Stephen A. Norwick

Professor of Environmental Studies and Planning
Ph.D. Geology, University of Montana, 1972
M.A. Geology, Dartmouth College, 1967
B.A. Geology, Pomona College, 1965
Water Technology Certificate 02040
Email: norwick@sonoma.edu
Voicemail: 707-664-2485
Fax: 707.664.4202
Office: Rachel Carson 13

Academic Interests:

My primary function in the department is to prepare the graduates in most of the programs in ENSP to use the physical sciences in their professions. I am the advisor of the Water Quality and Hazardous Materials program, and I am proud to say that most of the local, regional and state agencies in our area have graduates from this program.  

Professional Experience:

I have taught at SSU for more than three decades. I spent two terms (eight years) on the California North Coast Water Quality Control Board. I have worked as an environmental geologist with engineers. I have been a volunteer physical science docent for the Nature Conservancy, The Coast Walk, Landpaths, The Sonoma County Land Trust, and I have helped train docents for the Audubon society and our own Fairfield Osborn Preserve.

Scientific Research Interests:

The botanical journal, Fremontia, published my review article about the geology of vernal pools. I published a new technique for detecting obscure but potentially dangerous faults using the goodness of packing of the atoms in quartz crystals. I used computer models to show why soil covered hills are convex up, and a similar paper about why the longitudinal profiles of streams are concave up. I studied pseudotachylyte, glass that is made by friction along faults, and used it to show that the Rodgers Creek fault is 7.6 million years old, much older than previously supposed. Much of my present research involves glass, including the provenance of prehistoric obsidian artifacts, the weathering of artificial glass in archaeological contexts, and tektites (glass meteorites). I have studied the pitted weathering of rocks on the California coast, in Arizona, Norway, Brittany and Tamil Nadu, southeast India.

Humanities Research Interests:

By accident, starting in 1972, I became one of the founders of eco criticism. I am the author of a chapter in a book of academic perspectives on Edward Abbey called Coyote in the Maze. My contribution concerns the influence of Friedrich Nietzsche on Abbey's ideas and imagery. In 2006 I published The History of Metaphors of Nature: Science and Literature from Homer to Al Gore. It concerns the images that have been used to represent the whole of nature in philosophy and literature in the last 3000 years. It included chapters on the “tree of life,” "the globe,” "the book of nature,” "the waters of life,” "the macrocosm,” "the great chain of being,” "celestial music" and of course Mother Nature. I have almost finished two more books on the subject, one of which is called “Why the Devil Looks Like Pan and other issues in history of the environmental movement.”

Course Offerings:

Selected Publications:

Teach Yourself Computer Modeling, 1988

“The Crystallinity of Fault Gouge and Associated Protolith,” Environmental and Engineering Geoscience, vol. 2, n. 1, page 111-115, 1996

“Vernal Pools and Other Seasonal Bodies of Standing Water,” Fremontia, vol. 19, n. 3, page 8-19

“Rates of Development of Tafoni in the Moenkopi and Kaibab Formations in Meteor Crater and on the Colorado Plateau, Northeastern Arizona,” Stephen A. Norwick and Leland R. Dexter, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms vol.  27, page 11–26, 2002