Book Review on River Planet:Rivers from Deep Time to the Modern Crisis by Martin Gibling

G. Shanmugam

Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Texas at Arlington, USA

Book Title: River Planet

Rivers from Deep Time to the Modern Crisis

Author: Martin Gibling

Publisher: Dunedin Academic Press Ltd., Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

Language: English

Hardcover: 240 pages

ISBN-10: 1780460996

ISBN-13: 978-1780460994

Item Weight: 2.08 pounds

Dimensions: 7.87 x 0.8 x 10.24 inches

Prize (Hardcover): $45.00 (USD)

1.Introduction

“River Planet”, published in October 2021, is a masterpiece by Martin Gibling. Born in the UK, Martin Gibling, Emeritus Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences,Dalhousie University,Halifax,Nova Scotia, Canada has studied rivers and river sediments around the world. This book, which is not only scientifically sound but also a personal account of rivers from the beginning of Earth history to their present plight, is the culmination of his successful academic career.

2.Contents

Sourced Illustrations

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Part 1: Rivers in Deep Time

1 Rivers and Geological Time

2 The First Drop of Rain on the Nascent Earth

3 How Plants Bent and Split Rivers

Part 2: Our Modern Rivers

4 Breaking Pangaea: The Ancestral Rivers of Africa

5 Hot and Cold: The River Histories of Australia,New Zealand,and Antarctica

6 Young and Restless: The Evolving Rivers of Asia

7 The Conflicted Rivers of Europe

8 The Reversing Rivers of South America

9 Canyons and Cataracts in North America

10 A Canadian Amazon

Part 3: How the Ice Age Changed Rivers

11 Frozen Out: Northern Rivers Sculpted by Ice

12 Mega Floods and Noah's Ark

13 Rivers Drowned by the Sea

Part 4: Humans and Rivers

14 From Stone Age Streams to River Civilizations

15 The Lost Saraswati River of the Indian Subcontinent

16 Confucian Engineers on the Yellow River of China

Part 5: Engineered Rivers

17 Dead and Wounded Rivers

18 Collapsing and Closing Dams

19 Between the Dams: An Elegy for the Saskatchewan River

20 Without Spoiling the Land: Rivers and Agriculture

21 London's Buried Rivers

22 Restored Rivers

Epilogue

Glossary

Further Reading

Endnotes

Index

3.Review comments

The narrative of this book is complex. As Gibling weaves through personal, spiritual, geological,environmental, and engineering issues on multiple levels, it is difficult to review the essence of each part of the book on a consistent basis. Therefore, I have decided to emphasize some key points from selected chapters.

3.1. Rivers in Deep Time

The Chapter 1 “Rivers and Geological Time” is divided into the following headings:

1) The Earth has a history

2) Unconformities and the discovery of Deep Time 3) Cross-beds and ancient river flow

4) Meandering rivers

5) Braided rivers

6) Anastomosing rivers

7) Tracing ancient rivers in Nebraska

In the first three chapters of Part 1(Rivers in Deep Time), Gibling introduces readers to the epic geological history of the world's rivers,from the first drop of rain on the Earth to the modern environmental crisis.He illustrates a geological timeline for the evolution of the Earth's rivers and other key events(Gibling,2021,his Figure 1.2). The river journey begins with the first evidence of flowing water four billion years ago and continues with enormous rivers on the first supercontinents,after which terrestrial vegetation engineered new river forms in the Devonian period. The modern scientific study of rivers began with the observant eye of Leonardo da Vinci in the fifteenth century in Italy.Then the story switches to James Hutton in 1788 and the Unconformity at Sicker Point in Scotland, and the story moves forward and upward to extraterrestrial Planet Mars.

3.2. Our Modern Rivers

In Part 2,Gibling discusses the dramatic breakup of Pangaea some 200 million years ago that led to our familiar modern rivers as continents drifted and collided, mountains rose, and plains tilted (Gibling,2021, his Figure 4.2). Among many remarkable cases,the book explores the rapid carving of the Grand Canyon,the reversal of the Amazon,and the lost rivers of Antarctica. Importantly, the author documents the longevity of modern rivers (Gibling, 2021, his Figure 4.3). Here, modern rivers are broadly grouped into geographical categories, namely:

1) Rivers of North America 2) Rivers of South America 3) Rivers of Europe

4) Rivers of Asia, M. East

5) Rivers of Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica 6) Rivers of Africa

The Mississippi is the oldest river on stable continents (Gibling, 2021, his Figure 4.3).

3.3. How the Ice Age Changed Rivers

In Part 3,Gibling tells his story in a captivating way.For example,below is the last paragraph of Chapter 13:“I write the final words of this chapter by the Rhine in the German city of Mainz, where barges are beating upstream in the last of the daylight.In my imagination,I see an international river that gathers the water of Europe but,for now at least,has no existence.I see the Rhine rising in the Alps and collecting the Mosel,Meuse,and Scheldt en route to its confluence with the Thames.The river threads the Lobourg Channel through Dover Strait before gathering the Somme and the Seine and thundering through Hurd Deep to the open Atlantic.”

3.4. Humans and Rivers

In Part 4, Gibling passionately narrates the anthropogenic influence on the river systems(Gibling,2021, his Figure 14.5). In addition, he has recognized five stages in anthropogenic modifications of rivers:

1) Stage 5:Engineering Era (Late Holocene)

2) Stage 4:Irrigation Era

3) Stage 3:Agricultural Era

4) Stage 2:Minor River Effects

5) Stage 1:Minimal River Effects (Late Pleistocene)

At the end of Chapter 14, Gibling describes the irrigation system during the medieval period in Europe in some details:

1) “Engineers set the foundation for modern river and water supplies, often drawing on a knowledge of Roman systems”.

2) “Under the cobbled streets of Siena in Italy run

many kilometers of medieval,brick-walled tunnels(bottini) that channel the rainwater and surface flow percolating down through the porous rock”.3) “Branches supply residents,some still named on the walls, and on the still surface of the water float rafts of precipitated calcite, suspended by surface tension”.

4) “After a long subterranean journey, grimy geolo

gists led by city resident Vincenzo Pascucci rush out to the fountain in the square, emerging through a posh restaurant where the well-heeled diners are considerably startled”.

Such lifely descriptions are the underpinning of this book.

3.4.1. The Lost Saraswati River of the Indian Subcontinent

The Chapter 15 in Gibling's book is a treasure chest of information on the “mother of all rivers” known as the“Saraswati”.This river is cited in the ancient Vedic-Hindu text known as the Rigveda, which is the oldest known Vedic Sanskrit scriptures (Jamison, 2014). The Rigveda dates back to 1500-1000 BCE. The origin and role of this great river in the Indus Civilization in the north-western region of the Indian Subcontinent have always been the focus of academic debates among Hindu scholars worldwide.Nuggets of information that Gibling has assembled in terms of literature (e.g.,Oldham,1874,1893),river cliffs by erosion,age dating of sediment layers, monsoonal decline through time,earthquake-induced shifting of river course, Hindu-River festivals at confluence in Allahabad (i.e. Kumbh Mela), and research during the British Raj of India(1858-1947), are of immense value in understanding the Vedic culture. This chapter is a perfect monsoon wedding between geosciences and river culture. This chapter consists of the following headings:

1) Saraswati,the mother of all Rivers

2) Max Muller translates the Rigveda

3) River courses and the Rigveda

4) The Indus Civilization and the Saraswati

5) A waning monsoon and declining rivers

6) Satellites find the Saraswati

Recent research on the Saraswati(e.g.,Clift et al.,2012; Sinhala et al., 2013; Khan and Sinhala, 2019)reveals that satellite images finally began to resolve the Saraswati question by linking the channel of the Hark,more than 10 km wide,to the Sutlej downstream from the big river's mountain exit. Geological and geophysical data show that “Saraswati” has existed since the Indus Valley Civilization (1200 BC) in the north-western Indian subcontinent (Chatterjee et al.,2019;Gibling,2021,his Figure 15.1).Rivers do matter to culture and civilization, not just in India but throughout the world!

3.4.2. Confucian Engineers on the Yellow River of China

The Chapter 16 is discussed under the following headings:

1) Marco Polo explores the Yellow River

2) Chinese emperors manage the Yellow River

3) Confucian river engineers

4) Catastrophic dike breaks in the 1840s

5) Farming increases the sediment load

6) Environmental warfare on the Yellow River

7) Floods on the North China Plain

8) River poets madly singing in the mountains

Xu (2004) noted that the Yellow River has been intensively affected by human activities, particularly in the past 50 years,including soil-water conservation in the upper and middle drainage basin, flood protection in the lower reaches, and flow regulation and water diversion in the whole drainage basin.All these changes may impact sedimentation process of the lower Yellow River in different ways. I have discussed the Yellow River from a sedimentological viewpoint from the source to the river mouth where hyperpycnal flows are generated (Shanmugam, 2018a).

3.5. Engineered Rivers

In Part 5,the author discusses dams preserving the land. Furthermore, he laments that there are gigantic meltwater floods from the Ice Age,which may be linked to account for the Deluge,and river systems drowned by rising sea level as the ice melted.Early human civilizations sought to control rivers through agriculture and irrigation,leading in the 19th century to hydraulic mining,the rise of big dams,and the burial of rivers below cities such as London.Although rivers are now in crisis,the book celebrates humanity that is mindful of the environment and that attempts to preserve ecosystems around the world,bringing hope to the Planet Earth.

3.6. Missing topics

A brief consideration of certain topics, missing from the book, could have strengthened the book in covering the history of development of knowledge in fluvial geomorphology and sedimentology. I have identified below a few examples.

3.6.1. Prof. Marie Morisawa, a river geomorphologist

Prof. Marie Morisawa was a pioneering river geomorphologist (Morisawa, 1985), who founded the journal “Geomorphology”.

3.6.2. The Old Red Sandstone

Any account of fluvial deposits must include the classic study of cyclothems in the Old Red Sandstone by Allen(1964),when Gibling discusses his first visit to the exposures of Old Red Sandstone in Wales.

3.6.3. Fluvial facies models

Fluvial facies models were popular in the 1980s(Miall,1985).However,this topic is not covered.Even if one disagrees with the basic tenets of facies models(e.g., Shanmugam, 1997; Feng, 2019), it is worth mentioning for the sake of completeness.

3.6.4. River-mouth density plumes and hyperpycnal flows

Sedimentologic,oceanographic,and hydraulic engineering publications have focused on the importance of river-mouth hyperpycnal flows and other sediment plumes during the past 136 years (Forel, 1885; Bates,1953;Mulder et al.,2003;Shanmugam,2018a,b,2019,2020,2021).Wang et al.(2015,2017)have illustrated a major shift in the river course of the Yellow River due to various causes,including anthropogenic influence.

3.6.5. Braid deltas

During the past 35 years, an important development in fluvial sedimentology is the introduction of concepts in distinguishing fan-deltas from braid deltas(McPherson et al., 1987).

3.7. Figures

An important attribute of this book is its 159 Figures composed of excellent photographs, wellillustrated diagrams, and satellite images.

3.8. Glossary

There are 69 entries, which are helpful.

3.9. Endnotes

Inthisbook,thereisno“References”section.Instead,there is a chapter “Endnotes” with abbreviated information on a specific publication with a note saying“A file listing full reference citations for the publication,may be downloadedfromhttps://bit.ly/2PW1C1M”.Thisproxyis confusing. For example, the reference “Ogg et al.,(2016)”,a source of Figure 1.2,is not found in the list of downloaded references,but included under“Sourced Illustrations”.There are about 825 references in the book.

3.10. Index

An impressive list of 175 modern rivers and their stories fills the pages of this book.

4.Concluding remarks

Martin Gibling's “River Planet” is his spiritual journey of self discovery through his study of rivers.His journey that began with the first drop of rain, took us through some spectacular river rides both here on Earth and on Mars.There was chaos and turbulence,of course, caused by the Ice Age and by humans. The journey even took us to the Vedic times and the Indus Civilization. What a fantastic and eternal journey?

This classic work is a much needed knowledge source for a wide range of readership, which include students and teachers of geology and geography, professional researchers, Vedic-Hindu scholars, engineers, and environmental scientists.

Rivers, large and small, always tell a fascinating story. Always!

Funding

No fundings.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Authors' contributions

G.Shanmugam drafted and revised the manuscript according to reviewers’ comments.

Conflicts of interest

The author declares that he has no competing interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence this book review.

Acknowledgements

My study of rivers and their sediments began with my M. Sc. dissertation at IIT Bombay in India(Shanmugam, 1968). My interest on river geomorphology grew when I enrolled in a graduate-level course taught by Prof. Marie Morisawa at SUNYBinghamton, New York in the early 1970s. Today, my fascination with rivers still continues with river-mouth density plumes and hyperpycnal flows (Shanmugam,2018a, b; 2019; 2021). As a born Hindu in the Madras Presidency, British India (1944) and as a practicing sedimentologist in the USA,it is only natural that I am drawn to this first geology book with an entire Chapter 15 dedicated to the “Saraswati River” quoted in the ancient Vedic-Hindu text Rigveda (1500-1000 BCE). I thank Editor Yuan Wang, Journal of Palaeogeography,for encouraging me to write this review. I am thankful to two reviewers for their helpful comments.As always,I am thankful to my wife Jean Shanmugam for her general comments. I am grateful to Martin Gibling for providing valuable information on his book.