Detectives and geology in fiction - 2: After the Golden Age

Following the'Golden Age'of Holmes and Thorndyke, geology and geological phenomena have figured in quite a number of crime novels. In a handful, geologists even serve as central characters — or as victims. These novels are here identified and briefly discussed, while the lack of a geologist as 'series character'is lamented.     

The topology of geology 1: Topological analysis

Topology has been used to characterise and quantify the properties of complex systems in a diverse range of scientific domains. This study explores the concept and applications of topological analysis in geology. We have developed an automatic system for extracting first order 2D topological information from geological maps, and 3D topological information from models built with the Noddy kinematic modelling system, and equivalent analyses should be possible for other implicit modelling systems. A method is presented for describing the spatial and temporal topology of geological models using a set of adjacency relationships that can be expressed as a topology network, thematic adjacency matrix or hive diagram. We define three types of spatial topology (cellular, structural and lithological) that allow us to analyse different aspects of the geology, and then apply them to investigate the geology of the Hamersley Basin, Western Australia.     

变质地质学和前寒武纪地质研究:前言

正沈其韩院士是我国著名地质学家,为变质岩石学、变质地质学和前寒武纪研究做出了重大贡献。在沈先生96华诞和从事地质工作75年之际,我们出版本专辑,以表达对先生的敬仰之情和感激之意,祝先生身体健康、生活愉快、家庭幸福。变质岩石学和变质地质学构成地球科学的重要组成部分,涉及到地球形成演化各个历史时期(例如,已发现4.0Ga变质锆石,青藏高原出露20～30Ma麻粒岩)。前寒武纪是大     

Fact and fiction: Geography and literature

Main epistemological reflections in Geography developed since the 1970s emphasize holistic perspectives in which intuition has an important cognitive. Bringing forward the ideas lifeworld and espace véçu important currents in this approach put in relief the sense of place, the affective ties with the environment, the aesthetic and landscape symbology, the genius loci and the spatial-temporal rythms connected to personal experiences. In this context, literary works (tales, novels, or short stories) are important because they provide authentic and indespensable testimony of the influence of human experience on place.The analysis of the vast bibliography on geographic interpretation of literary sources reveals typologies: studies on the links between real and literary landscapes, understanding of the sense of place, the concepts of rooting and uprooting, the definitions of inscapes and territorial consciousness. These five thematic foci allow the interpretation of the relationship existing between geography — regarded as landscape and place — and literary works —considered as the expression to define and fix the culture and feelings of a human group with respect to its own space and place.     

Ecological geology,environmental geology,geoecology: Contents and relations

The contents and relationships of environmental geology, ecological geology, and geoecology are discussed. It is shown that they differ in their subjects, directions and objects of investigation, as well as their scientific and practical tasks. Hence, these concepts and the spheres of knowledge they determine can be neither identified with nor substituted for each other because this inevitably causes terminological confusion and hampers the development of ecological problems, and not only in geology. Environmental geology, by its content, is a collection of data obtained by traditional geological sciences and has no specially developed conceptual base. It is an anthropocentrically oriented field of geological knowledge, unlike ecological geology, which is oriented biocentrically and has a wider volume. Geoecology is an interdisciplinary science studying the effect of all abiotic spheres of living matter. Ecologically oriented geological sciences are intended to provide information on only one of these spheres—the lithosphere.     

Tailor–made geology 1: General introduction and Salthill Quarry, Lancashire

The protection and long-term safeguarding of geological localities are fundamental to the continuation of fieldwork, both now and in the future. The responsibility for these lies with the Nature Conservancy Council, the government agency charged with protecting geological and biological sites. Part of the work of the Council's Geology Branch is concerned with creating or re-exposing geological localities which are of value for teaching or collecting; and in the article which follows, Keith Duff explains the background and methods of this work, using the recently established geological trail at Salthill Quarry in Lancashire as as example. This is the first of a series of articles which will give details of British sites developed in this way.     

环境地质研究进展与展望

环境地质学与其他地质学科的最大区别是,把人类活动作为一种地质作用营力加以研究,这是前所未有的。面向国民经济、国家重大工程建设和城市化的快速兴起与发展,环境地质学科得到了迅速发展。关注气候变化、海岸带发展、城市化、地下水资源与地质环境的相互关系至关重要。要重视地质灾害形成发育的规律,特别是人类工程活动与自然地质作用相互关系的研究。地质灾害防治和群测群防,在今后一个相当长的时期内仍然是研究重点。持久地为社会、为公众、为政府服务,提高地质科学在环境保护中的作用与地位,提高公众对环境地质学的认知与认同,才能采取共同行动,为可持续发展做出贡献。     

环境地质学的发展与挑战

人类只有一个地球,奋起拯救地球和地球上包括人类自己在内的生物———对环境和环境保护意识的觉醒,是人类２０世纪对可持续发展的一个伟大贡献。其中,地质科学对人类可持续发展理念的形成功不可没。地质科学是研究地球系统的科学,历来与人类社会的生存和发展密切联系在一起。传统的地质科学注重研究地球的形成及其演化历史,在满足不断前进的社会经济发展对矿产资源需求的同时,自身也得到了发展。地质学家弄清楚了地球已经有４５亿年的历史;认识到地球是一个动态的、完整的系统。地质科学在研究地球演化历史时,总要研究生物的进化过…     

Kettle holes - stratigraphical archives for Weichselian geology and palaeoenvironment in northernmost Sweden

An active search for pre-Holocene organic deposits in stratigraphically well-defined positions has proved to be a useful tool for reconstruction of glacial and non-glacial Weichselian development in northernmost Sweden. The investigations have been concentrated to kettle holes connected to eskers belonging to a morphologically prominent northwesterly glacial system characterized by extensive drumlinization. Organic deposits, radiocarbon-dated as older than the Holocene, have been found at some 25 localities. Some sites display two organic-bearing sequences separated by a till bed. The pollen flora in the lowest organic bed reflects an interstadial vegetational development: Arctic shrub and herb tundra-subarctic light birch forestherb tundra with ericaceous shrubs and dwarf birch. This interstadial is correlated with Peräpohjola in Finland. During the younger Tärendö Interstadial the vegetational development was similar, but a more continental climate is indicated hy high values of steppe plants, e.g. Artemisia and Chenopodiaceae. The Tärendö Interstadial, correlated with Odderade, wascharacterized by open, unstable soils due to periglacial processes such as cryoturbation and eolian activities. The Weichselian glaciation is divided into three glacial stades separated by ice-free interstadials in the area studied. Except for a zone with S-SW drumlinization the impact of the two later ice sheets is insignificant.     

构造地质与工程地质的基本关系

构造地质学是研究各种地质构造及其成生演化的基础地质学 ,工程地质学主要是应用地质学理论尤其是构造地质学理论解决人类工程建设活动中与构造现象和构造活动有密切关系的地质问题的应用地质学。二者的研究目的虽然不同 ,但所研究的主要对象是相同的 ,即都是地质构造 ,所研究的又都是地球变化过程中的构造变动及其各类效应。文中讨论了构造地质学与工程地质学之间的基本关系 ,主要包括地质构造对工程地质环境和工程地质条件的控制作用 ;深部构造、浅部构造以及表层构造动力学特征与区域地壳稳定性之间的关系 ;构造结构面、构造应力场与岩土体稳定性的关系 ;活动构造与工程建筑安全性的关系以及地质构造与崩滑流、地裂缝、地面沉降等地质灾害的关系等问题。     

Metamorphic petrology and geology in China: A review

The development of metamorphic petrology to metamorphic geology in China has a long history. Ancient basement metamorphic rocks are distributed primarily in the North China Craton, the Yangtze Block and Tarim Craton. They are mainly made up of plutonic gneiss and metamorphosed supercrust rock, transformed to granulite facies through Archean Paleoproterozoic. Many of the Paleoproterozoic metamorphic rocks have undergone high-pressure granulite facies metamorphism with a clockwise metamorphic evolution path. The ultrahigh temperature (UHT) granulites from the Late Paleoproterozoic are found in North China Craton. Many high-precision chronological data have allowed preliminary construction of the formation and evolutionary framework of different metamorphic basements. Primarily there are low-temperature and high-pressure blue schist, high-temperature and high-pressure granulite and ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) eclogite facies metamorphic rocks in the Phanerozoic orogenic belt. The discovery of eclogite in the Sulu orogen and a large quantity of coesite in its country rocks show that there was a deep subduction of voluminous continental materials during the collision process between the Yangtze block and the North China Craton in the Early Mesozoic phase. From the studies of, for instance, organic matter vitrinite reflectance, illite crystallinity, illite (muscovite) polytype and illite (muscovite) b dimension, the Late Paleozoic strata in the eastern region of Inner Mongolia and the north-central region of NE China have only experienced diagenesis to an extremely low-grade metamorphism. The discovery of impact-metamorphosed rocks in Xiuyan area of Liaoning province has enriched the type and category of metamorphic rocks in China. The phase equilibrium method has been widely used in the study of metamorphism of middle and high-grade metamorphic rocks. On the basis of existing geologic surveys and monographic study results, different scholars have respectively compiled 1:1500000 Metamorphic Geological Map and Specifications of Qinghai Tibet Plateau and its Adjacent Areas, 1:2500000 Metamorphic Tectonic Map of China, and the 1:5000000 Metamorphic Geological Map and Specifications of China, among others repectively, which have systematically summarized the research results of metamorphic petrology and metamorphic geology in China.