Ch.1 Landscapes of internal fire : On the spot : over a river of lava / SueEllen Campbell -- Imagining the interior -- On the spot : at the edge of an overthrust belt / Scott Denning -- Mundus subterraneus -- On the spot : among the Aeolian Islands / John Calderazzo -- The globe, tectonic plates, and mountain building -- On the spot : along the disturbance gradient / Charles Goodrich -- Volcanoes and their eruptions -- On the spot : approaching Chaiteń Volcano / Fred Swanson -- Hot springs and geysers -- Ch.2 Climate and ice : On the spot : up and down they Himalaya / Ellen Wohl -- How the climate works -- The ghosts of climates past -- On the spot : on the Burren / Gerald Delahunty -- Our ice age -- Landscapes shaped by ice -- On the spot : in the channeled scablands / Mark Fiege -- Ice-age humans -- On the spot :on the Arctic Tundra / Ellen Wohl -- The little ice age, glaciology, and the sublime -- On the spot : toward a glacier's edge / Ana Maria Spagna -- The story now -- Ch.3 Wet and fluid : On the spot : in the Rocky Intertidal Zone / Kathleen Dean Moore -- The water cycle -- On the spot : along a rain forest stream / Ellen Wohl -- The moving waters of rivers -- The dream of water in deserts -- The slow water of wetlands -- On the spot : at the bog on Ceíde Fields / Gerald Delahunty -- Peat, mires, bogs, fens -- On the spot : at Wicken Fen / Richard Kerridge -- Marshes and swamps -- Wet/dry -- On the spot : at the Billabong / Deborah Bird Rose -- Ch.4 Desert places, desert lives : On the spot : down a desert river canyon / SueEllen Campbell -- Dry, hot, windy, and dusty -- On the spot : in Jabal Aja ̄/ Othman Llewellyn, Aishah Abdallah -- What we see -- On the spot : in the Chihuahuan Desert / Tom Lynch -- Clever plants -- On the spot : in the red center / Deborah Bird Rose -- Clever creatures -- On the spot : in the Negev Desert / Ellen Wohl -- The human desert -- Ch.5 The complexities of the real : Underfoot -- On the spot : in Antarctica's dry valleys / Diana Wall -- Oceans of grass -- The shapes of complexity -- On the spot : on the chalk downs / Richard Kerridge -- Evolving together... -- On the spot : in the tallgrass prairie / Bruce Campbell -- ...And moving apart -- On the spot : on the Tibetan Plateau / Julia Klein -- Among trees -- On the spot : in a Eucalypt forest / Kate Rigby -- Zooming in -- Return to wonder -- Epilogue : In a high flower meadow / SueEllen Campbell.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 296-305) and index.