Origins of Igneous Rocks

Rating:
Summary: An excellent introduction to Petrology.
Review: This book offers a very good introduction to igneous petrology. It starts out with a chapter about phase diagrams, which gives an excellent survey of common petrological systems. It continues with chapters on chemical proporties of different elemants, among these an excellent chapter on trace elements and radiometric datings. After this, the book goes into all the common rock-types, e.g. there's a chapter on peridotites and mantle composition, MORB basalts, OIBs, anorogenic granites, kimberlites etc.

Hess is very concise, and it may be somewhat difficult to grasp all the points in first reading, but if you take the time, there is indeed a great deal of points to get. Note however, that a knowledge of common mineralogy and basical petrology is necessary. The best about this book is, that it doesn't just list the theories and say 'that's how it is' - the observations are listed, and then everything is discussed and explained - all the reasoning behind the theories.
This book is from 1989 and is still going strong. If a new edition was made, that would be perfect.