John McPhee Assembles California
23:12 minutes
There is marine limestone at the top of Mount Everest. But how did it get there? That story, and the story of the creation of the state of California, both come back to the work of plate tectonics. In this archival interview from 1993, science writer John McPhee and geologist Eldridge Moores talk about the book Assembling California, and the study of rocks, minerals, and continental plates.
Segment Guests
Eldridge Moores
Eldridge Moores was a key figure in John McPhee’s Assembling California and a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the Department of Geology at the University of California, Davis.
John McPhee
John McPhee is author of Annals of the Former World (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1998), a staff writer at The New Yorker, and the Ferris Professor of Journalism in Residence at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey.
Meet the Producer
About Charles Bergquist
@cbquistAs Science Friday’s director and senior producer, Charles Bergquist channels the chaos of a live production studio into something sounding like a radio program. Favorite topics include planetary sciences, chemistry, materials, and shiny things with blinking lights.