How oxygen levels in Earth's atmosphere and oceans evolved has always been a central question in Earth System Science. Researchers have developed numerous tracers to tackle this question, utilizing geochemical characteristics of different elements. Iodine incorporated in calcium carbonate (including biogenic) minerals, reported as I/Ca, is a proxy for dissolved oxygen in seawater. Here we review the rationale behind this proxy, its recent applications and some potential future research directions.

This book comprehensively describes all aspects of gravity flow, a physical process in the environment that is covered by many disciplines including meteorology, oceanography, the earth sciences and industrial processes. The first edition was very well received, and the author has brought the new edition completely up to date, with much new material. Simpson describes gravity currents with a variety of laboratory experiments, many from his own work. Gravity Currents is a valuable supplementary textbook for undergraduates and a reference work for research workers. The general reader will also find much of interest, since the author clearly describes the physics of flows involved without advanced mathematics, and with numerous photographs and illustrations.

The Human Age is an intrepid exploration of the new geological epoch in which we now find ourselves: the Anthropocene. Defined as the Age of Man, this is the epoch in which human beings have become the driving forces that mould, transform and destroy Earth. Where natural occurrences once controlled climate, geology and the genesis and demise of species, humankind now holds the reins. Bringing together scientific theory, political argument, philosophical questioning and our deepest fears and hopes for the future, The Human Age explores this new age through informative and compelling text, and astounding photographs of the impact of human life on Earth. Powerful graphics depict the changing nature of the landscape and the very bedrock of our planet, and the destruction of ancient systems and environments that is resulting in global upheaval and climate breakdown. Creating a visual and written timeline of the age of human domination, The Human Age reveals how this era was born, the ways in which it is impacting us and our planet now, and the outlook for the future.

'AN ORIGINAL AND TIMELY ODYSSEY INTO OUR MYSTERIOUS UNDERWORLD . . . THRILLING PROOF THAT SCIENCE AND IMAGINATION SHARE THE GROUND BENEATH OUR FEET' Nicholas Crane, presenter of BBC2's Coast and Great British Journeys If you were to peel back the Earth's surface like an orange, then take a sly peek underneath, what extraordinary things would you see? Subterranea is where the world's remaining mysteries are yet to be found. For millennia, across nations and cultures, it has been a hotbed of fantastical stories. It's where humans have kept their most sacred treasures and their darkest secrets. It's where we have found evidence of our past and may, at some point, find an escape route for our uncertain future. But what would we find there today? From the underground cities of Cappadocia to smuggling tunnels on the US-Mexico border, caves full of tiny blind dragons and a seed vault located 1300km inside the Arctic circle, Subterranea demonstrates that the world below our feet is every bit as vivid and evocative as the world we see around us. Lavishly illustrated and replete with maps and photographs of little-explored locations, Subterranea is the unique, untold and utterly unforgettable story of our planet from the inside.

This book is the outcome of the work of contributors who participated in the wo- shop "Mapping Different Geographies (MDG)" in February 2010, held in Puchberg am Schneeberg, Austria. This meeting brought together cartographers, artists and geoscientists who research and practice in applications that focus on enhancing o- to-one communication or develop and evaluate methodologies that provide inno- tive methods for sharing information. The main intention of the workshop was to investigate how 'different' geographies are being mapped and the possibilities for developing new theories and techniques for information design and transfer based on place or location. So as to communicate these concepts it was important to appreciate the many contrasting meanings of 'mapping' that were held by workshop participants. Also, the many (and varied) viewpoints of what different geographies are, were ela- rated upon and discussed. Therefore, as the focus on space and time was embedded within everyone's felds of investigation, this was addressed during the workshop. This resulted in very engaging discourse, which, in some cases, exposed the restrictions that certain approaches need to consider. For participants, this proved to be most useful, as this allowed them to appreciate the limits and restrictions of their own approach to understanding and representing different geographies. As well, the workshop also was most helpful as a vehicle for demonstrating the common ground of interest held by the very diverse areas of endeavour that the workshop participants work within.

For Introductory Earth Science Courses This package includes MasteringGeology (TM) Ideal for undergraduates with little or no science background, Earth Science provides a student-friendly overview of our physical environment that offers balanced, up-to-date coverage of geology, oceanography, astronomy, and meteorology. The authors' texts have always been recognized for their readability, currency, dynamic art program, delivery of basic principles, and instructor flexibility. The Fourteenth Edition incorporates a new active-learning approach, a fully updated and mobile visual program, and MasteringGeology-the most complete, easy-to-use, engaging tutorial and assessment tool available. This program will provide an interactive and engaging learning experience for your students. Here's how: * Teach with an active learning path. Chapters have been broken up into small manageable sections that help students actively analyze information, assess their progress and think about Earth science. * Use art that teaches. Each chapter contains 5-7 SmartFigures. SmartFigures are illustrations that use Quick Response (QR) codes to link students to lecture-style videos. Also found in each chapter and accessed by QR codes are Mobile Field Trips, where students virtually accompany Michael Collier on adventures to explore different landscapes. * Cultivate an active learning environment that helps students achieve a deeper understanding of the text. * Personalize learning with MasteringGeology. This package includes MasteringGeology, an online homework, tutorial, and assessment program designed to work with this text to engage students and improve results. Interactive, self-paced tutorials provide individualized coaching to help students stay on track. With a wide range of activities available, students can actively learn, understand, and retain even the most difficult concepts. MasteringGeology should only be purchased when required by an instructor. Please be sure you have the correct ISBN and Course ID. Instructors, contact your Pearson representative for more information.

The atmosphere is the thin, diffuse fluid that envelops the Earth's surface. Despite its apparent fragility, the existence of this fluid is vital for human and other life on Earth. In this Very Short Introduction Paul Palmer describes the physical and chemical characteristics of different layers in the atmosphere, and shows how the interactions where the atmosphere is in contact with land, ocean, and ice affect its observed physical and chemical properties. He also looks at how movement in the atmosphere, driven by heat from the sun, transports heat from lower latitudes to higher latitudes, and is a fundamental feature of the general circulation in the atmosphere. Finally, Palmer presents an overview of the types of measurements used to understand different parts of the atmosphere, and identifies the future challenges for atmospheric scientists. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

This book offers a study of the three evolutions in a circle (cosmos, life, and knowledge) with the aim of discussing human social behavior, a metaphor of the general behavior of nature (from which man derives) within the fluctuating equilibrium between the opposite tendencies to cohesion and shredding; a circularity revealing an indefinite and probably never conclusive run-up of human beings to the knowledge of nature; an analysis that demonstrates any theoretical/practical impossibility to formulate absolute certainties, since it depicts a situation in which man finds himself hovering between a rational way of living and the contradictory modus operandi of mythos. All that, within a society where the powerful communication and transportation technologies give rise to conflicts and fragmentations, where anyone's will to self-distinguishing is enhanced by highlighting any small difference and obscuring any large similarity. The main difference between this book and existing ones stems from its interdisciplinary nature, particularly because it establishes a close connection between three, apparently so different disciplines-cosmology, life sciences, and sociology-compared with respect to their increasing complexity laws, giving rise to always more chaotic configurations.

Spatial Analysis for Radar Remote Sensing of Tropical Forests is based on the authors' extensive involvement in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) mapping projects, targeting the health of an earth ecosystem with great relevance for climate change studies: the tropical forests. The subject is developed from a vantage point provided by analysis in a combined space, scale (frequency), time, wavelength, polarization domain. The combination of space and scale offers the capability to zoom in and out like a virtual microscope to the resolution in tune with the underlying ecological phenomenon. It also enables statistical measures (correlations) related to the forest spatial distribution in case of backscatter, or to the canopy height variations in case of interferometric observations. The time dimension brings into play measures of the ecosystem dynamics, such as the flooding extent in the swamp forests, deforestation or degradation events. Wavelength and polarization agility extend the abovementioned capabilities by radar observations that are in tune with particular characteristics of the forest and terrain layers. The book's spotlight is on radar spatial random fields, these being populated by either backscatter observations or elevation data from interferometric SAR. The basic tenet here is that the spatial statistic of the fields measured by the wavelet variance (in stationary or non-stationary situations) carries fingerprints of the forest structure. Features: Uniquely focused on specific techniques that provide multi-resolution spatial and temporal analysis of forest structure characteristics and changes. Examines several large and important international remote sensing projects aimed at documenting entire tropical ecosystems. Provides novel wavelet methods for tropical forest structural measures. As the first book on this topic, this composite approach appeals to both students learning through important case studies and to researchers finding new ideas for future studies.

This hands-on introduction to numerical geodynamic modelling provides a solid grounding in the necessary mathematical theory and techniques, including continuum mechanics and partial differential equations, before introducing key numerical modelling methods and applications. Fully updated, this second edition includes four completely new chapters covering the most recent advances in modelling inertial processes, seismic cycles and fluid-solid interactions, and the development of adaptive mesh refinement algorithms. Many well-documented, state-of-the-art visco-elasto-plastic 2D models are presented, which allow robust modelling of key geodynamic processes. Requiring only minimal prerequisite mathematical training, and featuring over sixty practical exercises and ninety MATLAB (R) examples, this user-friendly resource encourages experimentation with geodynamic models. It is an ideal introduction for advanced courses and can be used as a self-study aid for graduates seeking to master geodynamic modelling for their own research projects.

For advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students in atmospheric, oceanic, and climate science, Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate Dynamics is an introductory textbook on the circulations of the atmosphere and ocean and their interaction, with an emphasis on global scales. It will give students a good grasp of what the atmosphere and oceans look like on the large-scale and why they look that way. The role of the oceans in climate and paleoclimate is also discussed. The combination of observations, theory and accompanying illustrative laboratory experiments sets this text apart by making it accessible to students with no prior training in meteorology or oceanography.
* Written at a mathematical level that is appealing for undergraduates and
beginning graduate students
* Provides a useful educational tool through a combination of observations and
laboratory demonstrations which can be viewed over the web
* Contains instructions on how to reproduce the simple but informative
laboratory experiments
* Includes copious problems (with sample answers) to help students learn the
material.

Coined barely two decades ago, the Anthropocene has become one of the most influential and controversial terms in environmental policy. Yet it remains an ambivalent and contested formulation, giving rise to a multitude of unexpected, and often uncomfortable, conversations. This book traces in detail a broad variety of such 'Anthropocene encounters': in science, philosophy and literary fiction. It asks what it means to 'think green' in a time when nature no longer offers a stable backdrop to political analysis. Do familiar political categories and concepts, such as democracy, justice, power and time, hold when confronted with a world radically transformed by humans? The book responds by inviting more radical political thought, plural forms of engagement, and extended ethical commitments, making it a fascinating and timely volume for graduate students and researchers working in earth system governance, environmental politics and studies of the Anthropocene. This is one of a series of publications associated with the Earth System Governance Project. For more publications, see www.cambridge.org/earth-system-governance.

This 1985 book examines the origin of the present diversity of marine invertebrate animals. A brief review of the early stages in the history of life discusses the time-scale of the relevant geological periods alongside corresponding events in the evolutionary sequence. These views of the early history of life are then matched against the fossil record and conjectures drawn from the living fauna, enabling the author to attempt an overview of the early diversification of marine animal life. Transitions to the succeeding assemblages of shellbearing fossils in Palaeozoic rocks are discussed and a number of stratigraphic adjustments are suggested for the period in which evolutionary events had their greatest impact on oceans and marine rock strata. The need for an interdisciplinary approach to early evolution is emphasized.

Comprehensive coverage of the whole Earth system throughout its entire existence and beyond Complete with a new introduction by the authors, this updated edition helps provide an understanding of the past, present, and future processes that occur on and in our Earth--the fascinating, yet potentially lethal, set of atmospheric, surface, and internal processes that interact to produce our living environment. It introduces students to our planet's four key interdependent systems: the atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere, focusing on their key components, the interactions between them, and environmental change. The book also uses geological case studies throughout, in addition to the modern processes. Topics covered in the Second Edition of Earth Environments: Past, Present and Future include: an Earth systems model; components systems and processes; atmospheric systems; oceanography; surface and internal geological systems; biogeography; and aspects of Earth's record. The book also discusses the impact of climate and environmental change in a final chapter that draws together Earth's systems and their evolution, and looks ahead to potential future changes in Earth's environments. Updated to include all the major developments since 2008 Features research boxes containing summaries based on recent key journal articles Includes a companion web site containing multiple choice revision quizzes for students, PowerPoint slides for lecturers, useful links, and more Presents further reading for each topic so that students can build their knowledge base to underpin their own undergraduate research project/dissertation Offers additional case studies in each chapter for enhanced reader understanding Earth Environments: Past, Present and Future is an excellent text for undergraduates in geosciences, environmental science, physical geography, natural hazards, and ecology.

This book presents a novel way to enable people, regardless of their scale of influence, to take responsibility for global environmental problems including climate change. It introduces a new framework called Planetary Accounting, which allows the Planetary Boundaries, non-negotiable limits for the environment, to be translated into limits for human activity. It shows how such limits can be broken down into chunks that can be managed at different levels (from individual and community, to business and sector levels, to cities and regions), and at any level of government. The book begins by summarising the science of climate change and introducing the notion of the Anthropocene - the "human age". It highlights the importance of returning to and remaining within the Planetary Boundaries but shows that we can't realistically do so unless we have a new approach to environmental accounting. The book then outlines how Planetary Accounting furnishes this new approach by combining sustainability science, change theory, and environmental accounting to create a scalable framework for environmental management that encourages systemic and individual change. The details of the science of and our human contribution to ten critical human pressures are then presented, and the book concludes with a guide for those seeking to apply Planetary Accounting in practice. Planetary Accounting could form the scientific underpinning of behaviour change programs, guide the development of policy and regulations, and provide both the basis for environmental laws, and the foundation of future global environmental agreements. It has been 50 years since the first views from space showed a blue planet alone in our solar system. This book is an historic opportunity to provide humanity for the first time with sufficient information to begin implementing Planetary Accounting.

A newly revised and fully updated edition of the market-leading introduction to paleontology Designed for students and anyone else with an interest in the history of life on our planet, the new edition of this classic text describes the biological evolution of Earth's organisms, and reconstructs their adaptations and the ecology and environments in which they functioned. Cowen's History of Life, 6th Edition includes major updates, including substantial rewrites to chapters on the origins of eukaryotes, the Cambrian explosion, the terrestrialization of plants and animals, the Triassic recovery of life, the origin of birds, the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, and human evolution. It also features new chapters on plants, soils and transformation of the land; the Mesozoic marine revolution; and the evolution of oceans and climates. Beginning with the origin of the Earth and the earliest life on earth, the book goes on to offer insightful contributions covering: the evolution of Metazoans; the early vertebrates; life of vertebrates on land; and early amniotes and thermoregulation. The book also looks at: dinosaur diversity, as well as their demise; early mammals; the rise of modern mammals; the Neogene Savannas; primates; life in the ice ages; and more. Covers the breadth of the subject in a concise yet specific way for undergrads with no academic background in the topic Reorganizes all chapters to reflect the geological series of events, enabling a new focus on big events Updated with three brand new chapters and numerous revised ones Put together by a new editorial team internationally recognized as the global leaders in paleontology Filled with illustrations and photographs throughout Includes diagrams to show internal structures of organisms, cladograms, time scales and events, and paleogeographic maps Supplemented with a dedicated website that explores additional enriching information and discussion, and which features images for use in visual presentations Cowen's History of Life, 6th Edition is an ideal book for undergraduate students taking courses in introductory paleontology, as well those on global change and earth systems.

The Earth is a dynamic system. Internal processes, together with external gravitational forces of the Sun, Moon and planets, displace the Earth's mass, impacting on its shape, rotation and gravitational field. D. E. Smylie provides a rigorous overview of the dynamical behaviour of the solid Earth, explaining the theory and presenting methods for numerical implementation. Topics include advanced digital analysis, earthquake displacement fields, Free Core Nutations observed by the Very Long Baseline Interferometric technique, translational modes of the solid inner core observed by the superconducting gravimeters, and dynamics of the outer fluid core. This book is supported by freeware computer code, available online for students to implement the theory. Online materials also include a suite of graphics generated from the numerical analysis, combined with 100 graphic examples in the book to make this an ideal tool for researchers and graduate students in the fields of geodesy, seismology and solid Earth geophysics. The book covers broadly applicable subjects such as the analysis of unequally spaced time series by Singular Value Decomposition, as well as specific topics on Earth dynamics.

Providing an up-to-date overview of the most popular global optimization methods used in interpreting geophysical observations, this new edition includes a detailed description of the theoretical development underlying each method and a thorough explanation of the design, implementation and limitations of algorithms. New and expanded chapters provide details of recently developed methods, such as the neighborhood algorithm, particle swarm optimization, hybrid Monte Carlo and multi-chain MCMC methods. Other chapters include new examples of applications, from uncertainty in climate modeling to whole Earth studies. Several different examples of geophysical inversion, including joint inversion of disparate geophysical datasets, are provided to help readers design algorithms for their own applications. This is an authoritative and valuable text for researchers and graduate students in geophysics, inverse theory and exploration geoscience, and an important resource for professionals working in engineering and petroleum exploration.

Rifts and passive margins are extremely important for the petroleum industry, as they are areas of high sedimentation and can contain significant oil and gas resources. This book provides a comprehensive understanding of rifts and passive margins as a whole. It synthesises in one volume the existing information devoted to specific aspects of these vitally important hydrocarbon habitats. This collection of state-of-the-art information on the topic facilitates the better use of this knowledge to assess the risks of exploring and operating in these settings and the development of systematic and predictive hydrocarbon screening tools. The book will be invaluable for a broad range of readers, from advanced geology students and researchers to exploration geoscientists to exploration managers exploring for and developing hydrocarbon resources in analogous settings.

The magnetotelluric method is a technique for imaging the electrical conductivity and structure of the Earth, from the near surface down to the 410 km transition zone and beyond. This book forms the first comprehensive overview of magnetotellurics, from the salient physics and its mathematical representation to practical implementation in the field, data processing, modeling and geological interpretation. Electromagnetic induction in 1-D, 2-D and 3-D media is explored, building from first principles, and with thorough coverage of the practical techniques of time series processing, distortion, numerical modeling and inversion. The fundamental principles are illustrated with a series of case histories describing geological applications. Technical issues, instrumentation and field practices are described for both land and marine surveys. This book provides a rigorous introduction to magnetotellurics for academic researchers and advanced students, and will be of interest to industrial practitioners and geoscientists wanting to incorporate rock conductivity into their interpretations.