This volume contains papers presented at the 30th International Geological Congress on coal. It includes information on the applications of high-resolution sequence stratigraphy to paralicand terrestrial coal-bearing strata and petrology and depositional environment of Early Jurassic coal.

Originally published in 1984. This book addresses the economics of the changing mineral industry, which is highly affected by energy economics. The study estimates, in quantitative terms, the short- to mid-term consequences of rising energy prices alongside falling ore quality for the copper and aluminum industries. The effects of changing cost factors on substitution between metals is assessed as is the potential for relying on increased recycling. Copper and aluminum industry problems should be representative of those faced by the mineral processing sector as a whole. Two complex econometric models presented here produce forecasts for the industries and the book discusses and reviews other econometric commodity models.

The behaviour of gold in sedimentary, magmatic and postmagmatic processes are studied and 40 gold-bearing minerals including ten which were recently discovered are described. The results are presented of new experimental studies on phase relations in gold-sulphide systems. The solubility & form of gold migration in high-temperature chloride, sulphide and arsenic solutions are determined. Based on the new data, the genesis of gold deposits is studied and a geochemical classification proposed. This book is designed for specialists in the field of gold chemistry, geochemistry and mineralogy and for field geologists surveying and prospecting for gold.

From its humble beginning in the late 19th century when Henry Ford's first car was designed to run on ethanol biofuel production has been on the rise with more than 26 billion liters produced in the U.S. in 2007. Ethanol made from biomass (rather than grains) holds great promise, including numerous economic and environmental benefits. However, the adverse interactions of energy, climate, food, and soil quality cannot be ignored. In eight concise chapters, Soil Quality and Biofuel Production presents a state-of-the-knowledge review of soil properties and processes negatively impacted by crop residue removal. It outlines the ecological consequences of biofuels and evaluates land use in the production of raw material for biofuel. The book then spotlights pressing issues related to corn and cellulosic ethanol and also soil erosion. It offers advice for achieving economic balance in the competition for arable land between food and biofuel along with residue harvest management techniques. A thought-provoking discussion of the opportunities and challenges that biofuel presents rounds out the book's coverage. The logistics of producing biomass in a sustainable manner remain a major challenge and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. Serious questions linger concerning viable sources of biofuel feedstock, competition for resources needed to produce biomass, and energy output/input ratios. Soil Quality and Biofuel Production provides environmental scientists and agricultural engineers with the knowledge they need to address them.

Originally published in 1976, this study was undertaken to fill a gap in knowledge about non-fuel resources and the advantages and disadvantages of specific methodologies of analysing material modelling. Mineral Materials Modeling examines the influence of factors such as raw material price and availability, technological aspects and related environmental questions in relation to both economic and mathematical models. The results are particularly helpful in terms of forecasting, policy development and decision-making about mineral materials as well as assessing the usefulness of different types of model. This title will be of interest to students of Environmental Studies as well as policy makers and professionals.

Electrokinetics is a term applied to a group of physicochemical phenomena involving the transport of charges, action of charged particles, effects of applied electric potential and fluid transport in various porous media to allow for a desired migration or flow to be achieved. These phenomena include electrokinetics, electroosmosis, ion migration, electrophoresis, streaming potential and electroviscosity. These phenomena are closely related and all contribute to the transport and migration of different ionic species and chemicals in porous media. The physicochemical and electrochemical properties of a porous medium and the pore fluid, and the magnitudes of the applied electrical potential all impact the direction and velocity of the fluid flow. Also, an electrical potential is generated upon the forced passage of fluid carrying charged particles through a porous medium. The use of electrokinetics in the field of petroleum and environmental engineering was groundbreaking when George Chilingar pioneered its use decades ago, but it has only been in recent years that its full potential has been studied. This is the first volume of its kind ever written, offering the petroleum or environmental engineer a practical "how to" book on using electrokinetics for more efficient and better oil recovery and recovery from difficult reservoirs. This groundbreaking volume is a must-have for any petroleum engineer working in the field, and for students and faculty in petroleum engineering departments worldwide.

Originally published in 1976, this study was undertaken to fill a gap in knowledge about non-fuel resources and the advantages and disadvantages of specific methodologies of analysing material modelling. Mineral Materials Modeling examines the influence of factors such as raw material price and availability, technological aspects and related environmental questions in relation to both economic and mathematical models. The results are particularly helpful in terms of forecasting, policy development and decision-making about mineral materials as well as assessing the usefulness of different types of model. This title will be of interest to students of Environmental Studies as well as policy makers and professionals.

Studies the Environmental, Cosmetic, and Pharmaceutical Applications of Bentonite Clay Bentonite clay, of which members of the smectite family of clay minerals are particularly important, has proven to be effective in sealing off wastes from groundwater. Bentonite Clay: Environmental Properties and Applications explores the mineralogy of clays in general and of smectites in particular that represent challenging conditions for geotechnical professionals responsible for earth dam construction, the foundations of roads and buildings, and the long-term isolation of chemical and radioactive wastes. The author, a world-renowned expert on the subject, places special emphasis on the environmental behavior of bentonite clay when focused on the isolation of hazardous wastes and also considers its use in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. Based on classical literature and current research and development, this text provides an in-depth introduction to bentonite soil, explains the origin of smectite-rich clays, and pinpoints where they can be found. The book describes the interaction of expandable clay minerals, gas, and fluids, followed by a description of the physical and chemical properties of smectite clay saturated with water or chemical solutions. It also provides relevant findings and conclusions concerning the function of bentonite-based sealing repositories for dangerous waste. This text: Describes the constitution of smectite minerals as a basis for understanding the behavior of smectite clays and their performance in the isolation of hazardous waste Factors in the longevity of smectite clays in bentonite beds and in the form of canister-embedding buffers in repositories for deep geological disposal of highly radioactive waste (HLW) Covers the design principles for clay seals and considers their function in the isolation of waste and redirecting groundwater flow Bentonite Clay: Environmental Properties and Applications documents the origin, properties, and characteristics of bentonite and its uses. A resource for researchers, practitioners, regulators, and policy makers, the text examines the use of clay in hazardous waste and nuclear waste management and provides readers with detailed descriptions of related technical solutions.

Natural gas is the world s cleanest fossil fuel; it generates less air pollution and releases less CO2 per unit of useful energy than liquid fuels or coals. With its vast supplies of conventional resources and nonconventional stores, the extension of long-distance gas pipelines and the recent expansion of liquefied natural gas trade, a truly global market has been created for this clean fuel. Natural Gas: Fuel for the 21st Century discusses the place and prospects of natural gas in modern high-energy societies. Vaclav Smil presents a systematic survey of the qualities, origins, extraction, processing and transportation of natural gas, followed by a detailed appraisal of its many preferred, traditional and potential uses, and the recent emergence of the fuel as a globally traded commodity. The unfolding diversification of sources, particularly hydraulic fracturing, and the role of natural gas in national and global energy transitions are described. The book concludes with a discussion on the advantages, risks, benefits and costs of natural gas as a leading, if not dominant, fuel of the 21st century. This interdisciplinary text will be of interest to a wide readership concerned with global energy affairs including professionals and academics in energy and environmental science, policy makers, consultants and advisors with an interest in the rapidly-changing global energy industry.

One major goal of the World Materials Research Institute Forum - WMRIF is to promote young scientists in the field of materials science and engineering. To enhance the international knowledge exchange between young postdoctoral scientists all over the world, WMRIF meanwhile regularly organizes joint workshops among the member institutes. These workshops also represent an increasingly appreciated platform to get known to each other and to build co-operations. For such workshops, various topics are selected, pointing to future perspectives and challenges in the field of Materials Science and Engineering.

This time, the presentations of the workshop focused on the four subjects

Challenges in conclusive, realistic and system oriented materials testing

Materials challenges for water supply

Materials challenges in the extraction and recovery of scarce elements and minerals

Materials challenges for nuclear fission and fusion.

This book comprises the peer-reviewed contributions during the 2nd International Workshop for Young Materials Scientists at BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing, Berlin, Germany. It also provides a very informative overview of recent results for all materials scientists.

This fully updated textbook is intended for the economic geologist who deals with the evaluation of deposits at an early stage of development. It offers rules for quick and easy calculations based on the application of approximate data. It provides both the student and the geologist in the field with a complete set of rules and methods enabling them to perform a quick initial evaluation of the deposit without the support of specialists or computers - even if he is left to his own resources. All rules for calculations are illustrated with examples, and mistakes and pitfalls the authors encountered during their careers are pointed out.

As a wetland of international importance located in China, the Poyang Lake Basin's incredible topographical and biological diversity has provided a congregating point for scientists from around the world to engage in cross-disciplinary research. In particular, the International Conference on Poyang Lake Complex Environment System was instrumental in bringing together scholars from China, North America, and Europe to explore the latest innovations in water resource science and watershed management. Featuring cutting-edge research in watershed management presented at this landmark event, Wetland and Water Resource Modeling Assessment pairs the accounts of Poyang Lake with additional information on the important watersheds of North America and Asia to help facilitate the development of decision support tools. The book explains that successful ecosystem assessment and modeling requires three key criteria: 1. Large spatial scales in data collection and analysis must be used to encompass major watershed features 2. Landscape features are needed to appropriately characterize hydrological processes and ecosystem components 3. Management decisions must be linked to results to facilitate ecosystem assessment Through the study of the diverse watersheds featured in Wetland and Water Resource Modeling Assessment, such as Poyang Lake, government, academia, and Industry can obtain the innovative technical tools needed to stay on top of this active field.

The brilliantly told and gripping story of the most familiar - yet, amazingly, still poorly understood - substance in the universe: Water. The extent to which water remains a scientific mystery is extraordinary, despite its prevalence and central importance on Earth. Whether one considers its role in biology, its place in the physical world (where it refuses to obey the usual rules of liquids) or its deceptively simple structure, there is still no complete answer to the question: what is water? Philip Ball's book explains what, exactly, we do and do not know about the strange character of this most essential and ubiquitous of substances. H20 begins by transporting its readers back to the Big Bang and the formation of galaxies to witness the birth of water's constituent elements: hydrogen and oxygen. It then explains how the primeval oceans were formed four billion years ago; where water is to be found on other planets; why ice floats when most solids sink; why, despite being highly corrosive, water is good for us; why there are at least fifteen kinds of ice and perhaps two kinds of liquid water; how scientists have consistently misunderstood water for centuries; and why wars have been waged over it. Philip Ball's gloriously offbeat and intelligent book conducts us on a journey through the history of science, folklore, the wilder scientific fringes, cutting-edge physics, biology and ecology, to give a fascinating new perspective on life and the substance that sustains it. After reading this book, drinking a glass of water will never be the same again.

This well-illustrated book aims to enhance observations and understanding of structural features and proximity-indicator minerals, critical in exploration. The book provides a unique blending of different content on observational and critical aspects of data acquisition, geological, structural, tectonic set-up, mineral deposit types, geophysical framework, and proximity indicator minerals. Combining these topics led to a comprehensive understanding to facilitate mineral targeting and exploration in green- and brown-field terrains. Besides field photographs, the write-up is lavishly supplemented with relevant geological and geophysical maps, tables, and case stories in field geology, making it useful for a much larger section of the geoscientific community professional geologists and geophysicists, students, teachers, and also decision-makers in geo-surveys and exploration.

Seismic inversion aims to reconstruct a quantitative model of the Earth subsurface, by solving an inverse problem based on seismic measurements. There are at least three fundamental issues to be solved simultaneously: non-linearity, non-uniqueness, and instability. This book covers the basic theory and techniques used in seismic inversion, corresponding to these three issues, emphasising the physical interpretation of theoretical concepts and practical solutions. This book is written for master and doctoral students who need to understand the mathematical tools and the engineering aspects of the inverse problem needed to obtain geophysically meaningful solutions. Building on the basic theory of linear inverse problems, the methodologies of seismic inversion are explained in detail, including ray-impedance inversion and waveform tomography etc. The application methodologies are categorised into convolutional and wave-equation based groups. This systematic presentation simplifies the subject and enables an in-depth understanding of seismic inversion. This book also provides a practical guide to reservoir geophysicists who are attempting quantitative reservoir characterisation based on seismic data. Philosophically, the seismic inverse problem allows for a range of possible solutions, but the techniques described herein enable geophysicists to exclude models that cannot satisfy the available data. This book summarises the author s extensive experience in both industry and academia and includes innovative techniques not previously published.

Radiolarians in the Sedimentary Record presents the current state of knowledge on fossil radiolarians. The author discusses the record, as well as new integrated taxonomic systems at the family level. The book provides comprehensive coverage of the fossil record of these unicellular organisms. It also discusses their important role in the history of the Earth and their development of the biosphere. This text will prove indispensable for graduate students and researchers in geology, oceanography and earth sciences.

This book provides a brief geology, tectonic structure and metallogeny of Mongolia, central part of the giant Central Asian Orogenic Belt, and broad overview of major metallic (copper, gold, rare metals and rare earths, iron, lead and zinc, silver and platinum group), non-metallic (phosphorite and fluorspar) and fuel (uranium and coal) mineral deposits and occurrences, covering their tectonic position, metallogeny and deposit types, geological characteristics and origin, including newly found deposits and occurrences based on authors research data and a large information obtained during geological exploration work. The book is intended for professional economic geologists, for earth science students and practicing geologists.

This handbook summarizes the main advances in our understanding of marine minerals and concentrates on the deposits of proven economic potential. In cases where our knowledge may be too limited to allow defining of their economic potential, those minerals are covered regionally or by deposit type.
Handbook of Marine Mineral Deposits is divided into three sections; Marine placers, manganese nodules and crusts, and deep-sea hydrothermal mineralization. All of these mineral deposits have great potential importance to economic geologists and marine mines.
Edited by an acknowledged expert in the field, this handbook includes work by internationally renowned contributors. The new United Nations Law of the Sea, ratified by over 100 countries within the past two years, provides a framework and guidelines for deep-sea mineral exploration that increases international interest in this book. The Handbook serves as a platform from which to launch the more detailed evaluation studies that will need to take place in the 21st century before recovery can continue or commence.
Handbook of Marine Mineral Deposits is
useful to mineralogists, economic geologists, marine geologists, marine miners, and conservationists.
Features

This is the first book that attempts to broadly integrate the most recent knowledge in the fields of hydrate nucleation and growth in permafrost regions and marine sediments. Gas hydrate reactant supply, growth models, and implications for pore fill by natural gas hydrate are discussed for both seawater precursors in marine sediments and for permafrost hydrate. These models for forming hydrate concentrations that will constitute targets for exploration are discussed, along with exploration methods. Thermodynamic models for the controlled conversion of hydrate to natural gas, which can be recovered using conventional industry practices, suggest that a number of different types of hydrate occurrence are likely to be practical sources of hydrate natural gas. Current progress in the various aspects of commercial development of hydrate gas deposits are discussed, along with the principal extractive issues that have yet to be resolved.

Audience

The book will be of interest to petroleum geologists, earth scientists (marine geology and geophysics), government departments and institutions concerned with energy resources.

CD-ROM included

A CD-ROM is included containing additional figures, and a selection of high quality color images which are printed in black and white in the book itself.

The coalbed methane (CBM) reserve in China ranks third in the world with a total resource of 36.8x1012 m3. Exploitation of CBM has an important practical significance to ensure the long-term rapid development of China natural gas industry. Therefore, in 2002, the Ministry of Science and Technology of China set up a national 973 program to study CBM system and resolve problems of CBM exploration and exploitation in China. All the main research results and new insights from the program are presented in this book. The book is divided into 11 chapters. The first chapter mainly introduces the present situation of CBM exploration and development in China and abroad. Chapters 2 through 9 illustrate the geological theory and prospect evaluation methods. Then chapters 10 and 11 discuss CBM recovery mechanisms and technology. The book systematically describes the origin, storage, accumulation and emission of CBM in China, and also proposes new methods and technologies on resource evaluation, prospect prediction, seismic interpretation and enhanced recovery. The book will appeal to geologists, lecturers and students who are involved in the CBM industry and connected with coal and conventional hydrocarbon resources research.

The significance of manganese ores is very weil known in cast iron and steel production, as weil as in various types of chemical raw material and agricultural fertilizers. The world industry development in recent years requires their increased production in the vicinity of the metallurgical centers in different regions of the world; high grade manganese and associated metalores are needed. Analysis of the world production and consumption of manganese ores by industrial countries indicates convincingly that the highest commercial value belongs to the ores associated with the supergene zone (National Minerals Advi- sory Board, 1981; Coffman and Palencia, 1984; Doncoisne, 1985; Iones, 1990, 1991; Manganese, 1990; McMichael, 1989). The remarkable property of manganese, in contrast to many other types of mineral resources, is that the ore accumulations of this metal are distributed in the wide geochrono- logical interval from the Archean to the present time; these ores are deposited in basins and supergene environments of different types from lakes, internal seas to pelagic and abyssal regions of the World ocean, as weIl as different types of weathering crusts and karst. At the same time the manganese accumulations and features of their mineral and chemical compositions are relatively sensitive indicators, reflecting facies and geodynamic condi- tions of their formation. These properties aid the investigation of the Earth's evolution processes.

This book illustrates the advantages of the application of ground mechanic concepts to hard rock mining. It examines the ground stability for various mine layouts using specific case histories. The book deals with ground support, reinforcement, and stabilization of mining structures.

This book discusses how sediments compact with depth and applications of the compaction trends. Porosity reduction in sediment conveniently indicates the degree of sediments compacted after deposition. Published empirical curves- the compaction curves- are depth-wise porosity variation through which change in pore spaces from sediment surface to deeper depths e.g. up to 6 km can be delineated. Porosity is derived from well logs. Compaction curves, referred to as the Normal Porosity Profile of shales, sandstones and shale bearing sandstones of different models are reviewed along with the different mechanical and chemical compaction processes. These compaction models reveals how porosity reduces depth-wise and the probable reason for anomalous zones. Deviation from these normal compaction trends may indicate abnormal pressure scenarios: either over- or under pressure. We highlight global examples of abnormal pressure scenarios along with the different primary- and secondary mechanisms. Well logs and cores being the direct measurements of porosity, well log is the only cost-effective way to determine porosity of subsurface rocks. Certain well logs can detect overpressure and the preference of one log above the other helps reduce the uncertainty. Apart from delineation of under-compacted zones by comparing the modeled- with the actual compaction, porosity data can also estimate erosion.

Underground Excavations in Rock deals with the geotechnical aspects of the design of underground openings for mining and civil engineering processes.