One of the classic books on the geology of Yosemite is François Matthes’s The Incomparable Valley: A Geologic Interpretation of the Yosemite, edited by Fritiof Fryxell and published in 1950. Matthes did the research but he died before he could publish it, and Fryxell took over the task, basing the book on Matthes’s notes. The University of California has published many books on the natural history of California. Among them is Mary Hill’s modest Geology of the Sierra Nevada (released in the “California Natural History Guides” series), which includes a section on the geology of Yosemite. Another useful book in that series is Bill Guyton’s Glaciers of California: Modern Glaciers, Ice Age Glaciers, the Origin of Yosemite Valley, and a Glacier Tour in the Sierra Nevada. Allen Glazner and Greg Stock’s Geology Underfoot in Yosemite National Park is more in-depth and focuses exclusively on Yosemite itself. This volume provides a series of field trips to guide readers to locations in the park that demonstrate different aspects of its geology. The late N. King Huber contributed Geological Ramblings in Yosemite to the literature. Huber worked out of the Menlo Park office of the US Geological Survey and often spent summers with his family in and around Yosemite. One of the amazing geological features of Yosemite is Half Dome, a massive rock formation at the eastern end of the park. Joe Reidhead discusses that feature in his Half Dome: The History of Yosemite’s Iconic Mountain. In The Granite Landscape: A Natural History of America’s Mountain Domes, from Acadia to Yosemite, Tom Wessels considers several areas in the northern US where mountains form granitic domes. Although Wessels covers Yosemite directly only in the final chapter, he references Yosemite sites throughout in conjunction with various topics. Jeffrey Schaffer’s Yosemite National Park: A Natural-History Guide to Yosemite and Its Trails includes a large topographic map of Yosemite National Park in a pocket inside the book. Indirectly associated with the geology of Yosemite is Peter Browning’s Yosemite Place Names: The Historic Background of Geographic Names in Yosemite National Park.
Joseph Grinnell is remembered as an early proponent of keeping Yosemite wild. He and Tracy Irwin Storer coauthored the first book dealing with the wild creatures of Yosemite, Animal Life in the Yosemite: An Account of the Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, and Amphibians in a Cross-Section of the Sierra Nevada. Grinnell was the director of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley. He became an advocate for restoring Yosemite to its natural state and was responsible for the removal of the penned elk in the valley and for a better plan for bear control. Two chapters in Christian Young’s The Environment and Science cover John Muir and Joseph Grinnell, offering information on the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and the Hetch Hetchy dam controversy. George Gruell’s Fire in Sierra Nevada Forests: A Photographic Interpretation of Ecological Change since 1849 is an interesting book on the effects of fire in the Sierra. In it he explains how repeat photography is used by ecologists today. As the book shows, many years of fire prevention have caused an increase in the density of forest vegetation, which makes forest fires more severe when they do occur
Fire In Sierra Nevada Forests by 
