Dr. Bernard W. Pipkin is Professor Emeritus at the University of Southern California. He received his doctorate from the University of Arizona and is a licensed geologist and certified engineering geologist in the state of California. After graduation he worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on a variety of military and civil projects, from large dams to pioneer roads in rough terrain for microwave sites. He has been a consulting engineering geologist as well as a university teacher since 1965. Dr. Pipkin is past president of the National Association of Geology Teachers and is a Fellow in the Geological Society of America. He hosted the PBS 30-part program Oceanus that won a local Emmy for Best Educational Television Series. In 1995 he shared the Clare Holdredge Award with Richard Proctor from the Association of Engineering Geologists for their book ENGINEERING GEOLOGY PRACTICE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. He currently lectures on geology on cruise ships and at last count, he and his wife Faye have been involved in 26 cruises throughout the world. Dr. Pipkin is a private pilot with a flight instructor's rating; he took many of the aerial photos in the book. They have three grown children and five grandchildren and live south of Los Angeles on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.


D. D. Dee Trent, Ph.D., has worked with or taught geology since 1955. After graduating from college, he worked in the petroleum industry where his geologic skills were sharpened doing projects in Utah, Arizona, California and Alaska. When the company offered to send him to Libya he decided it was time to become a college geology teacher. He earned a doctorate from the University of Arizona and for 28 years he taught geology, physical oceanography and physics at Citrus Community College. He has also served as an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California, taught mini-courses for the University of California at Riverside Extension Division, worked for the National Park Service, done field work on glaciers in California and Alaska, appeared on several episodes of the PBS telecourse The Earth Revealed, authored or co-authored papers on various geologic and mining topics, and co-authored (with Richard Hazlett) the text Joshua Tree National Park Geology. Now retired, Dee enjoys playing banjo and guitar in jazz combos and oil painting en plein air.


Richard W. Hazlett is a retired professor emeritus from Pomona College in Claremont, California, where he was a four-time Wig Distinguished Teaching award winner, former chair of the geology department and coordinator of the interdisciplinary Environmental Analysis Program. The Princeton Review ranked him one of The Best 300 Professors in 2012. Presently, he is a research affiliate of the U.S. Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and an adjunct faculty member in earth sciences at the University of Hawai'i, Hilo. His areas of environmental interest include soils and the movement of nutrients and pollutants in natural systems. He also has many years of experience working in volcanology, researching and mapping active volcanoes in Alaska, Italy, Central America and Hawai'i. His book publications include The American West at Risk: Science, Myths, and Politics of Land Abuse and Recovery (published in 2008 with co-authors Wilshire and Nielson); Volcanoes: A Global Perspective (published in 2022 with co-authors Lockwood and De la Cruz-Reyna); and Roadside Geology of Hawai'i (published in 2022 with co-authors Gansecki and Lundblad). He was lead editor for the Oxford University Press Research Encyclopedia of Agriculture and the Environment (2020). In addition to his academic career, Professor Hazlett is a former employee of the U.S. National Park Service, where he assisted with exhibit planning and illustrations and wrote interpretive brochures for visitors. He credits much of his teaching ability to the on-the-job-training of this early career experience.


Paul Bierman, Ph.D., is a professor of environmental science and natural resources at the University of Vermont. Now in his 29th year at the university, Paul's areas of focus include understanding how humans and landscapes interact, using his expertise in hydrology, geochemistry and geomorphology. Paul teaches a variety of courses including earth hazards, climate change and science communication. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Williams College and his doctorate from the University of Washington. Research interests include climates and measuring the rate at which Earth s surface changes, which involves field work in such locations as central Australia and Greenland. Bierman directs UVM's Cosmogenic Nuclide Extraction Lab, one of only a handful of laboratories in the country dedicated to the preparation of samples for analysis of 10-Be and 26-Al from pure quartz. He manages the Landscape Change Program, an NSF-supported digital archive of historic Vermont landscape images used for teaching and research, available at uvm.edu/landscape. Paul's research is funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Geographic Society and the U.S. Army. In 1996, Paul was awarded the Donath medal as the outstanding young scientist of the year by the Geological Society of America; he has since received a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation specifically for integrating scientific education and research. In 2005, Paul was awarded the NSF Distinguished Teaching Scholar award in recognition of his ongoing attempts to integrate these two strands of his academic life. Together, Paul, his graduate students, his undergraduate students and his collaborators have nearly 200 publications in refereed journals and books including a modern textbook, Key Concepts in Geomorphology. In his spare time, Paul enjoys walking, Nordic skiing, and cooking.