Lauren Brown was ready for an adventure. She and her husband Kenny—her high school sweetheart—graduated from college in 1972 and headed west from Pennsylvania for a meticulously planned rafting trip through the Grand Canyon. There, the couple found their adventure in the chilly, boisterous rapids and hot desert sun. And after a side trip to Sunset Crater Volcano, Lauren found a new direction for her life. She had studied art, but by the time the trip ended, she had decided she would go back to school and become a geologist.

Susan Sizer Bogue

In Deep Time, Parker, Colorado-based author Susan Sizer Bogue takes readers on Lauren’s journey—from a bumpy plane ride to meet their rafting company at Lee’s Ferry, to the equally bumpy challenge of being a woman in what then was still a male-dominated field. A contentious relationship with a predatory professor, and a new male friend who shares her passion for geology—especially volcanoes—complicate her studies, but Lauren is still convinced her new path is the right one.

“Exposed rock was ripe for study,” Lauren muses. “It was exciting to think of the earth and its millions of years of history waiting for geologists to explore. … Nature’s greater forces weren’t always benign, of course, but they weren’t rooted in evil or greed as were human events.”

As Lauren settles in at Texas Polytechnic, excited for her life’s new direction, her husband becomes restless and unhappy with their new life, and they separate. Feeling lonely and sad, she finds herself entangled in a love affair with her married college advisor, Don. Lauren knows their relationship is problematic, and the longer it goes on, the more controlling, vindictive and jealous her professor gets. Luckily, as Lauren’s relationship with Don deteriorates, a new friendship blossoms with a fellow student. Chris Conner is equally fascinated with volcanoes.  A veteran, Chris is just what Lauren needs in a friend, but she is still married, so she doesn’t let the relationship go farther.

Deep Time follows these relationships, but it also gives readers real insight into the geologic history of the places these young geologists work—studying undersea volcanoes, collecting rock samples throughout the West, hiking in a remote national park and, eventually, arriving at one of the most important and impactful geologic events to ever occur in the modern-day United States—the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980 in Washington state. The eruption ultimately killed 57 people and caused billions of dollars of damage, but in the book, the weeks leading up to it are exciting to geologists like Lauren and Chris, so they make a plan to travel to the site.

Lauren has freed herself from her professor and gotten back together with her husband, so she, Kenny and Chris travel to Washington to experience a live volcano for themselves.

The clataclysmic event forever changes all their lives. One of the most respected professors at Texas Polytechnic once said, “… volcanoes can kill you in a hundred ways.” The trio was about to find out what he meant.

Bogue writes: “So many times! Lauren thought. Ancient time, dinosaur time, and now human time and deep time. Maybe ancient time and deep time meant the same thing?”

In Deep Time, Bogue has effortlessly woven together a compelling love story and an action-adventure story, tying them together with a master class about the Earth’s geologic history.