The Hamlyn Guide to Minerals, Rocks and Fossils

by William Roger Hamilton, Arthur Clive Bishop, Alan Robert Woolley

A detailed and extensively illustrated handbook.

The colors, shapes and properties of minerals vary from the bland to the magnificent. Guide to Minerals, Rocks and Fossils is a practical and authoritative handbook that is both comprehensive and easy to use.

Each of the 600 specimens is shown in full color, sometimes in two or more forms. There are also drawings that show the structure of the crystalline specimens. It covers the basics like granite, as well as oddities like meteorites and tektites.

Fossils include sponges, corals, arthropods, brachiopods, and fossil land plants.

Each is described in detail, with notes on:

color and transparency grain size hardness structure occurrence mineralogy distinguishing features habit cleavage texture alteration luster

Mineral names, chemical formulae and structural data accord to international standards. This is a very complete, but attractive and useful volume in a respected series.

Genres: Science, Reference, Geology, Nonfiction, Science Nature, Textbooks

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

Reviews

[L.S.]

This is a very usefull tool if you are studying mineralogy, petrography and even paleontology. It has a great deal of information about the samples, it gives precise key for the determination of the minerals/ rocks and even has some mentions about the confusions that one could make when trying to identify a mineral. The fossil sections is quite extensive and presents the main genra that a student could came accros.
I used it for my practical exams and I am still using it for the samples from my web museum.

[Jeff]

1st Read: September 1, 2016 - October 26, 2016

For as much as I love geology and rocks, nature and things of the earth, this book hasn't kept my interest too much. I'll keep it on hand as a reference book, but I won't be finishing it anytime soon, as it doesn't read like a good story.
One thing this book could have done to benefit the reader would have been to give a correct pronunciation for so many of the words. I often found myself reading the word out loud a few times as to how it is said properly.

[Sally]

Not only is it well-organized, heavily illustrated and fairly easy to understand, get this:

"To make the best use of the book the contents page and index should be used freely."

The authors are index aficionados! Perhaps I should be striving to index rock and mineral guides!

[for-much-deliberation ...]

Another of philip's guides, this one focusing on rocks and fossils. Great for the students and professionals and any other geology enthusiasts...

[Johnathan Savard]

My go-to book when planning a mineral collecting trip (after all, who wants to lug textbooks out and about?)

[Kim]

New to the hobby of rockhounding and this book is very helpful!

[Paul]

A solid, well-organized introduction and field guide to minerals, rocks, and fossils, with excellent illustrative photos.

[Tech Nossomy]

An invaluable resource for both the geologist and anyone with even a passing interest in the determination of petrological finds. Non-verbose exposition of the subject matter and its format makes it easy to carry around in the field.