North-East India, comprising the seven contiguous states around Assam, the principal state of the region, is a relatively unknown, yet very fascinating region. The forest clad peripheral mountains, home to indigenous peoples like the Nagas, Mizos and the Khasis, the densely populated Brahmaputra valley with its lush green tea gardens and the golden rice fields, the moderately populated hill regions and plateaus, and the sparsely inhabited Himalayas, form a unique mosaic of natural and cultural landscapes and human interactions, with unparalleled diversity. The book provides a glimpse into the region's past and gives a comprehensive picture of its physical environment, people, resources and its economy. The physical environment takes into account not only the structural base of the region, its physical characteristics and natural vegetation but also offers an impression of the region's biodiversity and the measures undertaken to preserve it. The people of the region, especially the indigenous population, inhabiting contrasting environments and speaking a variety of regional and local dialects, have received special attention, bringing into focus the role of migration that has influenced the traditional societies, for centuries. The book acquaints the readers with spatial distribution, life style and culture of the indigenous people, outlining the unique features of each tribe. The economy of the region, depending originally on primitive farming and cottage industries, like silkworm rearing, but now greatly transformed with the emergence of modern industries, power resources and expanding trade, is reviewed based on authentic data and actual field observations. The epilogue, the last chapter in the book, summarizes the authors' perception of the region and its future.

Historically Black colleges and universities play a vital role in the education of African Americans in the United States. For nearly 150 years, these institutions have trained the leadership of the Black community, graduating the nation's African American teachers, doctors, lawyers, and scientists. Despite the wealth of new research on Black colleges, there are topics that remain untouched and accomplishments that go unnoticed by the scholarly community. The chapters in this edited volume focus on topics that deserve further attention and that will push students, scholars, policymakers, and Black college administrators to reexamine their perspectives on and perceptions of Black colleges.

These proceedings include most of the available information on this major seismic event and its consequences. With an estimated moment magnitude of 7.7 and a heavy toll in terms of human and economic losses, it ranks as the largest intermediate-depth earthquake in Europe in the twentieth century. Nevertheless, because of the difficult conditions in the 1940s, the lessons learnt after the Vrancea earthquake were not extensively shared with the international scientific community and thus, this book fills a gap in the literature discussing the knowledge acquired after major disasters. Past experience together with current understanding of the 1940 Vrancea earthquake are presented along with the latest information on Romanian seismicity, seismic hazard and risk assessment, and seismic evaluation and rehabilitation of buildings and structures. Moreover, it includes excerpts from Romanian post-disaster reports and textbooks concerning the earthquake.

This book focuses on sediments as a pollutant in natural freshwater and marine habitats, and as a vector for the transfer of chemicals such as nutrients and contaminants. Sediment-water research is carried out all over the world within a variety of disciplines. The selected papers cover three main topics: - assessment and/or restoration of disturbed watersheds;- sediment-water linkages in terrestrial and aquatic environments;- evaluation of sediment and ecological changes in marine and freshwater habitats.Innovative research in both developed and less developed countries is included and both fundamental research and insight into applied research and system management are covered

This book is a practical guide to downhole rock sampling and coring concepts, methods, systems, and procedures for practitioners and researchers. Its chapters are based upon years of extensive studies and research about the coring methods and via direct and continuous communication and consultation obtained from various service and operator companies such as Baker Hughes GE, NOV, OMV, and Sandvik. The contributors discuss the state-of-the-art coring methods and systems (mainly used in the petroleum industry), which include: * conventional coring; * wireline continuous coring; * invasion mitigation coring (low invasion, gel coring, sponge coring); * jam-detection, anti-jamming, full closure; * safe-coring and tripping; * oriented-coring; * pressure/in-situ coring; * logging-while-coring; * motor coring; * mini-coring; * coiled Tubing Coring; and * underbalanced coring. The contributors provide practical and applicable understanding of the procedures of these coring methods and systems, as well as the specific core barrel components, working mechanisms, and schematics of the tools and processes used. Because Coring Methods and Systems analyses and compares the core barrels used in both petroleum and mining industries, it enhances the communication and may allow knowledge transfer between the two industries. As core damage is a serious issue during coring and handling jeopardizing correct calibration of exploration data, Coring Methods and Systems has greatly focused on its identification and its mitigation. Therefore, it can be used as an ideal source for geologists, core analysts, and reservoir engineers, to ensure the retrieval of high-quality cores.

The term Little Ice Age' was originally used by glaciologists to describe the most recent major glacial advance of the Holocene. Subsequently, the Little Ice Age' has come to be associated with a period of advances of European glaciers between about 1450 to 1850, as well as with relatively cooler temperatures. The issue of whether or not this concept remains accurate is a major theme of many of the papers included in this volume. The main geographical focus is on the North Atlantic and European sectors, and includes research from a number of different palaeoclimatic fields. Examples are the use of documentary sources, early instrumental records, grain-harvest data, fossil-insect data, ice-core records, glacial evidence, lichenometry, synoptic climatology, and also the human dimensions of climate change. The papers presented reflect state-of-the-art knowledge, as well as thought-provoking new insights into these subject areas. The book will be of value to all those interested in the above topics and in the overall themes of climate variability and global change.

This book explores the latest advances in our understanding of the evolution of the Ganga-Brahmaputra delta, examining the Damodar basin, Bhagirathi-Hooghly basin and Jalangi basin from historical, quantitative and applied geomorphology perspectives. The evolution of the Ganga-Brahmaputra delta is highly complex and remains poorly understood. To address that gap, this edited volume presents 11 research papers: the first seven chapters focus on the pure geomorphology and geohydrology of the delta, while the remaining four examine its applied geomorphological aspects. The book offers a valuable guide for geologists, geographers, hydrologists, landscape ecologists, environmentalists, engineers, planners and policy makers.

This book examines and summarizes data on more than 40,000 diamonds from deposits in Russia's diamondiferous Arkhangelsk province. The geological data of diamond deposits includes the geological setting, ore body morphology and mineral composition. Investigation techniques employed include: Color Cathode Luminescence, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, Electron Paramagnetic Resonance, Raman Spectroscopy, and Carbon Isotopy. The book provides a full description of the diamond morphology. The problems of a potential (mantle) diamond grade for deposits are considered, depending on the physical and chemical conditions involved in the genesis and growth of diamond crystals. Further, there can be a significant impact on the productivity of bodies and the properties of diamonds during post-crystallization metasomatic processes. In this book, the authors propose a diamond crystallization model for changes in diamond crystals within mantle metasomatic transformations, and identify the factors affecting the growth and dissolution of diamonds in the mantle. In addition, they describe the complex evolution of kimberlite from the mantle up to the Earth's surface. All of these factors affect the quality and quantity of diamonds in a particular diamond deposit, providing the basis for identifying optimal technological mining processes.

This book presents the genetic connections of metamorphism and geodynamics. It discusses the tectonic and magmatic processes as the reason of metamorphism, and the geological types of metamorphism, which define the features of - parameters and - -t paths. Three categories of metamorphism are distinguished depending on the heat flow rate: 1) at a geothermal gradient near to an average terrestrial ("normal") value; 2) at a heightened thermal gradient as the result of additional heat supply in the earth's crust by magmatic intrusions and diapirism of magma; 3) at a reduced thermal gradient during the collision of lithosphere plates and blocks of the earth's crust. The quantitative methods of description of metamorphism have been widely used in this book. The mathematical models of metamorphism have been studied in connection with magmatic intrusions, rifting process and magmatic diapirism. Mineral changes in the rocks controlled by variations of - of parameters, mass transfer and chemical reactions have also been characterized. The book proposes a quasi-stationary model of diffusion metasomatism with respect to the formation of zonal structures of minerals. The method of mineral thermobarometry for the conditions of unsteady equilibrium has been worked out; the quantitative analysis of mass transfer during metamorphic reactions in the rock matrix has been carried out, and the mobility of chemical elements at metamorphism has been estimated as well. The book is intended for specialists in the fields of petrology, mineralogy and geochemistry, and for students at the senior and graduate level.

In the present authors attempted to have a clear insight into the interworking of geotectonic, geomorphic, hydrologic and anthropogenic factors leading to landslide in the Shiv khola Watershed, the most worst affected region of Darjiling Himalaya. This book includes the parameters responsible for landslide events in mountainous areas. It provides knowledge and understanding to the local people, planners, and policy makers about the causes and consequences of landslides as well as provides a suitable method to mitigate the landslips. The book deals with the role of land, water and soil in landslide phenomena. These three attributes have been described in terms of critical rainfall, critical slope, critical height and changes and development of drainage network in landslides. Mitigations and site-specific management options are evaluated considering the roles of local govt., community and other organizations in both pre-slide and post-slide periods. Various scientific methods have been used to assess the landslides that will bring about tremendous help to researchers in the field. In particular, Researchers in Mountain Geomorphology and Geological and Geographical Society will get tremendous help from some topics such as 1-D slope stability model, SCS Curve Number Technique, Assessment of morphological parameters, application of RS & GIS, Application of Analytical Hierarchy Process. Semi-quantitative approach is followed for understanding spatial distribution of cohesion, friction angle slope, lithology and lineaments, drainage, upslope contributing area, land use and land cover types etc. This book also reveals some techniques and models for initiating slope instability.

This book features research on historical land use and land cover in the Amur River Basin, which are important not only for residents there but also for those affected by its material and water cycles. Land use and land cover are affected by natural and human interactions over long and short timescales. The authors address historical changes in the land cover analysis of the Amur. The Amur region of Russia, land cover change analysis of the Amur, wetland, and flooding of the Amur provide evidence of land cover change. Changes of wetland and floodplain sedimentation processes demonstrate the influences of land cover change on fluvial environment, which are discussed with geomorphology. Water chemistry is showing the physical dimension of the geography of the Amur. The development process of timber harvesting in the Khabarovsk area and land use dynamics in the twentieth century are important evidence of development. The Amur poses an essential question: how can we manage a transboundary watershed without disturbing terrestrial and marine ecosystems for future generations? This book provides essential information for geographers about this relatively unknown region.

This book sheds new light on improved methods for the study of the initiation and run-out of earthquake-induced landslides. It includes an initiation study method that considers tension-shear failure mechanism; an improved, rigorous, dynamic sliding-block method based on dynamic critical acceleration; and a run-out analysis of earthquake-induced landslides that takes account of the trampoline effect, all of which add to the accuracy and accessibility of landslide study. The book includes abundant illustrations, figures and tables, making it a valuable resource for those looking for practical landslide research tools.

Today, society s impact on the geographical environment, and especially on the Earth s surface, is obvious. Yet up until the last century, the forces of nature held sway, with mankind vulnerable and exposed to its vagaries. However, our recent development has meant that our effect on our surroundings is now commensurate with the power of nature itself. More and more, we face the consequences mostly disadvantageous of our interventions, and we must pay more attention to the wider impacts of our activities, which include everything from the extraction of fossil fuels to the influence of tourism. Anthropogenic geomorphology, as the study of the way man affects his physical environment, has thus developed rapidly as a discipline in recent decades. This volume provides guidance to students discussing the basic topics of anthropogenic geomorphology. The chapters cover both its system, and its connections with other sciences, as well as the way the subject can contribute to tackling today s practical problems. The book represents all fields of geomorphology, giving an introduction to the diversity of the discipline through examples taken from a range of contexts and periods, and focusing on examples from Europe. It is no accident that anthropogenic geomorphology has been gaining ground within geomorphology itself. Its results advance not only the theoretical development of the science but can be applied directly to social and economic issues. Worldwide, anthropogenic geomorphology is an integral and expanding part of earth sciences curricula in higher education, making this a timely and relevant text. "

Design happens everywhere, whether in animate objects (e.g., dendritic lung structures, bacterial colonies, and corals), inanimate patterns (river basins, beach slope, and dendritic crystals), social dynamics (pedestrian traffic flows), or engineered systems (heat dissipation in electronic circuitry). This design in nature often takes on remarkably similar patterns, which can be explained under one unifying Constructal Law. This book explores the unifying power of the Constructal Law and its applications in all domains of design generation and evolution, ranging from biology and geophysics to globalization, energy, sustainability, and security.
The Constructal Law accounts for the universal tendency of flow systems to morph into evolving configurations that provide greater and easier access over time. The Constructal Law resolves the many and contradictory ad hoc statements of optimality, end design, and destiny in nature, such as minimum and maximum entropy production and minimum and maximum flow resistance, and also explains the designs that are observed and copied in biomimetics.
"Constructal Law and the Unifying Principle of Design" covers the fundamentals of Constructal Theory and Design, as well as presenting a variety ofstate-of-the-art applications. Experts from the biological, physical and social sciences demonstrate the unification of all design phenomena in nature, and apply this knowledge to novel designs in modern engineering, such as vascularization for self-healing and self-cooling materials for aircraft, and tree fins and cavities for heat transfer enhancement.

Arabian Deserts provides a comprehensive coverage of all the deserts of Arabia largely based on the author's experience in Arabia over the last fifty years. It deals with every type of desert found there, including those formed by great sand seas, dunefields, evaporites, clay pans, stony plains, volcanic flows, desert plateaux and mountains, deltas, and desert islands. Distinctive landforms of Arabia deserts are described, together with their geological setting and the influence of climates both past and present. The six great sand seas of Arabia are emphasized since Ar Rub' al Khali Desert forms the world's largest continuous sand desert. Sources, sedimentology, and the mechanisms of formation of these great sand deserts are examined. Distinctive sand dunes and interdunes types found in Arabia are described, classified and explained. ...] The icluded CD-ROM contains high quality full color versions of photos and figures which are printed in black and white in the book itself.

This book examines relationships between climate-hydrological changes and other phenomena including land use and natural disasters during the Holocene and recent past. In particular, periods of rapid climatic shifts such as global warming and global cooling are examined through paleohydrological and other studies of various lake-catchment systems in East Asia, from Mongolia in the north to Taiwan in the south. A number of different research techniques are used in the work presented here, including sediment analysis and optically stimulated luminescence dating and the reader learns how the lake-catchment system functions as a "proxy observatory" for past and present environmental monitoring. The lake catchments studied by the authors of this volume are under similar climatic conditions, i.e., under the East Asia monsoon, with some systematic difference in climatic factors. Both proxy and observation data are available for the surrounding countries' provisions against natural disasters that are related to climate-hydrological events and readers will see how present instrumental observation data can be connected to past proxy data (sediment information) in the system.

This doctoral thesis applies measurements of ground deformation from satellite radar using their potential to play a key role in understanding volcanic and magmatic processes throughout the eruption cycle. However, making these measurements is often problematic, and the processes driving ground deformation are commonly poorly understood. These problems are approached in this thesis in the context of the Cascades Volcanic Arc. From a technical perspective, the thesis develops a new way of using regional-scale weather models to assess a priori the influence of atmospheric uncertainties on satellite measurements of volcano deformation, providing key parameters for volcano monitoring. Next, it presents detailed geodetic studies of two volcanoes in northern California: Medicine Lake Volcano and Lassen Volcanic Centre. Finally, the thesis combines geodetic constraints with petrological inputs to develop a thermal model of cooling magma intrusions. The novelty and range of topics covered in this thesis mean that it is a seminal work in volcanic and magmatic studies.

Geomorphological research in the humid to seasonal tropics has primarily concentrated on the most characteristic landform assemblage of this zone, namely that of stepped, largely undissected etchplains, often dotted with inselbergs and cutting across ancient basement rocks. Although the author discusses extensively this subject, he puts particular emphasis on the differences of chemical weathering and land-forming processes on rocks of various lithology and structure. This contrast becomes most evident, when comparing the highly resistant quartzitic sediments often covering the basement rocks with the easily weathered volcanics, e.g. the Deccan traps of India.The book was first published in German in 1987. However, the present version is much more than a translation, encompassing a range of new ideas and findings in the field of tropical geomorphology. The number of maps and illustrations has also been increased.

With rapid changes in field development methods being created over the past few decades, there is a growing need for more information regarding energizing well production. Written by the world s most respected petroleum engineering authors, "Well Productivity Handbook" provides updated knowledge for modeling oil and gas wells with simple and complex trajectories. Covering critical topics, such as petroleum fluid properties, reservoir deliverability, wellbore flow performance and productivity of intelligent well systems, this handbook explains real-world applications illustrated with example problems. Computer programs are also provided in a complimentary CD, easy to use by petroleum and reservoir engineers of all levels."

The continuously growing human population along the world s coasts will exacerbate the impact of human activities on all coastal environments. Restoration activities will therefore become increasingly important. In particular, sandy shores and coastal dunes will require significant restoration efforts because they are preferred sites for human settlement, industrial and urban development and tourism.

With this book experts in the field present a comprehensive review of restoration studies and activities, where successful and failed studies or approaches from around the world are contrasted and compared. A major asset the book provides is a compendium of studies showing that coastal dune restoration has many definitions and thus leads to many different actions.

This volume addresses those with an interest in conservation ecology and biology, coastal dune dynamics and geomorphology, and coastal management who are seeking information on the different strategies for coastal dune restoration applied in different regions of the world. Finally, it will be a valuable resource for coastal scientists and planners, as well as for local and state officials, residents of coastal communities, environmental advocates and developers.

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Based on contributions to the first General Assembly of the International Consortium on Landslides, this reference and status report emphasizes the mechanisms of different types of landslides, landslide risk analysis, and sustainable disaster management. It comprises the achievements of the ICL over the past three years, since the Kyoto assembly. It consists of three parts: research results of the International Programme on Landslides (IPL); contributions on landslide risk analysis; and articles on sustainable disaster management. In addition, the history of the ICL activities (under the support of UNESCO, WMO, FAO, UN/ISDR, and UNU) is recounted to create a comprehensive overview of international activity on landslides. The contributions reflect a wide range of topics and concerns, randing from field studies, identification of objects of cultural heritage at landslide risk, as well as landslide countermeasures.

This book focuses on structural characterisation techniques for porous materials. Covering a range of techniques, including gas sorption, mercury porosimetry, thermoporometry, NMR and imaging methods, this practical guide presents the basic theory behind each characterisation technique, and discusses the practicalities of the experimental and data analysis approaches needed for complex industrial samples. The book shows readers how to approach characterising a particular sort of material for the first time and then how to develop a strategy for more in-depth analysis. It also demonstrates how to determine the best techniques for solving particular problems, and describes methods of obtaining the required information, as well as the limitations of various methods. It particularly highlights a scientific approach involving parameter validation and simple acquisition. Featuring examples taken from case studies of real-world industrial materials, this book is intended for industrial practitioners and researchers. It provides a manual of potential techniques and answers questions concerning porous materials that arise in areas such as the catalyst industry, the oil and gas sector, batteries, fuel cells, tissue engineering scaffolds and drug delivery devices.

This book provides readers with in-depth insights into the changes in the Pantanal wetland from its formation to the actual and likely future states. It reveals that today's Pantanal is an evolutionary consequence of geological, ecological and, more recently, man-made events taking place at distinct space-time intervals. Topics include geotectonics and sun-earth interactions, which largely dictate the rate of drastic changes that eventually disrupt ecological stability and radically rebuild the regional landscape. Furthermore, the biota-climate system is discussed as a major driver reshaping the ecohydrology functioning of the landscape on an intermediate timescale. Also covered are major changes in the landscape ecohydrology and biodiversity due to recent land-use and climate changes induced by humankind in the Anthropocene. The ability to recognize how those temporal scales impact the Pantanal wetland provides the opportunity for wise management approaches and the sustainable development of the region.

shallow processes and for the pursuit of more Sediments are now known to undergo deforma tion in a wide variety of geological circumstances. quantitative relationships. With these goals in The deforming processes can happen on a vast mind, workers are increasingly drawing on the scale and at all stages before the material be principles and methods of the well-established comes fully lithified. In fact, as exploration of the engineering discipline of soil mechanics. earth continues, the widespread extent and im All this is beginning to attract wider geological portance of sediment deformation is still being interest. Yet to the newcomer, because progress revealed, for example, below the oceans and has been rapid in recent years, the literature is beneath ice sheets. At the same time, it is still already formidable. The information is scattered, being realized just how varied are the resulting so even an expert on sediment deformation in a structures, and how strikingly similar they can be certain setting may be unaware of analogous to those produced by the deformation of deeply problems and successes in other environments. buried rocks. At the same time, although the same basic prin However, there are few precedents to guide the ciples apply in the various geological regimes, a geologist in interpreting structures that formed in subtly different terminology is evolving, which unlithified sediments, or in understanding the can make the subject boundaries hard to cross."

This volume addresses the physical foundation of remote sensing. The basic grounds are presented in close association with the kinds of environmental targets to monitor and with the observing techniques. The book aims at plugging the quite large gap between the thorough and quantitative description of electromagnetic waves interacting with the Earth's environment and the user applications of Earth observation. It is intended for scientifically literate students and professionals who plan to gain a first understanding of remote sensing data and of their information content.