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Books > Earth & environment > Geography > Physical geography > General
Combining memoir and studies in the Environmental Humanities, Black
Swan Song weaves together an autobiographically-based account of
the unique life and work of Rod Giblett. For over 25 years he was a
leading local wetland conservationist, environmental activist, and
pioneer transdisciplinary researcher and writer of fiction and
non-fiction. He has researched, written, and published more than 25
books in the environmental humanities, especially wetland cultural
studies, and psychoanalytic ecology. Black Swan Song traces Rod's
early and later life and work from being born in Borneo as the
child of Christian missionaries, through his childhood in Bible
College, being a High School dropout and studying at three
universities to becoming an academic, activist and author, and now
a writer. Following in the footsteps of New Lives of the Saints:
Twelve Environmental Apostles, Black Swan Song also comprises
conversations in conservation counter-theology between the twelve
minor biblical prophets and twelve environmental apostles, such as
Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, John Muir, and Rachel Carson. It
also introduces the lives and works of twelve more environmental
apostles, such as John Clare, Rebecca Solnit, John Charles Ryan,
and others who have made a valuable contribution to green thinking
and living. Black Swan Song mixes modes and genres, such as memoir,
essay, story, criticism, etc., making up the writer's black swan
song. It provides ways of living and being with the earth in dark
and troubled times by providing resources of a journey of hope for
learning to live bio- and psycho-symbiotic livelihoods in
bioregional home habitats of the living earth and in the
Symbiocene, the hoped-for age superseding the Anthropocene.
In The End of the Anthropocene, Michael J. Gormley examines
literary imaginations of the anthropocene's end and the future of
the astropocene. Gormley analyzes literary images of human tracks
on Earth, the Moon, and Mars to characterize the late-stage
anthropocene and to explore humanity's role in the universal
ecosystem. The End of the Anthropocene uses a predictive and
paradigmatic model of ecocriticism, examining science fiction works
as interplanetary nature narratives.
Geomorphological landforms and processes exert a strong influence
on surface engineering works, yet comparatively little systematic
information on geomorphology is available to engineers. This book
presents a worldwide view of geomorphology for engineers and other
professionals on the near-surface engineering problems associated
with the various landscapes. This new and completely revised
edition has additional chapters with an improved format and is
broadly divided into three parts.;The first part is concerned with
the major factors which control the materials, form and processes
on the Earth's surfaces. The second part deals with the
geomorphological processes which help shape land surfaces and
influence their engineering characteristics and the final part
covers environments and landscapes, including some specialist
chapters. Each chapter is written by leading authorities on the
subject and is both self-contained and referenced with other
chapters as appropriate to make a balanced whole.;Readership:
practitioners and academics in civil, geotechnical, foundation
engineering, soil and rock mechanics, and engineering geology.;
Practitioners, postgraduate and advanced undergraduates
In Wetlands and Western Cultures: Denigration to Conservation, Rod
Giblett examines the portrayal of wetlands in Western culture and
argues for their conservation. Giblett's analysis of the wetland
motif in literature and the arts, including in Beowulf and the
writings of Tolkien and Thoreau, demonstrates two approaches to
wetlands-their denigration as dead or their commendation as living
waters with a potent cultural history.
An ethnographic tapestry of personal and institutional narratives
about Jerusalem's social history. Overlooking the Border:
Narratives of a Divided Jerusalem by Dana Hercbergs continues the
dialogue surrounding the social history of Jerusalem. The book's
starting point is the border that separated the city between Jordan
and Israel in 1948-1967, a lesser-known but significant period for
cultural representations of Jerusalem. Based on ethnographic
fieldwork, the book juxtaposes Israeli and Palestinian personal
narratives about the past with contemporary museum exhibits, street
plaques, tourism, and real estate projects that are reshaping the
city since the decline of the peace process and the second
intifada. What emerges is a portrayal of Jerusalem both as a local
place with unique rhythms and topography and as a setting for
national imaginaries and agendas with their attendant political and
social tensions. As sites of memory, Jerusalem's homes, streets,
and natural areas form the setting for emotionally charged
narratives about belonging and rights to place. Recollections of
local customs and lifeways in the mid-twentieth century coalesce
around residents' desire for stability amid periods of war,
dispossession, and relocation?? intertwining the mythical with the
mundane. Hercbergs begins by taking the reader to the historically
Arab neighborhoods of West Jerusalem, whose streets are a
battleground for competing historical narratives about the
Israeli-Arab War of 1948. She goes on to explore the connections
and tensions between Mizrahi Jews and Palestinians living across
the border from one another in Musrara, a neighborhood straddling
West and East Jerusalem. The author rounds out the monograph with a
semiotic analysis of contemporary tourism and architectural
ventures that are entrenching ethno-national separation in the
post-Oslo period. These rhetorical expressions illuminate what it
means to be a ??erusalemite in the context of the city's fraught
history. Overlooking the Border examines the social and geographic
significance of borders for residents' sense of self, place, and
community, and for representations of the city both locally and
abroad. It is certain to be of value to scholars and advanced
undergraduate and graduate students of Middle Eastern studies,
history, urban ethnography, and Israeli and Jewish studies.
An interdisciplinary work that comparatively studies rule of law
practices and the relationship between the rule of law and regional
integration, a topic largely explored in European integration. By
looking at the function of the rule of law in ASEAN rather than
what it 'means' measured on normative conception, the book situates
the rule of law in broader institutional and political processes in
the member states and in regional relations to show the motivations
of member states in adopting a peculiar type of regional
architecture. It asks whether forging the rule of law in the region
can help build it internally for member states. The book revisits
discourses on the 'spill-over' of economic integration, the impact
of globalization in reshaping the state and generating new tools of
the rule of law. It makes a comprehensive comparison - the European
Union, Africa Union and MERCOSUR - showing the uneven pathways to
rule of law in various contexts.
An ethnographic tapestry of personal and institutional narratives
about Jerusalem's social history. Overlooking the Border:
Narratives of a Divided Jerusalem by Dana Hercbergs continues the
dialogue surrounding the social history of Jerusalem. The book's
starting point is the border that separated the city between Jordan
and Israel in 1948-1967, a lesser-known but significant period for
cultural representations of Jerusalem. Based on ethnographic
fieldwork, the book juxtaposes Israeli and Palestinian personal
narratives about the past with contemporary museum exhibits, street
plaques, tourism, and real estate projects that are reshaping the
city since the decline of the peace process and the second
intifada. What emerges is a portrayal of Jerusalem both as a local
place with unique rhythms and topography and as a setting for
national imaginaries and agendas with their attendant political and
social tensions. As sites of memory, Jerusalem's homes, streets,
and natural areas form the setting for emotionally charged
narratives about belonging and rights to place. Recollections of
local customs and lifeways in the mid-twentieth century coalesce
around residents' desire for stability amid periods of war,
dispossession, and relocation?? intertwining the mythical with the
mundane. Hercbergs begins by taking the reader to the historically
Arab neighborhoods of West Jerusalem, whose streets are a
battleground for competing historical narratives about the
Israeli-Arab War of 1948. She goes on to explore the connections
and tensions between Mizrahi Jews and Palestinians living across
the border from one another in Musrara, a neighborhood straddling
West and East Jerusalem. The author rounds out the monograph with a
semiotic analysis of contemporary tourism and architectural
ventures that are entrenching ethno-national separation in the
post-Oslo period. These rhetorical expressions illuminate what it
means to be a ??erusalemite in the context of the city's fraught
history. Overlooking the Border examines the social and geographic
significance of borders for residents' sense of self, place, and
community, and for representations of the city both locally and
abroad. It is certain to be of value to scholars and advanced
undergraduate and graduate students of Middle Eastern studies,
history, urban ethnography, and Israeli and Jewish studies.
The Nile Basin contains a record of human activities spanning the
last million years. However, the interactions between prehistoric
humans and environmental changes in this area are complex and often
poorly understood. This comprehensive book explains in clear,
non-technical terms how prehistoric environments can be
reconstructed, with examples drawn from every part of the Nile
Basin. Adopting a source-to-sink approach, the book integrates
events in the Nile headwaters with the record from marine sediment
cores in the Nile Delta and offshore. It provides a detailed record
of past environmental changes throughout the Nile Basin and
concludes with a review of the causes and consequences of plant and
animal domestication in this region and of the various prehistoric
migrations out of Africa into Eurasia and beyond. A comprehensive
overview, this book is ideal for researchers in geomorphology,
climatology and archaeology.
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.
Islands represent unique opportunities to examine human interaction
with the natural environment. They capture the human imagination as
remote, vulnerable and exotic, yet there is comparatively little
understanding of their basic geology, geography, or the impact of
island colonization by plants, animals and humans. This detailed
study of island environments focuses on nine island groups,
including Hawaii, New Zealand and the British Isles, exploring
their differing geology, geography, climate and soils, as well as
the varying effects of human actions. It illustrates the natural
and anthropogenic disturbances common to island groups, all of
which face an uncertain future clouded by extinctions of endemic
flora and fauna, growing populations of invasive species, and
burgeoning resident and tourist populations. Examining the natural
and human history of each island group from early settlement
onwards, the book provides a critique of the concept of sustainable
growth and offers realistic guidelines for future island
management.
Nowadays, advanced remote sensing technology plays tremendous roles
to build a quantitative and comprehensive understanding of how the
Earth system operates. The advanced remote sensing technology is
also used widely to monitor and survey the natural disasters and
man-made pollution. Our planet is nowadays continuously monitored
by powerful remote sensors operating in wide portions of the
electromagnetic spectrum. Geoscience, or earth science, covers all
areas of sciences that relate to planet Earth. Such fields include
soil science, atmospheric science, climate science, geochemistry,
geobiology, geology and oceanography, to name just a few. Research
into the area of geosciences allows us to better understand the
Earth's past, present and future. This is particularly important
now as many parts of the planet, and the interactions between them,
are changing at a rapid rate, for example oceans, landscapes the
atmosphere and climate. Remote sensing is a tool with the potential
to improve research within this area due advantages such as the
possibility to cover large areas at a high spatial resolution,
repeatability of measurements allowing for the monitoring through
time, non-intrusiveness of measurements and that data can be
obtained/measured quickly compared to manual data collection
equivalents. This book, Advanced Geoscience Remote Sensing,
presents research topics that make use of remote sensing to
investigate key topics within the area of geosciences, for example
glacial changes and mapping, land-cover change, carbon stock
estimation, model verification, the mapping and monitoring of dust
storms, shoreline changes, evaluating impacts of heavy rainfall,
impacts of urbanization on vegetation and water resources, tree
mortality rates, snow depth estimates, changes in desert sand dunes
and thermal mapping of volcanoes. Remote sensing data types and
techniques used for the above studies include multispectral
satellite imagery (e.g. Landsat, MODIS, ASTER and SPOT), data
captured using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), radar imagery, the
generation of DEMs and clustering methods. While rigorous enough
for the most experienced of scientists, the techniques are well
designed and integrated, making the book's content intuitive,
clearly presented, and practical in its implementation. It also
identifies that there should be a carefully planned effort on
research and application development for the advanced geoscience
and related engineering remote sensing techniques. An overview of
the most advanced remote sensing systems and algorithms is
presented and introduces the most advanced image technologies and
their applications for both classification and analysis with
up-to-date examples of successful projects and case studies.
Chapters are contributed by renowned global scientists and experts
in the remote sensing field. Techniques used in geologic mapping
and mineral and hydrocarbon exploration, image analysis used in
mine development and petroleum exploitation, site evaluation,
ground water development, surface water monitoring and geothermal
resource exploitation are emphasized. It also exhibits how imagery
is used to establish environmental baselines; monitor land, air,
and water quality; map hazards; and determine the effects of global
warming. This book will be of valuable for students, researchers
and practitioners, as well as working professionals in petroleum,
mining, groundwater, surface water, engineering, and environmental
projects.
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Geobiology
(Hardcover)
Quan Cui
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R4,612
R4,374
Discovery Miles 43 740
Save R238 (5%)
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Geobiology integrates many disciplines, from genomics to
paleoenvironmental modeling to paleontology and geochemical
analysis. They can be fruitful individually but, when combined,
result in profound insights about life-past, present, future and
elsewhere. Acknowledging that earth and life are interacting during
the whole process and the earth today are a result of long time of
molds to life, geobiology science investigates macro- and
micro-scale changes in the present as well as in the fossil record.
Methodological approaches used in geobiology varies from lab
experiments to field investigations. Geobiology is a new scientific
disciplinary, which has just been defined in the last decade.
Geobiology is the study of the relations between the Earth and
life. It is an area which allows the study of the effects of the
cosmic and earthly rays, of the architectural forms, of materials,
of colors, of technological products, etc..., on living beings. We
all have seen that certain locations spread a feeling of wellbeing,
whereas other places let us feel uneasy. For certain families or
businesses, only bad luck is to be found; for others, success.
Everything around us is vibrations. The energy forces of our
environment can be harmonious or in disharmony. Our living space,
our place of work and our recreation areas are under the influence
of these forces, acting unsuspectingly on our organism. These
waves, present in the entire universe, may cause varying pathogenic
effects and affect our physical and mental well-being, as well as
our behavior. After a long-term exposure at harmful locations,
troubles may appear, ranging from simple disagreements to more
serious pathologies: loss of vitality, insomnia, cancer, suicide,
dementia... according to the sensibility of the individual Given
the fact that geobiology can be embodied in any geography or
biology related research fields, this book gives a holistic
perspective of this science. Subjects in this book include
geobiology approaches in environmental problems, natural resource,
archeology, archaeology, social science research, and
biotechnology. Geobiology is an exciting and rapidly developing
research discipline that opens new perspectives in understanding
Earth as a system. To determine and to exploit its possibilities,
this promising scientific field will benefit from a discussion of
its definition as a research discipline, its objectives, and its
methodological approaches. Such a spirited discussion is the
objective of the book. Geobiology touches various subdisciplines of
geology and biology in many ways. The book will serve
biogeochemists, paleontologists, biomineralogists, microbiologists
and many others as a forum to determine future directions of
geobiological research.
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