Choice 评论

Benn and Evans have prepared the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and professional work available on this topic. The authors write with clarity and confidence; they include a wealth of data and numerous citations, yet maintain an enviable fluency and flow of language. This is a masterpiece; the treatment is encyclopedic, ranging from glacier classification, mass balance and climate relations; to meltwater, its chemical and mechanical erosion and associated outburst floods (j"okulhlaup); to glacier motion, erosion and deposition; to supraglacial and englacial environments, terrestrial ice-marginal, glaciolacustrine, and glaciomarine environments. The second part deals with the effects of glaciation: erosional forms and landscapes; sediment facies; sediment landform associations; land systems; and megageomorphology. Diagrams, maps, tables, graphs, and photographs are profuse and excellent. The 86-page list of references is a major contribution in itself. The publishers have achieved a milestone; the moderate price, bearing in mind the 734 pages, should render this volume beyond competition. It demonstrates what can be achieved when widespread and ambitious fieldwork is combined with extensive library work, excellent understanding, and what must have been inordinate dedication. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals. J. D. Ives; Carleton University