TY - BOOK ID - 136071376 TI - Chuckwalla land : the riddle of California's desert PY - 2011 SN - 1283277794 9786613277794 0520948661 9780520948662 9781283277792 9780520256163 0520256166 PB - Berkeley : University of California Press, DB - UniCat KW - Desert biology KW - Deserts KW - american southwest. KW - arid. KW - biome. KW - biosphere. KW - botany. KW - cacti. KW - california. KW - conservation. KW - death valley. KW - desert animals. KW - desert plants. KW - desert. KW - earth sciences. KW - ecology. KW - ecosystem. KW - environment. KW - environmentalism. KW - extreme heat. KW - geology. KW - kelso dunes. KW - landscape. KW - life sciences. KW - natural history. KW - naturalist. KW - nature. KW - nonfiction. KW - paleobiology. KW - red rock canyon. KW - science. KW - wasteland. KW - zoology. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:136071376 AB - Described as "a writer in the tradition of Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and other self-educated seers" by the San Francisco Chronicle, David Rains Wallace turns his attention in this new book to another distinctive corner of California-its desert, the driest and hottest environment in North America. Drawing from his frequent forays to Death Valley, Red Rock Canyon, Kelso Dunes, and other locales, Wallace illuminates the desert's intriguing flora and fauna as he explores a controversial, unresolved scientific debate about the origin and evolution of its unusual ecosystems. Eminent scientists and scholars appear throughout these pages, including maverick paleobiologist Daniel Axelrod, botanist Ledyard Stebbins, and naturalists Edmund Jaeger and Joseph Wood Krutch. Weaving together ecology, geology, natural history, and mythology in his characteristically eloquent voice, Wallace reveals that there is more to this starkly beautiful landscape than meets the eye. ER -