Turning to Stone: Marcia Bjornerud in conversation with Robert Thorson
February 5 @ 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm EST
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Join us for an evening with geologist and acclaimed author Marcia Bjornerud, in conversation with Robert Thorson, celebrating Bjornerud’s award-winning book Turning to Stone, winner of the 2025 John Burroughs Medal for Natural History Writing.
Praised by Elizabeth Kolbert as “a beautiful book—at once intimate and sweeping, informative and moving,” Turning to Stone invites readers to rethink their relationship with the Earth beneath their feet. Our planet, Bjornerud reminds us, is vibrantly alive—constantly reinventing itself over more than four billion years—and rocks preserve the record of those vast experiments in time.
Despite their reputation for stillness, rocks lead eventful lives that intersect with our own in surprising and essential ways. From sandstone aquifers that purify our drinking water to basalt formations that quietly regulate global climate, stone is the hidden infrastructure that keeps Earth functioning. Learning to read this “language of rocks” can deepen our understanding of place, time, and responsibility on a changing planet.
In conversation, Bjornerud and Thorson will explore the ideas at the heart of Turning to Stone, weaving together science, story, and personal experience. Bjornerud will reflect on her journey from a rural Wisconsin childhood to a life studying mountains in remote corners of the world, and on the remarkable period of discovery that has transformed the geosciences in her lifetime.
Marcia Bjornerud is a professor of Environmental Studies and Geosciences at Lawrence University. She is a contributing writer to The New Yorker, Wired, The Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times and the author of Reading the Rocks, Timefulness, and Geopedia.
Robert Thorson is a Midwestern native turned Northwestern geologist turned Northeastern academic who commutes to work on a woodland trail. He’s a Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Connecticut where he teaches Honors Core courses, advanced geoscience, and science communication. His scholarship bridges the intellectual apartheid between STEM science and the humanities.