Brahana Selassie is a product of the African-Caribbean Diaspora from Grenada. As a young man of twenty in 1975, he discovered and then became a convert to the unique ancient multi-layered world of Ethiopia's ancient Nile Valley civilisation. He then immersed himself in studying its origins and continuity into the 20th century. Two out of an unbroken chain of precious pearls he discovered from his studies are: * Ethiopia's possession of the cradle for the scientific study of the origins of the human race in its section of Africa's Great Rift Valley in the Afar Triangle. * Its rich biblical faith and life heritage, associated with the sacred ancestral family unit of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar that gave birth to three of the major living religions of the world: Judaism, Christianity, Islam. Receiving the Ethiopian Orthodox Priesthood in 1980, Brahana Selassie has matured into a multi-skilled communicator involved with various dialogue partners, in which he has shared chosen topical subject areas of Ethiopia's wealthy galaxy of precious and unique mystical treasures, as it relates to Africa's people on the continent, in its diaspora, and with the international community of scholars.

His father, an Irishman, was on the run from the "Brits". He took refuge in Jersey C.I. where Desmond was born. The family left the island when he was four, but retained strong ties and family to this very day. After the tragic deaths of his two young brothers at 17 and 27 he was reminded that you only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. From humble beginnings as a butcher in Birmingham, he made himself into a relatively small but successful businessman, with a chain of shops and houses to rent. He took life by the scruff of the neck and lived a playboy life of booze, women and fast cars. He has dived the oceans of the world, travelled to all the places he ever wanted to see and ticked all his boxes. Retiring from business at 49, he turned to a new life of songwriting, TV plays and a successful trilogy of Jack Reec novels. Once asked, "Is there anything you haven't done?" Thoughtfully he replied, "Well if there is, it's because I didn't want to do it". Share the ride with him, on an exciting journey to far flung exotic locations in this hugely readable and amusingly written autobiography.

This book introduces readers to the background, general framework, main operators, and other basic characteristics of biogeography-based optimization (BBO), which is an emerging branch of bio-inspired computation. In particular, the book presents the authors' recent work on improved variants of BBO, hybridization of BBO with other algorithms, and the application of BBO to a variety of domains including transportation, image processing, and neural network learning. The content will help to advance research into and application of not only BBO but also the whole field of bio-inspired computation. The algorithms and applications are organized in a step-by-step manner and clearly described with the help of pseudo-codes and flowcharts. The readers will learn not only the basic concepts of BBO but also how to apply and adapt the algorithms to the engineering optimization problems they actually encounter.

This volume addresses major evolutionary changes that took place during the Ediacaran and the Paleozoic. These include discussions on the nature of Ediacaran ecosystems, as well as the ichnologic signature of evolutionary radiations, such as the Cambrian explosion and the Great Ordovician biodiversification event, the invasion of the land, and the end-Permian mass extinction. This volume set provides innovative reviews of the major evolutionary events in the history of life from an ichnologic perspective. Because the long temporal range of trace fossils has been commonly emphasized, biogenic structures have been traditionally overlooked in macroevolution. However, comparisons of ichnofaunas through geologic time do reveal the changing ecology of organism-substrate interactions. The use of trace fossils in evolutionary paleoecology represents a new trend that is opening a window for our understanding of major evolutionary radiations and mass extinctions. Trace fossils provide crucial evidence for the recognition of spatial and temporal patterns and processes associated with paleoecologic breakthroughs.

Bird migration is a charismatic topic that has fascinated naturalists for centuries. This book, the only concise and accessible synthesis of the area, describes not only the migrations, the incredible stamina and navigational skills of the birds, the effects on their distributions, survival, and evolution, but also the scientific skills and studies that underlie the information that has been gleaned about migration.

This book presents a summary of terrestrial microbial processes, which are a key factor in supporting healthy life on our planet. The authors explain how microorganisms maintain the soil ecosystem through recycling carbon and nitrogen and then provide insights into how soil microbiology processes integrate into ecosystem science, helping to achieve successful bioremediation as well as safe and effective operation of landfills, and enabling the design of composting processes that reduce the amount of waste that is placed in landfills. The book also explores the effect of human land use, including restoration on soil microbial communities and the response of wetland microbial communities to anthropogenic pollutants. Lastly it discusses the role of fungi in causing damaging, and often lethal, infectious diseases in plants and animals.

Interdisciplinary Teaching about the Earth and Environment for a Sustainable Future presents the outcomes of the InTeGrate project, a community effort funded by the National Science Foundation to improve Earth literacy and build a workforce prepared to tackle environmental and resource issues. The InTeGrate community is built around the shared goal of supporting interdisciplinary learning about Earth across the undergraduate curriculum, focusing on the grand challenges facing society and the important role that the geosciences play in addressing these grand challenges. The chapters in this book explicitly illustrate the intimate relationship between geoscience and sustainability that is often opaque to students. The authors of these chapters are faculty members, administrators, program directors, and researchers from institutions across the country who have collectively envisioned, implemented, and evaluated effective change in their classrooms, programs, institutions, and beyond. This book provides guidance to anyone interested in implementing change-on scales ranging from a single course to an entire program-by infusing sustainability across the curriculum, broadening access to Earth and environmental sciences, and assessing the impacts of those changes.

This book focuses on fluxes of energy, carbon dioxide and matter in and above a Central European spruce forest. The transition from a forest affected by acid rain into a heterogeneous forest occurred as a result of wind throw, bark beetles and climate change. Scientific results obtained over the last 20 years at the FLUXNET site DE-Bay (Waldstein-Weidenbrunnen) are shown together with methods developed at the site, including the application of footprint models for data-quality analysis, the coupling between the trunk space and the atmosphere, the importance of the Damkoehler number for trace gas studies, and the turbulent conditions at a forest edge. In addition to the many experimental studies, the book also applies model studies such as higher-order closure models, Large-Eddy Simulations, and runoff models for the catchment and compares them with the experimental data. Moreover, by highlighting processes in the atmosphere it offers insights into the functioning of the ecosystem as a whole. It is of interest to ecologists, micrometeorologists and ecosystem modelers.

The geochemistry of the earth 's surface is controlled by chemical equilibrium, and the kinetics of the approach toward equilibrium. Many low temperature processes, such as weathering, do not reach equilibrium except over geologically long time periods. The approach to equilibrium can be described by kinetic theory and the application of kinetic theory to geochemical systems has made vast advances in the last several decades. Geochemical kinetics as a topic is now of importance to a wide range of geochemists in academia, industry, and government, and all geochemists need a rudimentary knowledge of the field. This book will summarize the fundamentals of geochemical kinetics with examples drawn especially from mineral dissolution and precipitation, but will also encompass discussion of high temperature processes and global geochemical cycle modeling. Analysis of textures of rocks, sediments, and mineral surfaces will be incorporated throughout and will be a subtheme of the book.

This monograph describes ways of using trees and their byproducts in environmental protection technologies and methodologies throughout their lifecycles. The tree, the planet's main source of biomass, is an indispensable tool for sustainable technologies, and the authors present a holistic picture of how and why in this volume. The authors describe the indispensable role of the living tree in phytoremediation and biomonitoring and detail the relationship of the tree with its surrounding ecosystem. The direct and indirect relationships of a tree at its vegetation period with various components of the ecosystem (i.e. atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere and soil) contribute to the role of a tree as the medium for integrating aerogenic and edaphic pollutants. Trees phytostabilize pollutants in their organisms and remove them from the soil. The ability of some species of trees to reflect the quality of the environment makes a basis for the environmental bioindication, while quantitative representation of the chemical composition of the surrounding environment allows for the use of trees in biomonitoring. Morphological features of trees (e.g. annual tree rings) allow us to observe environmental conditions in the past and retrospectively evaluate them. This monograph also details how wood products (e.g. biochar, chips, bark, etc.) of a tree after it has died are used in environmental technologies. Due to the specific morphological form and physical and chemical composition of wood products, they may be used as active materials in the technologies aimed at reducing pollution in an effective and sustainable manner.

Foraminiferal cultures now serve as tools for researching biological, environmental, and geological topics. However, the biological backgrounds, in particular the natural histories of foraminifera, largely remain unclear. It is also true that the different techniques used in different subdisciplines are a setback to fully understanding the subject. Taken together, these factors prevent progress in experimental approaches to foraminiferal studies. This book aims to share and exchange knowledge between researchers from different subdisciplines, and the book should interest not only foraminiferal researchers but also scientists who are working with marine organisms to explore questions in relation to biology, geology, and oceanography.

This book represents a rather complicated history of encounters, changes in research interest and some very interesting results. Initially it is the very fruitful interaction of Ecology and Geology. The point of view of ecologists is extremely refreshing for hard science people. Interaction and inter-relationships are the focus of Ecology whereas the traditional sciences, such as Geology, have tried to isolate the natural phenomena so that thye could be studied in a more rigorous manner. The traditional sciences were of course natural science - based since the world to be observed was at the door step of everyone, mountains, weather patterns, plants and so forth. Chemistry and Physics were de ned after Mathematics in order to establish more precise and viable principles of the behavior of the materials that formed the world around mankind. It became quite clear that the observation of the natural world was too complicated to consider all of the possible variables which could affect an observed process or situation. The systems were simpli ed and taken into the laboratory in order to better master the phenomena observed. Physics c- cerned itself with non-reacting materials, subjected to essentially mechanical forces.

The volume contains summaries of facts, theories, and unsolved problems pertaining to the unexplained extinction of dozens of genera of mostly large terrestrial mammals, which occurred ca. 13,000 calendar years ago in North America and about 1,000 years later in South America. Another equally mysterious wave of extinctions affected large Caribbean islands around 5,000 years ago. The coupling of these extinctions with the earliest appearance of human beings has led to the suggestion that foraging humans are to blame, although major climatic shifts were also taking place in the Americas during some of the extinctions. The last published volume with similar (but not identical) themes -- Extinctions in Near Time -- appeared in 1999; since then a great deal of innovative, exciting new research has been done but has not yet been compiled and summarized. Different chapters in this volume provide in-depth resumes of the chronology of the extinctions in North and South America, the possible insights into animal ecology provided by studies of stable isotopes and anatomical/physiological characteristics such as growth increments in mammoth and mastodont tusks, the clues from taphonomic research about large-mammal biology, the applications of dating methods to the extinctions debate, and archeological controversies concerning human hunting of large mammals."

There are several books on properties of chitin and associated biomolecules and their biochemical significance. However, the present volume deals with a wide variety of biogeochemical and organic geochemical aspects of this vital macromolecule written by leading authors and experts in the field. Each chapter is carefully peer reviewed and is an updated account of recent research in isotopic, nanostructural, biochemical, microstructural, geochemical, paleontological and experimental aspects of chitin formation, distribution and preservation in the environment and earth history.

The establishment of relationships between sediment composition and climatic - vironment in the sediment basin and subsequent evolution of climate relates to the classical problems of fundamental sedimentology. The widely known publications by the Russian academicians N. M. Strakhov, A. B. Ronov, and A. P. Lisitsin are dedicated to different aspects of this problem. In particular, the monograph p- lished by A. P. Lisitsin "Sea-ice and iceberg sedimentation in the Ocean: recent and past" (Lisitsin, 2002) closely corresponds to the issues examined in this book. This monograph discusses in detail the environments and means of accumulations of recent marine and oceanic sediments in the ice zone of sedimentation of the Ocean, however, much less attention is given to the history of ice sedimentation, especially to high-resolution paleoceanography. In the present work the authors accepted the following basic principles: 1. StudynotonlyoftheArctic, butalsooftheSubarctic, especiallyofthoseregions, where there were conducted the original studies by the authors. 2. Study of climatic history in uence ( rst of all, - the glaciation evolution of NorthernHemisphere)on sedimentationforthe last 130ka (MIS5e - MIS1)not only in the marine periglacial environment (term of G. G. Matishov), but also in the deep water areas and on the adjacent continental blocks. 3. Imperative description of recent sedimentation environment for subsequent - plication of the comparative-lithologicalmethod. 4. Detailed consideration of accessible stratigraphic and geo-chronometricdata for partition and correlation of various sedimentary facies. Some of the above-mentionedprinciples require further explanation.

This unique book provides a concise account of Indian Paleogene and presents a unified view of the Paleogene sequences of India. The Paleogene, comprising the early part of the Cenozoic Era, was the most dynamic period in the Earth's history with profound changes in the biosphere and geosphere. The period spans ~42 million years, beginning from post- K/T mass extinction event at ~65 Ma and ending at ~23 Ma, when the first Antarctic ice sheet appeared in the Southern Hemisphere. The early Paleogene (Paleocene-Eocene) has been considered a globally warm period, superimposed on which were several transient hyperthermal events of extreme warmth. Of these, the Palaeocene Eocene Thermal Maxima (PETM) boundary interval is the most prominent extreme warming episode, lasting 200 Ka. PETM is characterized by 2-60/00 global negative carbon isotope excursion. The event coincided with the Benthic Extinction Event (BEE) in deep sea and Larger Foraminifera Turnover (LFT) in shallow seas. Rapid ~60-80 warming of high latitudinal regions led to major faunal and floral turnovers in continental, shallow-marine and deep-marine areas. The emergence and dispersal of mammals with modern characteristics, including Artiodactyls, Perissodactyls and Primates (APP), and the evolution and expansion of tropical vegetation are some of the significant features of the Paleogene warm world. In the Indian subcontinent, the beginning and end of the Paleogene was marked by various events that shaped the various physiographic features of the Indian subcontinent. The subcontinent lay within the equatorial zone during the earliest part of the Paleogene. Carbonaceous shale, coal and lignite deposits of early Eocene age (~55.5-52 Ma) on the western and north-eastern margins of the Indian subcontinent are rich in fossils and provide information on climate as well as the evolution and paleobiogeography of tropical biota. Indian Paleogene deposits in the India-Asia collision zone also provide information pertaining to the paleogeography and timing of collision. Indian Paleogene rocks are exposed in the Himalayan and Arakan mountains; Assam and the shelf basins of Kutch-Saurashtra, Western Rajasthan; Tiruchirappalli-Pondicherry and Andaman and, though aerially limited, these rocks bear geological evidence of immense importance.

When did life first appear on Earth and what form did it take? The answer to this intriguing and fundamentally important question lies somewhere within the early Archean rock record. The young Earth was, however, a very different place to that we know today and numerous pitfalls await our interpretation of these most ancient rocks.

The first half of this practical guide equips the reader with the background knowledge to successfully evaluate new potentially biological finds from the Archean rock record. Successive steps are covered, from locating promising samples in the field, through standard petrography and evaluation of antiquity and biogenicity criteria, to the latest state of the art geochemical techniques. The second half of the guide uniquely brings together all the materials that have been claimed to comprise the earliest fossil record into an easily accessible, fully illustrated format.

This will be a handbook that every Archean geologist, palaeobiologist and astrobiologist will wish to have in their backpack or on their lab-bench.

This book describes how biologically available free energy sources (ATP, chemical potential, and membrane potentials, among others) can be used to drive synthetic reactions, signaling in cells, and various types of motion such as membrane traffic, active transport, and cell locomotion. As such, it approaches the concept of the energy cycle of life on Earth from a physical point of view, covering topics ranging from an introduction to chemical evolution, to an examination of the catalytic activity of enzymes associated with the genome in Darwinian evolution. The author introduces the relationship between functions and physical properties in biomembranes, explaining the methods and equipment used in biophysics research to help researchers unravel the still-unsolved mysteries of life. The physical principles needed to understand the cellular functions are provided; these functions are associated with biomembranes and regulated by physical properties of the lipid bilayer such as membrane fluidity, phase transition, and phase separation, as shown in lipid rafts. Other key dynamic aspects of life (cell locomotion, cytoskeletal dynamics, and sensitivities of the cell to physical stimuli such as external forces and temperature) are also discussed. Lastly, readers will learn how life on Earth and its ecological system are maintained by solar energy, and be provided further information on the problems accompanying global warming.

An accessible account of the ways in which the world's plant life affects the climate. It covers everything from tiny local microclimates created by plants to their effect on a global scale. If you ve ever wondered how vegetation can create clouds, haze and rain, or how plants have an impact on the composition of greenhouse gases, then this book is required reading."

This volume presents a state-of-the-art assessment of the Earth's climate system in Siberia and relationships between climate, ecosystems and people in that region. Changes in climatic variables and land cover in Siberia are among the earliest indicators of the Earth's response to climate warming. The volume is a compilation of results from studies on climate, land-cover and land-use changes and their interactions with biogeochemical and water cycles, atmospheric aerosol, and human and wildlife populations in Siberia. Regional changes in Siberia are predicted to affect climate and people on a global scale. NASA, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and several European institutions have supported these studies. The primary supporter of the projects that produced the results compiled in this volume is the NASA Land-Cover/Land-Use Change Program, hence most studies use remote sensing in their research. The chapters in this volume were written by an international team of scientists from the USA, Europe and Russia under the auspices of the Northern Eurasia Earth Science Partnership Initiative (NEESPI). This book will be of interest to those involved in studying recent and ongoing changes in Siberia, be they senior scientists, early career scientists or students.

In Loe Bar and the Sandhill Rustic Moth, Adrian Spalding examines the survival of plants and animals on Loe Bar, a shingle beach on the coast of Cornwall, in the context of its history, geomorphology and exposure to the Atlantic environment. He develops these themes within a detailed study of the Sandhill Rustic moth that endures this harsh environment where storm surges, high salinity, high temperatures, strong winds and burial by sand affect the wildlife that occurs there.