Covering theory and practice, this wide-ranging introductory textbook covers the main optical properties of rock-forming minerals that can be recognized under the polarizing microscope. The authors elucidate the basic elements of microscopy, the theory of light transmission through translucent minerals, and the properties of light reflected from opaque minerals. They discuss properties of the main silicate and non-silicate minerals, both translucent and opaque and how the optical properties may be used to identify a mineral. The book features many diagrams, summary tables, and four pages of color illustrations, making it an ideal textbook as well as an authoritative reference.

The book, The Quest for Singularity-the Twin Journey, describes the human efforts to know the origin of the universe, which happens to be as old as billions of years. In that infinitely large timescale, the human beings are occupying a very, very small period of time. Even then, there has been no dearth of initiatives and urge for gathering knowledge to unveil the secrets of source of the vast creation all around and to search for history of the primordial days. When one section of the intelligent humans utilized the power of their innovative minds to refine their knowledge through continuous experimental ways of verifying the natural processes, the other section tried to evolve extraordinary methods of majestic occult arts and process of self-realization. The deep rooted beliefs on supernatural power had been another way to get close to that mystic source. It has been, therefore, the journey through different paths in search for the same goal: the truth.

This book provides a plethora of information about global arsenic (As) contamination and the challenges for environment. Arsenic is a naturally occurring metalloid that is widely distributed in water, soil, air and biota from natural and anthropogenic sources. Arsenic has been found in drinking water in over 100 countries worldwide, which caused a major public health issue including: cardiovascular disorders, diabetes, and cancers of various organs - these are some of the general health effects of As exposure. Exposure of plants to As, even at very low concentrations, can cause many morphological, physiological, and biochemical changes. The recent research on As in the water-soil-plant-human systems indicates that As toxicity to plants varies with As speciation in plants, type of plant species and with other soil factors controlling As accumulation in plants. In recent years, the development of efficient green chemistry methods for detoxification of trace metal poisoning has become a major focus of researchers. It has been investigated in order to find an eco-friendly and recyclable technique for the removal of As contamination from the natural resources. Understanding the significance of As hazard and roles of sustainable or eco-friendly approaches in its mitigation, we intend to bring forth a comprehensive volume "Global Arsenic Hazard - Ecotoxicology and Remediation" highlighting the various prospects involved in current scenario. We are hopeful that this comprehensive volume will furnish the requisite of all those who are working or have interest in the proposed topic.

Radar technology is increasingly being used to monitor the environment. This monograph provides a review of polarimetric radar techniques for remote sensing. The first four chapters cover the basics of mathematical, statistical modelling as well as physical modelling based on radiowave scattering theory. The subsequent eight chapters summarize applications of polarimetric radar monitoring for various types of earth environments, including vegetation and oceans. The last two chapters provide a summary of Western as well as former Soviet Union knowledge and the outlook. This monograph is of value to students, scientists and engineers involved in remote sensing development and applications in particular for environmental monitoring.

Neutron Applications in Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences offers a comprehensive overview of the wide ranging applications of neutron scattering techniques to elucidate the fundamental materials properties at the nano-, micro- and meso-scale, which underpin research in the related fields of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences. Introductions to neutron scattering fundamentals and instrumentation are paired with a thorough review of the applications to a large variety of scientific and technological problems, written through the direct experience of leading scientists in each field. Tailored to a wide audience, this volume provides the novice with an inspiring introduction and stimulates the expert to consider these non-conventional problem solving techniques in his/her field of interest. Earth and environmental scientists, engineers, researchers and graduate students involved with materials science will find Neutron Applications in Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences a valuable ready-to-use reference.

Document Syntax Xl I. DATABASE DESIGN 1. Relational Databases 317 2. Choice of Database Management System 318 3. Design of the Global Paleomagnetic Database 319 3. 1. ORACLE Design 319 3. 2. Compact Database - ABASE 321 4. Aspects of Data Entry 326 II. ORACLE HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE 1. Sytem Hardware and Software Recommendation for ORACLE 328 1. 1. For a Fully IBM Compatible Personal Computer (PC) 328 1. 2. For an Apple Macintosh PC 329 1. 3. Recommendations 330 2. ORACLE RDBMS Software Used By the GPMDB 331 2. 1. A Brief Description of the ORACLE RDBMS 331 2. 2. SQL *Plus under MS-DOS 333 2. 3. SQL *Forms under MS-DOS 336 2. 4. SQL *Menu under MS-DOS 338 2. 5. The . CRT File 339 III. DATABASE INSTALLATION AND MAINTENANCE 1. The Role of the Database Administrator 340 2. Preparing Your PC for the Installation of ORACLE RDBMS 340 2. 1. ORACLE RDBMS for MS-DOS and Extended Memory 340 2. 2. Setting up MS-DOS for ORACLE 342 3. Installing the ORACLE RDBMS 347 3. 1. ORACLE Directory Structure 347 3. 2. Installing the ORACLE RDBMS for MS-DOS 348 3. 3. Step by Step ORACLE RDBMS Installation Instructions 348 4. System Preparation and Loading the Global Paleomagnetic Da- base 353 4. 1. System Preparation 353 4. 2. Installing the Global Paleomagnetic Database 356 4. 3. Loading the Custombuilt Files 358 v SUI\. IJ\IARY vi 5. Database Administrative Tasks 363 5. 1.

Suitable for children ages 6-8 You have received a crate of rare space objects from around the world, and it's up to you to place them in the correct rooms! Follow the instructions to create five amazing pop-ups and assemble the objects in a series of exhibitions in the museum. Learn about everything from Mars rovers to Moon rockets. Hands-on, interactive and illustrated with picture book panache by Mike Love, Science Museum is the perfect gift for fans of Space, craft and model making, combining STEAM and creativity in a fun-packed package. Five featured pop-ups: Solar System Saturn and its Rings Lunar Module Mars Rover Perseverance International Space Station Contents: Introduction & Contents Introduction to Space The Solar System Inner Planets Outer Planets Stars and Galaxies Space capsules Space Planes Rovers International Space Station Where in the Universe? and Space Travel of the Future Build Your Own Space Museum is the latest release in Lonely Planet Kids' successful Build Your Own series which includes Build Your Own Dinosaur Museum, Build Your Own History Museum, and Build Your Own Science Museum. About Lonely Planet Kids: Lonely Planet Kids - an imprint of the world's leading travel authority Lonely Planet - published its first book in 2011. Over the past 45 years, Lonely Planet has grown a dedicated global community of travellers, many of whom are now sharing a passion for exploration with their children. Lonely Planet Kids educates and encourages young readers at home and in school to learn about the world with engaging books on culture, sociology, geography, nature, history, space and more. We want to inspire the next generation of global citizens and help kids and their parents to approach life in a way that makes every day an adventure. Come explore!

This book bridges the gap between theory and practice, showing how a detailed definition of the shear-wave velocity (VS) profile can be efficiently obtained using limited field equipment and following simple acquisition procedures. It demonstrates how surface waves (used to define the VS profile) and vibration data (used to describe the dynamic behaviour of a building) can be recorded using the same equipment, and also highlights common problems, ambiguities and pitfalls that can occur when adopting popular methodologies, which are often based on a series of simplistic assumptions. Today, most national and international building codes take into account a series of parameters aimed at defining the local seismic hazard. Sites are characterised based on the local VS profile, and the dynamic behaviour of existing buildings is defined through the analysis of their eigenmodes. The book includes a series of case studies to help readers gain a deeper understanding of seismic and vibration data and the meaning (pros and cons) of a series of techniques often referred to as MASW, ESAC, SPAC, ReMi, HVSR, MAAM and HS. It also provides access to some of the datasets so that readers can gain a deeper and more concrete understanding of both the theoretical and practical aspects.

A comprehensive, illustrated identification guide for beginners and serious collectors alike, featuring special colour photography of specimens held at the Natural History Museum, London. Rocks are minerals are naturally occurring compounds formed by intense geological processes in the Earth's crust such as volcanic eruptions. With striking colour photography of rocks and minerals from around the globe, this detailed and easy-to-use guide is designed to help readers identify specimens and begin collecting. Fully fact checked by the Department of Mineralogy at the Natural History Museum, London, this guide will give you geological knowledge at your fingertips.

The study of the statistics of extreme events is an essential first step in the mitigation of natural catastrophies, that often cause severe economic losses worldwide. This book is about the theoretical and practical aspects of the statistics of Extreme Events in Nature.Most importantly, this is the first text in which Copulas are introduced and used in Geophysics.Several topics are fully original, and show how standard models and calculations can be improved by exploiting the opportunities offered by Copulas. In addition, new quantities useful for design and risk assessment are introduced. Practicioners in all research areas of Geosciences and extreme events (including Finance and Insurance, closely related to natural disasters) will definitely benefit from the new Copula-approach outlined in the book.

Ever since Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity burst upon the world in 1915 some of the most brilliant minds of our century have sought to decipher the mysteries bequeathed by that theory, a legacy so unthinkable in some respects that even Einstein himself rejected them. Which of these bizarre phenomena, if any, can really exist in our universe?

Black holes, down which anything can fall but from which nothing can return; wormholes, short spacewarps connecting regions of the cosmos; singularities, where space and time are so violently warped that time ceases to exist and space becomes a kind of foam; gravitational waves, which carry symphonic accounts of collisions of black holes billions of years ago; and time machines, for traveling backward and forward in time.

Kip Thorne, along with fellow theorists Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, a cadre of Russians, and earlier scientists such as Oppenheimer, Wheeler and Chandrasekhar, has been in the thick of the quest to secure answers.

n this masterfully written and brilliantly informed work of scientific history and explanation, Dr. Thorne, the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech, leads his readers through an elegant, always human, tapestry of interlocking themes, coming finally to a uniquely informed answer to the great question: what principles control our universe and why do physicists think they know the things they think they know?

This work provides a short "getting started" guide to Fortran 90/95. The main target audience consists of newcomers to the field of numerical computation within Earth system sciences (students, researchers or scientific programmers). Furthermore, readers accustomed to other programming languages may also benefit from this work, by discovering how some programming techniques they are familiar with map to Fortran 95. The main goal is to enable readers to quickly start using Fortran 95 for writing useful programs. It also introduces a gradual discussion of Input/Output facilities relevant for Earth system sciences, from the simplest ones to the more advanced netCDF library (which has become a de facto standard for handling the massive datasets used within Earth system sciences). While related works already treat these disciplines separately (each often providing much more information than needed by the beginning practitioner), the reader finds in this book a shorter guide which links them. Compared to other books, this work provides a much more compact view of the language, while also placing the language-elements in a more applied setting, by providing examples related to numerical computing and more advanced Input/Output facilities for Earth system sciences. Naturally, the coverage of the programming language is relatively shallow, since many details are skipped. However, many of these details can be learned gradually by the practitioner, after getting an overview and some practice with the language through this book.

The book focuses on the topic of trends and challenges with regards to satellite-based earth observation. Contributors include legal experts in the field and representatives from institutions such as the European Space Agency, the European Space Policy Institute, academia and the private sector.

"Maths for Geoscientists" is an accessible, student-friendly introduction to the essential mathematics required by those students taking degree courses within the Geosciences. Clearly structured throughout, this book carefully guides the student step by step through the mathematics they will encounter and will provide numerous applied examples throughout to enhance students understanding and to place each technique into context.

Opening with a chapter explaining the need for studying mathematics within geosciences the book then moves on to cover algebra, equations, solutions, logarithms and exponentials, statistics and probability, trigonometry, vectors and calculus. The final chapter helps to bring it all together and provides the students with sample projects to test their knowledge. Worked applied examples are included in each chapter along with applied problem questions which are a mix of straightforward maths questions, word questions (developing maths to words), and more involved questions that involve the manipulation and interpretation of real and synthetic data.

Ecological research is becoming increasingly quantitative, yet students often opt out of courses in mathematics and statistics, unwittingly limiting their ability to carry out research in the future. This textbook provides a practical introduction to quantitative ecology for students and practitioners who have realised that they need this opportunity.

The text is addressed to readers who haven't used mathematics since school, who were perhaps more confused than enlightened by their undergraduate lectures in statistics and who have never used a computer for much more than word processing and data entry. From this starting point, it slowly but surely instils an understanding of mathematics, statistics and programming, sufficient for initiating research in ecology. The book's practical value is enhanced by extensive use of biological examples and the computer language R for graphics, programming and data analysis.

Key Features: Provides a complete introduction to mathematics statistics and computing for ecologists.Presents a wealth of ecological examples demonstrating the applied relevance of abstract mathematical concepts, showing how a little technique can go a long way in answering interesting ecological questions.Covers elementary topics, including the rules of algebra, logarithms, geometry, calculus, descriptive statistics, probability, hypothesis testing and linear regression.Explores more advanced topics including fractals, non-linear dynamical systems, likelihood and Bayesian estimation, generalised linear, mixed and additive models, and multivariate statistics.R boxes provide step-by-step recipes for implementing the graphical and numerical techniques outlined in each section.

"How to be a Quantitative Ecologist" provides a comprehensive introduction to mathematics, statistics and computing and is the ideal textbook for late undergraduate and postgraduate courses in environmental biology.

"With a book like this, there is no excuse for people to be afraid of maths, and to be ignorant of what it can do."
--Professor Tim Benton, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds, UK

This open access book serves as textbook on the physics of the radiation belts surrounding the Earth. Discovered in 1958 the famous Van Allen Radiation belts were among the first scientific discoveries of the Space Age. Throughout the following decades the belts have been under intensive investigation motivated by the risks of radiation hazards they expose to electronics and humans on spacecraft in the Earth's inner magnetosphere. This textbook teaches the field from basic theory of particles and plasmas to observations which culminated in the highly successful Van Allen Probes Mission of NASA in 2012-2019. Using numerous data examples the authors explain the relevant concepts and theoretical background of the extremely complex radiation belt region, with the emphasis on giving a comprehensive and coherent understanding of physical processes affecting the dynamics of the belts. The target audience are doctoral students and young researchers who wish to learn about the physical processes underlying the acceleration, transport and loss of the radiation belt particles in the perspective of the state-of-the-art observations.

Modern geologists, Walter Alvarez among them, showed in the last decades of the twentieth century that the history of our planet has witnessed events profoundly more dramatic than even the most spectacular chapters in human history. More violent than wars, more life altering than revolutions-understanding the geologic events that have shaped the Earth's surface is the quest and the passion of geologists. In the knowledgeable and graceful prose of Alvarez, general readers are led to explore the many mysteries that our planet guards. The author has chosen Italy as a microcosm in which to explore this amazing past for several reasons. First, it is the land where the earliest geologists learned how to read the history of the Earth, written in nature's rock archives. Second, it is where Alvarez and his Italian geological friends have continued to decipher the rock record, uncovering more historical episodes from the Earth's past. And third, the lovely land of Italy is unusually rich in geological treasures and offers examples of the key processes that have created the landscapes of the entire world. The Mountains of Saint Francis begins in Rome. We discover that the landscape of Rome was built by violent volcanic eruptions in the very recent past, almost certainly witnessed by our human ancestors. Next we travel to Siena and come face to face with a fundamental discovery of the geologists-that much of the dry land that we currently inhabit was once underwater, beneath ancient seas or oceans. Then we stop in the small medieval city of Gubbio and contemplate the amazing secret that the limestone rocks kept hidden for 65 million years-that a huge asteroid smashed into the Earth, disrupting the environment so severely that the dinosaurs, and perhaps half of the other forms of life inhabiting the Earth at the time, disappeared forever, opening the way for the rise of the mammals and eventually of humans. The impact theory that came from those Italian limestones at Gubbio was one of the great geological discoveries of the twentieth century. Just as important to the field of geology was the theory of plate tectonics-the understanding that the outer layer of the Earth is divided into crustal plates that move around, sometimes carrying continents into collisions with one another, like the great collision between Italy and Europe that built the Alps. And yet, to explain the Mountains of Saint Francis requires something more than a collision between continents. These are mountains that are still jealously guarding the secret of their past, and in this book we go along with the geological detectives as they try to uncover that secret. It is a journey that has seen the land of Italy lifted out of the sea, squashed and folded, torn apart, left high and dry when the Mediterranean Sea evaporated away, and then flooded when the Atlantic waters poured back in. The story of the Earth's history is fascinating in its own right, but with Alvarez as the tour guide, the journey takes on a human dimension, full of stories about the landscape and history of Italy and about the great geologists who uncovered the deep past of this land. It is a journey recounted in warm tones and subtle colors, reflecting the transcendent beauty of Italy itself.

This book is an outcome of the 35th International Conference EnviroInfo 2021, held at Humboldt University Berlin, organized by the technical committee for Environmental Informatics of the German Informatics Society. It presents a selection of papers that describe innovative scientific approaches and ongoing research in environmental informatics and the emerging field of environmental sustainability, promoted and facilitated by the use of information and communication technologies (ICT). The respective articles cover a broad range of scientific aspects including advances in core environmental informatics-related technologies such as earth observation, environmental modelling, big data and machine learning, robotics, smart agriculture and food solutions, renewable energy-based solutions, optimization of infrastructures, sustainable industrial processes and citizen science, as well as applications of ICT solutions intended to support societal transformation processes toward the more sustainable management of resource use, transportation and energy supplies. A special focus lies on the question how environmental informatics can contribute to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Given its scope, the book is essential reading for scientists, experts and students in these fields of research.

A large range of symmetries in art is presented through clear and aesthetically outstanding examples of historical ornaments. Compendious comments illustrate the selected photographic material by addressing the interested and specialist reader alike. Contents: Introduction Fundamental categories The convenient start: Plane groups of symmetry Intertwined patterns: Layer groups of symmetry Two-colored periodic ornamentation Polychromatic patterns Beyond 2D groups: Hypersymmetry, superstructures, two symmetries in one pattern, the "order-disorder" patterns, homothety and similarity, inversion and nonlinear patterns Quasiperiodic patterns Fractals and fractal character Style and symmetry - symmetry and style References Index