seeming lack of detail and sharpness seen in the living color photos you can see elsewhere, like on the web. (They are on the web...so get them there...here you have something unique) A few are really extraordinary, several very interesting, some far less so, in my opinion. No photographer wows you on every page. The book deals with 10 craters. Only 34 pages are mainly text. (4 pages of this are interesting field notes of the photographer, Stan Gaz, about the experience of doing the project, 10 pages are by Robert Silberman giving an interpretation on the author's photographs, and the other 10 pages by another contributor, Christian Koeberl, giving a brief, but nicely done intro to impact craters in general) The rest of this large dimension coffee table book (over 100 pages more) is composed of photos without much comment. It is not a book you will go to to read about these craters as there is little written about them. It's chief value is in some striking (many aerial) photographs in an ethereal black and white composition, taken with great use of light etc... and then Silberman's thought provoking comments on Gaz's art. You should really, really enjoy this interesting book, more so, I think, if you know what you are going to get in the mail before you open the box expecting color and expansive commentary. I do not mean to talk you out of a purchase, only prepare you for the real treat this book is.
photography June 14, 2009
Maureen Orr (Ca. usa)
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
the photography in this book is overwhelming you can feel the sensitivety of each picture. Gives insight to how the author felt growing up. Will share this book with my friends. Thank you
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