Introduction to Hydrogeology

Rating:
Summary: A very well-written textbook
Review: "Introduction to hydrogeology" by Professor David Deming, University of Oklahoma, is a very well-written textbook which in its style and content provides a first class, sharp and well-focused introduction to some of the most important and most actual topics of hydrogeology. A very thorough and readable introduction to the "Fluids in the crust" (Chapter 1) is followed by chapters written with a fresh, insightful, and comprehensive approach to overview and then discuss in detail many issues, such as "Properties of porous media" (Chapter 3), "Driving forces and mechanisms of fluid flow (Chapter 7), "Abnormal fluid pressures" (Chapter 8), "Environmental Hydrogeology" (Chapter 9), "Earthquakes , stress, and fluids" (Chapter 12), or "Fluids and ore deposits" (Chapter 14).

The treatment of the subjects is thorough but it does not get bogged down in futile details or tedious mathematics. Many equations present in many chapters are fully derived from basic principles. Case histories, carefully chosen, illustrate the practical side of theoretical concepts. Biographies of the founders of the hydrogeology provide historical information on this science and help better understand the evolution of ideas in the field.

Logically structured and clearly written, the material is presented at a level accessible to the geological student with a limited physics and mathematics background. However, it contains a wealth of information and comment and will unquestionably prove of value and interest to a much wider readership.