Old Forty-Four

Book excerpt: This reader-friendly exploration along what was once New Mexico State Highway 44, now redesignated the southern part of federal highway US-550, melds both the human and geologic history along the major transportation corridor connecting the Rio Grande Valley in central New Mexico with the San Juan River Valley in the far northwestern part of the state. Numerous illustrations portray the region's geology in a form intelligible and interesting to the non-geologist. The basic understanding of the landscape thus provides the scaffolding to support the stories of the interesting people who figure in the history along "Old 44." The book aims to provide a view of the highway and its environs in an entirely new way and to make history and geology seem a natural and necessary pairing. DIRK VAN HART earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in geology, and in 1965 began a professional career as a petroleum geologist. During the next two decades the gypsy life of the geologist took him to Oklahoma, Texas, California, Guatemala, and Ecuador. In 1986 a career change led him to move his family to Albuquerque, New Mexico where he engaged in contract geological projects in Italy and Belize, and for a short while taught high-school science. In 1994 he joined a team effort to characterize the geology of Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque as a contractor for Sandia National Laboratories. He is now retired.