in print: Scenic Substance Exploring North Carolina's Natural Areas: Parks, Nature Preserves, and Hiking Trails.
	by Mark Briggs

Edited by Dirk Frankenberg. University of North Carolina Press, 432 pages, 74 illustrations, 42 maps; $18.95 (paper); $29.95 (cloth).

Dirk Frankenberg, who led both UNC-CH’s Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City from 1980 to 1993 and its Marine Sciences Curriculum from 1974 to 1990, died June 9 of a heart attack. He was 62. Frankenberg was an internationally known professor of marine sciences who had worked for the past several years to teach about and preserve North Carolina’s natural beauty. Shortly before his death, Endeavors talked to him about this new book.

he Linville Gorge Wilderness in western North Carolina attracts a crowd of outdoor enthusiasts to its waterfalls every year. Thousands of people venture off the Blue Ridge Parkway to visit the deepest wilderness area in the Eastern U.S. Most who visit revel in the experience, but few understand how this forest cathedral came to be.

Nature lovers now have a resource to turn to with such a question. A new book edited by Dirk Frankenberg explores every corner of North Carolina and lets readers see inside its natural history.

The Appalachian Mountain range, for instance, formed some 500 million years ago through the continental collision between America and Eurasia. Massive rocks broke, and one layer folded up and settled on top of another, creating a “window” for geologists because it allows inspection of rocks that are much older than the normal rocks on the surface. Linville Falls is an example of that.

“While somebody might say, ‘oh that’s a pretty waterfall’; we hope someone reading this book would say, ‘why is there a waterfall?’” Frankenberg said. “If you look at the area before the waterfall, you can see all the layers of rock are all rippled from the collision between these two continents. That’s the level of this book.”

Less an outdoor recreation guidebook than a compilation of short field trips, the book divides the state into four geographical areas. Detailed maps allow the reader to pinpoint the areas discussed in the text. Think of attending a museum with the book as your tour guide. The authors did. They targeted the book to be released around the time the 200,000-square foot, $70.5 million North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences opened in Raleigh last spring. The book’s aim is to help people discover the enrichment found at the museum while visiting the actual locations of many of the exhibits.

“This was supposed to be the outside to the inside (of the museum),” Frankenberg said. “It has an educational focus that I hope is equivalent to the museum.”

nne Taylor, director of the Office of Environmental Education of the N.C. Department of Environment and Resources, initiated the project in 1997, when she asked Frankenberg to guide it. Fifty North Carolina naturalists, including all 32 authors, contributed to the project on a volunteer basis. Royalties will support environmental education programs in the state’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

“We wrote it to tell people what we thought they ought to know,” Frankenberg said. “It’s a privilege that comes with teaching. I’ve been told by folks who’ve read my earlier books that they are accessible to an interested lay person. We hope that this one is too.”

Frankenberg chaired the Governor’s Advisory Committee on the North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences and wrote The Nature of the Outer Banks (UNC Press, 1995) and The Nature of North Carolina’s Southern Coast: Barrier Islands, Coastal Waters, and Wetlands, (UNC Press, 1997).

© 2000 Endeavors, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. All rights reserved.