What is the author's style in Germinal by Emile Zola?

Zola's, Germinal, reads like a journalistic report on the events leading to a mine catastrophe. It combines in-depth descriptions of the situation of the people that are affected by the disaster and a collection of historical and technical facts related to the mining trade. Despite the subject of novel and what might look like an obviously biased point of view at first glance, Germinal is not a novel intended for pushing a single political opinion; rather, it aims at representing the many point of views that come into play when a social conflict erupts. The result is a series of portraits that makes the reader feel like he or she is hovering over the different scenes, observing everything from a distance and under a ray of natural light. In order to accomplish this, the author combines several writing techniques, including: a systematic usage of the third person, a elaborate descriptive vocabulary that accentuates the details and 'contours' of the scene, a restrain in the dialogues and finally, a subtle shifting along the timeline of events.