Sublime

The Golden Guide to Pond Life, The Golden Guide to Stars, to Rocks and Minerals, to Reptiles and Amphibians: humans are almost beside the point.

Arádottir had brought along a rock core to show me the end result. The core, which was roughly two feet long and a couple of inches in diameter, was the dark color of the lava fields. But the black rock—basalt—was pocked with little holes, and these holes were filled with a chalky white compound—calcium carbonate. The white deposits represented, if