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Books > Earth & environment > Earth sciences > General
Earth science is a broad field of study that encompasses many different disciplines, including meteorology, climatology, and geology. The importance of the earth sciences in predicting weather and climate, tracking pollution, drilling for petroleum, evaluation of soil, and monitoring ground water is paramount in modern society. This new work covers a broad selection of topics in the field of earth science, including using satellite remote sensing to track pollution and weather patterns, monitoring for pre-earthquake signals, using earthquakes to uncover new information about the earth, desalination of ground water, and predicting deforestation. Also featured are an overview and survey of the new revolution of computer technology for studying the geosciences and a study of the beneficial health emotional, mental, and physical effects of rocks, minerals, and geologic processes.
This open access book presents the results of three years collaboration between earth scientists and data scientist, in developing and applying data science methods for scientific discovery. The book will be highly beneficial for other researchers at senior and graduate level, interested in applying visual data exploration, computational approaches and scientifc workflows.
This book includes the recent 10-year achievement of geo-disaster mitigation by leading Asian scientists from Japan, China, Indonesia, Korea, Iran and Far East of Russia. Case studies on recent occurred geo-disasters in Asian region have been presented. The forming mechanics of hazards such as earthquake and landslide are deeply discussed, and the disaster mitigation technology for building and pipeline safety, landslide hazard assessment and risk management are introduced.
Researchers in landscape archaeology use two different definitions of landscape. One definition (landscape as territory) is used by the processual archaeologists, earth scientists, and most historical geographers within this volume. By contrast, post-processual archaeologists, new cultural geographers and anthropologists favour a more abstract definition of landscape, based on how it is perceived by the observer. Both definitions are addressed in this book, with 35 papers that are presented here and that are divided into six themes: 1) How did landscape change?; 2) Improving temporal, chronological and transformational frameworks; 3) Linking landscapes of lowlands with mountainous areas; 4) Applying concepts of scale; 5) New directions in digital prospection and modelling techniques, and 6) How will landscape archaeology develop in the future? This volume demonstrates a worldwide interest in landscape archaeology, and the research presented here draws upon and integrates the humanities and sciences. This interdisciplinary approach is rapidly gaining support in new regions where such collaborations were previously uncommon.
The new edition of this popular textbook, once again, provides an indispensable guide for the next generation of mineralogists. Designed for use on one- or two-semester courses, this second edition has been thoughtfully reorganised, making it more accessible to students, whilst still being suitable for an advanced mineralogy course. Additions include expanded introductions to many chapters, a new introductory chapter on crystal chemistry, revised figures, and an extended plates section containing beautiful colour photographs. Text boxes include historical background and case studies to engage students, and end-of-chapter questions help them reinforce concepts. With new online resources to support learning and teaching, including laboratory exercises, PowerPoint slides, useful web links and mineral identification tables, this is a sound investment for students in the fields of geology, materials science and environmental science, and a valuable reference for researchers, collectors and anyone interested in minerals.
This book gathers the latest advances, innovations, and applications in the field of civil, environmental and construction engineering, as presented by researchers and engineers at the XXX Annual Russian-Polish-Slovak Seminar Theoretical Foundation of Civil Engineering (RSP), held in September 2021. Co-organized by six universities from Russia, Poland and Slovakia, the event covered diverse topics such as structural mechanics; building structures; geodesy and geotechnics; transport and environmental issues in civil engineering. The contributions, which were selected by means of a rigorous international peer-review process, highlight numerous exciting ideas that will spur novel research directions and foster multidisciplinary collaborations.
The climate of our planet is changing at a rate unprecedented in recent human history. The energy absorbed from the sun exceeds what is returned to space. The planet as a whole is gaining energy. The heat content of the ocean is increasing, the surface and atmosphere are warming, mid-latitude glaciers are melting, sea level is rising, and the Arctic Ocean is losing its ice cover. None of these assertions is based on theory but on hard observational facts. Given the science-heavy nature of climate change, debates and discussions have not played as big a role in the public sphere as they should, and instead are relegated to often misinformed political discussions and inaccessible scientific conferences. Michael B. McElroy, an eminent Harvard scholar of environmental studies, combines both his research chops and pedagogical expertise to present a book that will appeal to the lay reader but still be grounded in scientific fact. The book begins with a general introduction, followed by chapters on energy basics, a discussion of the contemporary energy systems of the US and China, and the aforementioned chapters on climate. It continues with a series of chapters on specific energy options: coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, and biomass. The perspective is global but with a specific focus on the US and China recognizing the critical role these countries must play in addressing the challenge of global climate change. The book concludes with a discussion of initiatives now underway to at least reduce the rate of increase of greenhouse gas emissions, together with a vision for a low carbon energy future that could in principle minimize the long-term impact of energy systems on global climate.
Geoscience is a fundamental natural science discipline dealing with the origin, evolutionary history and behaviour of the planet Earth. As a result of its complicated and complex nature, the Earth system not only provides the necessary materials and environment for mankind to live, but also brings many types of natural disasters, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, ?oods and tornadoes, to mention just a few. With the ever-increasing demand for improving our living standards, it has been recognized that the existing natural resources will be exhausted in the near future and that our living environments are, in fact, deteriorating. To maintain the sustainable development of our living standards and the further improvement of our living environments, an inevitable and challenging task that geoscientists are now confronting is how accurately to predict not only the occurrences of these natural disasters, but also the locations of large concealed natural resources in the deep Earth. For this reason, geoscientists must study the processes, rules and laws, by which the Earth system operates, instead of simply describing and observing g- science phenomena.
Recent progress in numerical methods and computer science allows us today to simulate the propagation of seismic waves through realistically heterogeneous Earth models with unprecedented accuracy. Full waveform tomography is a tomographic technique that takes advantage of numerical solutions of the elastic wave equation. The accuracy of the numerical solutions and the exploitation of complete waveform information result in tomographic images that are both more realistic and better resolved. This book develops and describes state of the art methodologies covering all aspects of full waveform tomography including methods for the numerical solution of the elastic wave equation, the adjoint method, the design of objective functionals and optimisation schemes. It provides a variety of case studies on all scales from local to global based on a large number of examples involving real data. It is a comprehensive reference on full waveform tomography for advanced students, researchers and professionals.
With the rapid development of Chinese urbanization in the 21st century, "urban diseases" become more serious, mainly manifested in water environmental pollution, urban flooding, water shortage, and deterioration of water ecology. It is necessary to establish a modern rainwater management system, scientifically solve the problem of excess urban rainwater and to improve water environment quality. Improvement of water environment quality is conducive to the ecological function of a sponge city. Sponge city construction has contributed to control non-point source pollution. Sponge systems cause the stagnation and purification of rainwater runoff, which is an important guarantee for water environment quality. This monograph summarizes theories and practices of the integrated water environment treatment in Chongqing, a typical representative mountainous city in the Three Gorges Reservoir Region. Based on the mountainous terrain and unique water environment characteristics in the Three Gorges Reservoir Region, the monograph analyzes measures and difficulties in the basin water environment integrated treatment. Moreover, the monograph makes suggestions for risk management amid drainage systems during the COVID-19 epidemic.
The International Mining Forum is a recurring event, hosted by the University of Science and Technology in Cracow, Poland, bringing together an international group of scientists, including those working in rock mechanics and computer engineering as well as mining engineers. The topics are wide-ranging, including papers on remote sensing to assess primary impact; treatment of sealed-off coal mine fires; sustainable development in mine closure; and monitoring of natural hazards and safety issues.
This book presents research advances in intelligent transportation and smart cities in detail, mainly focusing on green traffic and urban utility tunnels, presented at the 4th International Symposium for Intelligent Transportation and Smart City (ITASC) held at Tongji University, Shanghai, on May 8-10, 2019. It discusses a number of hot topics, such as the 2BMW system (Bus, Bike, Metro and Walking), transportation safety and environmental protection, urban utility design and application, as well as the application of BIM (Building Information Modeling) in city design. By connecting the theory and applications of intelligent transportation in smart cities, it enhances traffic efficiency and quality. The book gathers numerous selected papers and lectures, including contributions from respected scholars and the latest engineering advances, to provide guidance to researchers in the field of transportation and urban planning at universities and in related industries. The first conference in the ITASC series was held in 2013 as a workshop of the International Symposium on Autonomous Decentralized System (ISADS) in Mexico City. The second and third were held in May 2015 and May 2017, respectively, in Tongji University, Shanghai.
recently discovered advantages of amorphous forms of medicines/pharmaceutical products which focused a significant part of industry-related efforts on the GFA (Glass Forming Ability) and the glass temperature (T) versus pressure g dependences. 1 b ? 0 ? ? o ? P ? Pg P ? Pg 0 ? ? ? ? T (P ) = F (P )D (P ) =T 1 + exp ? g g ? 0 ? ? ? ? c + Pg ? ? ? ? 400 1 b 0 o ? ? ? ? P ? P P ? P g g 0 ? ? ? ? T (P ) = F (P )D (P ) =T 1 + exp ? g g 0 ? ? ? ? c ? + P max g ? ? ? ? T ~7 GPa g max P ~ 304 K Liquid g 300 1 HS glass 0 200 -1 mSG ?=0. 044 Liquid -2 100 -3 glass ?=0. 12 -1. 2 -0. 9 -0. 6 -0. 3 0. 0 log T 10 scaled -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 P (GPa) g 19 Figure 1. T he pressure evolution of the glass temperature in gl Th ye s cerol ol . id curve shows the parameterization of experimental data via the novel, modifie d Glat Sizm elon type equation, given in the Figure.
New technologies allow us to handle increasingly large datasets, while monitoring devices are becoming ever more sophisticated. This high-tech progress produces statistical units sampled over finer and finer grids. As the measurement points become closer, the data can be considered as observations varying over a continuum. This intrinsic continuous data (called functional data) can be found in various fields of science, including biomechanics, chemometrics, econometrics, environmetrics, geophysics, medicine, etc. The failure of standard multivariate statistics to analyze such functional data has led the statistical community to develop appropriate statistical methodologies, called Functional Data Analysis (FDA). Today, FDA is certainly one of the most motivating and popular statistical topics due to its impact on crucial societal issues (health, environment, etc). This is why the FDA statistical community is rapidly growing, as are the statistical developments . Therefore, it is necessary to organize regular meetings in order to provide a state-of-art review of the recent advances in this fascinating area. This book collects selected and extended papers presented at the second International Workshop of Functional and Operatorial Statistics (Santander, Spain, 16-18 June, 2011), in which many outstanding experts on FDA will present the most relevant advances in this pioneering statistical area. Undoubtedly, these proceedings will be an essential resource for academic researchers, master students, engineers, and practitioners not only in statistics but also in numerous related fields of application. "
Precision farming, site infrastructure assessment, hydrologic monitoring, and environmental investigations a " these are just a few current and potential uses of near-surface geophysical methods in agriculture. Responding to the growing demand for this technology, the Handbook of Agricultural Geophysics supplies a clear, concise overview of near-surface geophysical methods that can be used in agriculture and provides detailed descriptions of situations in which these techniques have been employed.
This exciting text provides a mathematically rigorous yet accessible textbook that is primarily aimed at atmospheric science majors. Its accessibility is due to the texts emphasis on conceptual understanding. The first five chapters constitute a companion text to introductory courses covering the dynamics of the mid-latitude atmosphere. The final four chapters constitute a more advanced course, and provide insights into the diagnostic power of the quasi-geostrophic approximation of the equations outlined in the previous chapters, the meso-scale dynamics of thefrontal zone, the alternative PV perspective for cyclone interpretation, and the dynamics of the life-cycle of mid-latitude cyclones.Written in a clear and accessible styleFeatures real weather examples and global case studiesEach chapter sets out clear learning objectives and tests students' knowledge with concluding questions and answers A Solutions Manual is also available for this textbook on the Instructor Companion Site www.wileyeurope.com/college/martin. ..".a student-friendly yet rigorous textbook that accomplishes what no other textbook has done before... I highly recommend this textbook. For instructors, this is a great book if they don't have their own class notes - one can teach straight from the book. And for students, this is a great book if they don't take good class notes - one can learn straight from the book. This is a rare attribute of advanced textbooks." "Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS), 2008"
Part of an international series of monographs in palaeontology and biostratigraphy The publication, Conodont Biostratigraphy and Taxonomy of the Ordovician Shelf Margin Deposits in the Scandinavian Caledonides, is Number 48 in the Fossils and Strata series.
Adjustment Models in 3D Geomatics and Computational Geophysics: With MATLAB Examples, Volume Four introduces a complete package of theoretical and practical subjects in adjustment computations relating to Geomatics and geophysical applications, particularly photogrammetry, surveying, remote sensing, GIS, cartography, and geodesy. Supported by illustrating figures and solved examples with MATLAB codes, the book provides clear methods for processing 3D data for accurate and reliable results. Problems cover free net adjustment, adjustment with constraints, blunder detection, RANSAC, robust estimation, error propagation, 3D co-registration, image pose determination, and more.
This volume contains forty-one selected full-text contributions from the Fourth European Conference on Geostatistics for Environmental Applications, geoENV IV, held in Barcelona, Spain, November 2002. The objective of the editors was to compile a set of papers from which the reader could perceive how geostatistics is applied within the environmental sciences. A few selected theoretical contributions are also included. The papers are organized in the following sections: Air pollution and satellite images, Ecology and environment, Hydrogeology, Climatology and rainfall, Oceanography, Soil science, Methodology. Applications of geostatistics vary from particle matter analysis, land cover classification, space-time ozone mapping, downscaling of precipitation, contaminant transport in the subsurface, aquifer reclamation, analysis of Iberian hare or phytoplankton abundance, coastal current patterns, to soil pollution by heavy metals or dioxins. At the back of the book nineteen posters presented at the congress are included. The combination of full texts and posters provides a picture of the tendencies that can presently be found in Europe regarding the applications of geostatistics for environmentally related problems. Audience: After four editions the geoENV Congress Series has established itself as a 'must' to all scientists working in the field of geostatistics for environmental applications. Each geoENV congress covers the developments which have occurred during the preceding two years, but always with a highly applied focus. It is precisely this focus on the applications to environmental sciences which makes the geoENV volumes unique and of great interest and practical value togeostatisticians working both in academia and in industry.
Ring lasers are commonly used as gyroscopes for aircraft navigation and attitude control. The largest ring lasers are sensitive enough that they can be used for high resolution inertial rotation sensing of the Earth in order to detect tiny perturbations to the Earth's rotation caused by earthquakes or global mass transport. This book describes the latest advances in the development of large ring lasers for applications in geodesy and geophysics using the most sensitive and stable devices available. Chapters cover our current knowledge of the physics of the laser gyroscope, how to acquire and analyse data from ring lasers, and what the potential applications are in the geosciences. It is a valuable reference for those working with ring lasers or using the data for applications in geodesy and geophysics; as well as researchers in laser physics, photonics and navigation.
The studies in this second volume by Martin Rudwick (the first being The New Science of Geology: Studies in the Earth Science in the Age of Reform) focus on the figures of Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin. Lyell rose to be of pivotal importance in the second quarter of the 19th century because he challenged other geologists throughout Europe by probing their methods and conclusions to the limit. While adopting their goal of reconstructing the contingent history of the earth, he claimed that the physical processes observable in action in the present could explain far more about the past than was commonly believed, and that it was unnecessary to postulate occasional catastrophic events of still greater intensity. Far more controversial was Lyell's further claim that the earth and its life had always been in a stable steady state, rather than developing in a broadly linear or directional fashion. His younger friend Charles Darwin first made his name as a Lyellian geologist; Darwin's early work in geology, studied here, provided important foundations for his later and more famous research on speciation and other biological problems.
The national parks and reserves of East Africa are widely known for their rich and abundant wildlife. This book presents a new and exciting angle – the geological highlights of the region’s intriguing landscape. East Africa’s cataclysmic volcanic legacy, caused by rifting of the landmass, has resulted in a rich source of geological wonders. These range from the seemingly endless, peaceful plains of the Serengeti to the stark skyscraper walls of extinct calderas and the boiling magma cauldrons and belching vents of the Nyiragongo Volcano. This handy guide escorts users around all the major – and some minor – parks of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, as well as the Virunga Mountains in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Descriptions of each park and its wildlife offerings, both fauna and flora, preface discussion of the geological origins, influences and current conditions. Key geosites in the parks, and how to access them, are indicated. Maps, satellite images and diagrams, along with vivid photography, help explain the dramatic landforms, both close up and from above. For anyone planning a safari to the legendary East African game parks and reserves, this book adds an exciting new dimension.
Written in an engaging and highly readable style, The Handbook of Geoscience is ideal for students, administrators, legal professionals, non-scientific professionals, and general readers with little or no science background. This handbook is a user-friendly overview of our physical, biological, and ecological environment, one that offers up-to-date coverage of the major scientific fields that form the structure of geoscience. Students who are enrolled in a geoscience course or one of its many subdisciplines will find this work an invaluable resource to support and supplement classroom instruction. The emphasis is on readability, with clear, example-driven explanations refined by more than 35 years of experience of instruction and student feedback.
Since the advent of agriculture approximately 12,000 years ago, human activity has created a unique set of ecosystems. However, the recent development of world markets, rapid technological advances, and other changes to farming practices have led to hugely increased pressures on farm habitats and organisms. Global human populations are rising and diets are becoming ever more complicated, leading to unrelenting requirements for increased levels of food production. Natural biotopes are becoming increasingly fragmented as agricultural activities expand around them. "Agroecosystems" now occur from the tropics to subarctic environments and comprise systems as varied as annual crops, perennial grasslands, orchards, and agroforestry systems. They presently cover almost 40% of the terrestrial land surface and significantly shape landscapes at a global scale. This key addition to the OUP Biology of Habitats Series provides a novel perspective on agroecosystems, summarising our current understanding of the basic and applied aspects of these important and complex habitats, whilst focusing on environmental concerns in the context of global change. The Biology of Agroecosystemsis is for both senior undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in agroecology, farmland ecology, conservation, and agriculture as well as the many professional ecologists, conservation biologists, and land managers requiring a concise overview of agroecology. |
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