Review of Dankmar Bosse’s How Can Granite Arise from Basalt?

By Lynn Madsen

Reading this book sparked a favorite memory: While climbing in the Teton range in Wyoming, the sense of warmth as I leaned on the granite wall was bliss - it felt like being immersed in love. Also immersed in nature and joy while climbing up a mountain on a perfect summer day and feeling strong. . .was this warmth and love my imagination?

In contrast, on another Teton mountain, Mt. Moran, our climbing route included scaling “The Black Dike.” As it happens, that vein of dark material is basalt (which I looked up after reading this book). I loved that climb, but not because of spending time with the basalt. No, that sense of warmth from granite - if I visit that part of the country again, I will make a beeline to those granite slopes. I will play music and resonate with its presence. This book confirms my memory, what my senses detected.

Let’s start with the title: How Can Granite Arise from Basalt ? I have little knowledge of geology, which makes me a perfect foil to attempt this review. First off, I could not explain the difference between granite and basalt, and second, besides a passing knowledge of shifting tectonic plates, I have no idea how granite would arise otherwise. Below the title on the book cover is a world map placed in the middle of a granite slab that I also cannot explain - it turns out to be a map of Pangea; all this before even reading the first chapter.

The author, Dankmar Bosse, has spent much of his life pursuing this question with great passion and has written a much thicker volume about it, familiar to some serious geologists. This book is deceptively thin, because it packs a distilled form of Bosse’s life work in the most concise read I’ve ever come across.

The first read-through included a constant dictionary search of many geologic terms, so that I could at least superficially understand the content. The second read-through was like a connect-the-dots puzzle to perceive the big picture that slowly but dramatically reveals itself. In Bosse’s clear, methodical, sometimes blunt and sometimes poetic descriptions, this story, like a well-written epic novel, unfolds. Each chapter is a building block to reveal the picture at the end of the book; as a result, even a novice reader like me can answer the title’s question.

Bosse begins the book by describing the many facets of granite - coal, peat, varieties of granite, and various sedimentary layers. Note that granite is not just the granite of the rock slopes I was climbing; it takes many forms, and the evolution of the various forms of granite arise from living forms.

The second section is about the formation of our solar system and Earth. Here is where the map of Pangea takes its place. His three-page description of the seven planets is so packed with information, I have redrawn his illustration for my own use.