BASIN AND RANGE By John McPhee (Noonday Press: $8.95)

As John McPhee roams the canyons and mountains of Utah, Nevada and eastern California with geologist Kenneth Deffeyes, he reflects on the history of geologic time scale, the theory of plate tectonics (popularly known as “continental drift”) and the geologic history of the region. McPhee obviously loves geology and delights in the ringing syllables of technical terms, names of rocks and geological time periods. The tangled thread of his narrative becomes a bit difficult to follow at times (the publisher should have included extensive maps), but McPhee’s almost palpable enthusiasm for his subject will charm the amateur geologist or paleontologist.