The Piltdown Skull Site: the rise and fall of Britain's first geological National Nature Reserve and its place in the history of nature conservation

The Piltdown hoax is one of the best known cases of scientific forgery in the world and has been the subject of hundreds of papers, books, articles, press reports and web-pages. Whilst the story of the hoax has secured a place in history, the pioneering role played by the site of the Piltdown ‘finds’, the Piltdown Skull Site, in the early days of British nature conservation has been forgotten. This paper describes how the Piltdown Skull Site in East Sussex, England, a site now known to be of little or no scientific importance, almost became Britain's first National Nature Reserve (NNR), and how, in 1952, it did become Britain's first geological NNR. It describes how the newly formed Nature Conservancy (NC) and the British Museum (Natural History) (BM(NH)) worked together at Piltdown to undertake innovative site management that played a part in exposing the hoax and describes what happened to the NNR as the details of the forgery emerged. Although the NC was clearly embarrassed by the NNR once the hoax was revealed, it is argued here that there was little to be ashamed of and much to be commended.     

Splendid isolation: ‘Philosopher’s islands’ and the reimagination of space

This paper argues that the metaphorical figure of the island plays an important but profoundly ambiguous role in the imagination of social space. The paper argues that ‘utopic’ islands have historically provided a fictional domain of experimentation that has informed the constitution of ‘real’ state spaces. From the 16th to 20th centuries this took the form of an increasingly consolidated and ‘global’ endotopia: a world, exemplified by the ‘political’ map, full of state spaces constituted as interiors. More recently, islands have served a very different metaphoric function, being used to create and legitimise spaces of exteriority – ‘xenospaces’ such as the online worlds of the ‘metaverse’ and the arcane legal/financial spaces of offshore – which in combination constitute an emergent xenotopia. The ‘philosopher’s island’ (Mackay, 2010), therefore, represents a complex and polyvalent spatial form that serves to continuously and expediently redefine the nature of social space.     

A renaissance in studies of ancient life

In the Origin of Species, published a century‐and‐a‐half ago, Darwin was mystified by the lack of a ‘pre‐Cambrian’ fossil record, the existence of which he regarded as pivotal to his theory of evolution. For the next 100 years, this ‘missing’ fossil record—unknown and thought unknowable'stood out as arguably the single greatest blemish to Darwin's theory. Beginning in the 1950s, the answer to Darwin's problem began to be unearthed, a Precambrian record of flourishing communities of microscopic organisms now known to extend to 3500 million years ago. During recent years, studies of such ancient microbes have markedly increased, spurred by an influx of new workers and, especially, by the introduction of new analytical techniques, three of which are featured here: confocal laser scanning microscopy, and Raman‐spectral and fluorescence‐spectral imagery. Used together, these techniques provide evidence of the three‐dimensional form, cellular anatomy, and molecular structure of rock‐embedded microscopic fossils and of the minerals in which they are entombed that is unavailable by any other means.     

Asian Transboundary Aquifers Inventory and Mapping

Transboundary aquifer (TBA) is an aquifer system that exists in more than one state. As an important component of the groundwater system, proper management and rational utilization in trans-boundary aquifers are significantly important for promoting sustainable development and good-neighbor relationships. The Transboundary Aquifers will not implicate by the country’s political boundary as it follows the natural boundary lines. Within the frame work of the UNESCO''s International Hydrological Programme (IHP-VI & VII) activities for the International Shared Aquifer Resource Management (ISARM), the inventory on TBA in Asia both preliminary and detail has accomplished. Those TBAs are classified in to two types: regional and local grade. A of Asian Transboundary Aquifers Map has advanced. The updated map provides the situation of the regional TBAs identify as the actual shape. Countries with the TBAs should strengthen cooperation for coordination and joint management of groundwater resources in order to achieve sustainable use     

Zircon—Earth's timekeeper

One of the earliest written references to zircon is from Lydgate's edition of Aesop's Fables from c.1400 where a zircon was found ‘hid in the dunghill’. Since the humble surroundings of this early record, zircon has become a popular and important mineral. The name zircon is believed to have derived from the Persian words ‘zar’ and ‘gun’ meaning gold and colour respectively. During the Middle Ages, it was believed that wearing zircon jewellery was a cure against insomnia and protected against disease. In more modern times, zircon has found uses in industrial processes and is a key mineral for geologists investigating the geological history of the Earth. It can incorporate uranium which undergoes radioactive decay to lead at a constant rate. By measuring the ratios of uranium and lead isotopes, geologists can calculate the age at which zircons formed. Physical and chemical durability makes zircon able to survive for long periods of geological time and record information about hallmark geological events in Earth history, including early crustal formation, mountain‐building events and mass extinctions. Indeed, the oldest known material on the planet is a zircon from Jack Hills in Western Australia, dated at 4.4 billion years old, a mere 0.15 billion years after the formation of the Earth. This remarkable durability has also led to zircon finding commercial applications in high‐temperature industrial processes, such as brick foundries, while its chemical inertness makes it a potential material for testing the impact of the radioactive products of nuclear waste on mineral structures.     

Abraham Gottlob Werner: History and folk‐history

The Neptunist‐Vulcanist controversy has distorted the reputations of both James Hutton and Abraham Gottlob Werner. Among English‐speaking geologists, Hutton is often presented as the Father of Modern Geology, whereas Werner's views are seen as ‘palpably absurd’. Both men made major contributions to geology, but they were men of their age, the second half of the eighteenth century, and remote in their general ideas from those current since Lyell's day in the mid‐nineteenth. Werner was greatly admired by some of his ablest contemporaries, and their admiration becomes inexplicable if we regard his views as ‘palpably absurd’. Historical research in the last few years, reviewed here, is able to show how Werner's views arose and why they seemed persuasive at the time. Some examples of Neptunist observations in Australia in the 1820's are given to show the application and later modification of the theory.     

甘南州国土空间规划辅助决策系统的构建与实现

基于“天地图·甘肃”地理信息公共服务平台提供的地图API功能,在 “天地图·甘南”州级节点的基础上,整合甘南州国土空间规划相关数据和评价模型,采用可视化B／S前后端分离架构,矢量瓦片索引和微服务等技术,搭建了甘南州国土空间规划辅助决策系统,并通过系统平台实现了资源浏览、数据查询、数据统计、占地分析、规划冲突分析、数据大屏等辅助决策功能,为建设项目选址、用地审批、规划审查、土地储备与开发等提供决策服务。     

Landslides: a top international journal in geological engineering and engineering geology?

Scientific literature is becoming daily more and more abundant. Scientific and professional journals as primary information sources are competing to each other to attract readership. Their position (ranking, visibility, attractiveness, prestige) in scientific community can be measured by using different journal bibliometric and scientometric parameters, journal impact factor being only one of them. Springer Nature publishes the journal Landslides: Journal of the International Consortium on Landslides since 2004. Being examined in the past by different authors from bibliometric and editorial point of view, this review on the journal’s achievements confirmed the high ranking of this journal in the fields of geological and geotechnical engineering and engineering geology. Strong and weak points are discussed from the bibliometric point of view, stressing the need for higher internationality of co-authorship of published articles in order to be true international journal. Continuous publishing and the move to a monthly journal in 2018 will eventually increase journal’s h-index and cited half-life of citations, but further editorial efforts should be directed to attract excellent review papers and focused technical notes to increase cites per paper. Until now, the journal Landslides is the foremost journal in the field of landslide disaster risk reduction, and the top young international journal in the field of geological engineering and engineering geology.     

Geology ‘far from the madding crowd’, along the northern border of Vietnam

To the north of Hanoi, about a day's drive by car, lies Ha Giang Province, the northernmost region of Vietnam. Ha Giang is remote from the hustle and bustle of daily life, and beyond its eponymous provincial capital towards the border with China, mountains rise quickly to Quan Ba, ‘Heaven's Gate’. The mountains form an uneven landscape of steep‐sided karst rising from deep river‐cut gorges and form a formidable barrier on the northern frontier of Vietnam. Beyond ‘Heaven's Gate’ lies the little travelled region of Dong Van, with its majestic mountains of Palaeozoic strata rising precipitously to the sky. Here, a century ago, the French geologists Henri Mansuy and Jacques Deprat documented early finds of fossils from lower Palaeozoic strata on the border with China.     

1982~2022年《岩石矿物学杂志》期刊数据与研究主题分析

岩石学和矿物学是地球科学的重要分支学科,相关研究能够深入了解行星形成演化、宜居地球的资源富集与环境变化等重要科学问题。《岩石矿物学杂志》是国内岩石学和矿物学领域的重要期刊,对其发表文章的深入挖掘有助于梳理学科研究进展,为学科从业人员深入研究提供背景信息,为该刊未来刊文方向提供借鉴参考。采用大数据分析和可视化技术对《岩石矿物学杂志》1982~2022年发表的文献进行计量化研究。研究发现,岩石学和矿物学一直是该刊的主要发文领域,地球化学、花岗岩、锆石U-Pb定年、吸附和矿物学是高频率主题关键词。其中,地球化学的共现强度最高,与花岗岩、岩石成因、火山岩和岩石学等关键词关系密切;其次是晶胞参数,相关关键词有光学性质、粉晶数据和新矿物等。具体研究内容包括5个不同主题:岩石成分和特征分析、变质作用和岩石变质过程研究、矿床特征和成矿过程研究、沉积环境和地层特征分析以及环境矿物学研究。与国内外岩石学、矿物学领域知名期刊数据进行对比,认为未来刊文鼓励新技术、新方法的开发与应用、多学科交叉研究、大数据和机器学习驱动的新范式研究等。     

The Commission for the Geological Map of the World (CGMW) and small-scale earth-science cartography of Europe

The origin of CGMW dates back to 1881; in its initial phase it concentrated exclusively on geoscientific cartography of Europe. Since 1911, CGMW has taken up the promotion, coordination and publication of small-scale geo-scientific maps world-wide. Of this map type, recently published examples of modern European map series are presented:

Geological Map of Europe and the Mediterranean Regions 1:1.5 Mio (in 49 sheets) Hydrogeological Map of Europe 1:1.5 Mio (in 30 sheets with explanatory notes) Tectonic Map of Europe 1:2.5 Mio (in 16 sheets)

Quaternary Map of Europe 1:2.5 Mio (in 15 sheets)

Metallogenic Map of Europe 1:2.5 Mio (in 9 sheets with an explanatory memoir, 1984)

International Map of Iron Ore Deposits of Europe 1:2.5 Mio (in 16 sheets with explanatory notes, 1970-73)

A series of different geoscientific thematic maps comprising the West European Atlantic Region will result from the Circum-Atlantic Project. Its objectives are to inventory and use the available geoscience and resource data in analyzing the geological evolution and resource potential of the Atlantic Basin. The present status of the Circum-Atlantic Project is explained.     

基于出版地图的数据转换技术

计算机技术的飞速发展,促进了桌面出版技术革新,地图出版技术也得到了长足的发展。对于合理使用地图出版的各种制图软件,本文进行了分析,并对Corel DRAW、方正智绘、Map GIS、Auto CAD、Map INFO、Arc/INFO、Photoshop等软件在地图制作及出版过程中数据转换技术进行了讨论。     

On the mechanical response of saturated cemented materials—part I: Theoretical considerations

Terzaghi's ‘effective stress’ principle, though originally developed for soils, has been extensively applied to water saturated cemented materials (such as concrete, rocks, masonry units, etc.). There are, however, serious reservations regarding its validity for this class of materials. In this paper an alternative stress decomposition is proposed. It is based on average stress measures in constitutents, i.e. the solid matrix and water. Constitutive relations governing the undrained response of a cemented aggregate mixture, treated as a brittle-plastic material, are derived. The framework is illustrated by some numerical examples pertaining to the behaviour of saturated concrete.     

Loess in Europe—its spatial distribution based on a European Loess Map,scale 1:2,500,000

The paper focuses on the concept, mapping and discussion of loess distribution in Western, Central and Eastern Europe at a scale of 1:2,500,000. The research work is based on studies and data compilation primarily carried out in the 1970s and 1980s [Fink, J., Haase, G., Ruske, R., 1977. Bemerkungen zur Lößkarte von Europe 1:2,5 Mio. Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen 2(77), 81–94; Fink, J., 1969 Les progres de l’ etude de loess en Europe. Bulletin de l’ Association française pour l’ etude du Quarternaire 3–12. Haase, G., Ruske, R., Fink, J., 1983. Conception, preparation and some results of the Loess Map of Europe on a scale 1:2,5 Million. INQUA Newsletter 1983(1), 7–10] and completed recently by additional material and literature references. Reference is also made to recent GIS-based data processing and visualisation techniques that were utilised for the final version of the European Loess Map.The paper provides an overview of the history of the conceptualisation of the map as well as on the loess study in Europe, and than considers the cartographic data on loess sediment formation and distribution in Europe. The classification of loess and loess-like sediments and their distribution throughout Europe as reproduced in the map are discussed [Haase, G., Lieberoth, I., Ruske, R., 1970. Sedimente und Paläoböden im Lössgürtel. In: Richter, H., Haase, G., Lieberoth, I., Ruske, R. (Eds.), Periglazial-Löß-Paläolithikum om JUngpleistozän der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik; Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen 274, 99–212]. The paper illustrates the final state of the loess distribution map of Europe at a scale of 1:2,500,000 and the digital data references on which it is based. Some applications of the map are suggested.     

世界磁异常图

第一版的世界磁异常图,此前称为世界数字化磁异常图(WDMAM),于2007年7月在第24届IUGG大会上正式公布。这幅图的编制工作是由国际地磁学与大气物理学协会(IAGA)和世界地质图委员会(CGMW)合作完成,得到联合国教科文组织(UNESCO)赞助,由UNESCO和CGMW出版。这幅图表示的地壳磁异常数据,是50多年来全世界积累的航空、海上和卫星磁测所获得的,汇合成5 km×5 km网格,换算到大地水准面上5 km。WDMAM的公布将进一步推动地壳和上地幔地质构造的研究,并且有助于资源的勘查。第二版WDMAM正在编制中。     

Did William Smith (1769–1839), the father of biostratigraphy,discover a Jurassic pterosaur tooth?

A partial, isolated tooth from the Middle Jurassic (Bathonian) Stonesfield ‘slate’ of the Taynton Limestone Formation of Oxfordshire is identified as likely coming from a ctenochasmatid pterosaur. Referral to Ctenochasmatidae is based on its very slender, slightly curved crown with near circular cross-section and subparallel margins, slightly inflated root and its stratigraphic age. The tooth is part of the William Smith fossil collection held at the Natural History Museum, London. The collection was assembled as part of William Smith's attempt to identify and map strata around England and Wales in the last decade of the 18th century and the first 15 years of the 19th century. Smith's extensive fossil collection of more than 2500 specimens was purchased by the British Museum in 1816 (Wigley et al., 2018), and thus the specimen is the first pterosaur to be accessioned to the national collection.     

Contrôle morphostructural de l'histoire d'un réseau hydrographique: le site de capture de la Moselle

By comparing the topographic contour map, the Bajocian limestone structural contour map and alluvial terraces in the Toul and Nancy area, it is possible to reconstitute the changes in the drainage pattern and the Moselle and Meuse cuestas (côtes de Moselle et de Meuse) retreat that have taken place since the late Tertiary. The highest reworked alluvial deposits of the palaeo-rivers (‘Haute-Moselle’ and ‘Paléo-Meurthe’), are now situated on the inverted relief top of the Moselle cuesta. They suggest that the course of these rivers drifted and that the relief in the late Tertiary was subdued. The clearing of the back slope surfaces only started at the beginning of the Pleistocene (at 350 m) as a result of a climatic deterioration. Since this time, downcutting erosion and the correlative removal of clays have strongly emphasized cuesta relief although there has been a certain retreat which varies about 6 to 21 km, depending on the basement dip. The main rivers are almost entirely superimposed on the palaeo structural frame-work. On the contrary the tributaries of the left bank originally extended and changed on the Callovo-Oxfordian clays before penetrating into the Bajocian limestones, according to the cuestas retreat during the Plio-Pleistocene. Only small strike rivers were in accordance with structural features; sinking into the underlaying Bajocian limestones these entrenched rivers quickly dried up. On the opposite, the flow of the eastward rivers, independent of the structure, grew upstream to downstream, because these rivers first drained the Callovo-Oxfordian clays, before cutting across the Bajocian limestones groundwater. It is the same nowadays. The piracy of the Moselle can be explained by the evolution of the ‘Paléo-Terrouin’, a major eastward palaeo tributary of the ‘Paléo-Meurthe’, and by the retreat of the Meuse cuesta. The significant retreat of this cuesta in the ‘Toul syncline’, changing from an inverted relief to a structural relief in the Dieulouard structural basin, led to a widening of the Callovo-Oxfordian clay plain and a broadening of the ‘Paléo-Terrouin’ 's hydrographic basin. As a result, the ‘Paléo-Terrouin’ captured the ‘Rivière de la Haie Plaisante’, a small strike tributary of the Upper Moselle, and then eastward, the Upper Moselle. In the future, it will probably also capture the Upper Meuse.     

Growing up a geologist—John Phillips and William Smith

William Smith's 1815 Map of the Geology of England and Wales was a ground‐breaking achievement that changed the understanding of geology forever. However, perhaps Smith's greatest contribution to science lay in nurturing the talent of his orphaned nephew, John Phillips, who grew up to become one of the most versatile and distinguished geologists and polymaths of the nineteenth century.     

Rethinking rewilding: A response to Jørgensen

In this article we respond to and challenge Jørgensen’s criticisms of the concept of rewilding in her paper ‘Rethinking rewilding’, published this year in Geoforum. Jørgensen argues that ‘rewilding’ has become a ‘plastic word’, one that has been stretched to the point where it lacks definitional precision, at risk of becoming ‘the go-to blanket solution to environmental problems’. She also argues that the practice of rewilding is premised upon the dissociation of humans from the rest of nature and reproduces anti-human Nature–Culture binaries, rightly lambasted by critics of wilderness narratives in conservation practice. In response to these criticisms we challenge Jørgensen on two points. Firstly we argue that the problems of ‘plasticity’ and definitional imprecision can be rectified by highlighting and foregrounding the quality that we believe is at the core of all rewilding definitions and efforts: non-human autonomy. Secondly, we challenge Jørgensen’s broad claim that sees the collapse of ‘rewilding’ into anti-human wilderness management. We do so by reflecting on two points; the dynamic human–non-human entanglements embedded within rewilding practice(s) and by arguing for rewilding as a ‘wild experiment’. We make these points through the examination of two actually existing examples of rewilding.     

Geologic evolution of a Cretaceous tectonometamorphic unit in the Franciscan Complex,western California

ABSTRACT

The Franciscan Yolla Bolly terrane of the NE California Coast Ranges consists mainly of quartzose metagreywackes containing sparse high-pressure/low-temperature (HP/LT) neoblastic minerals, including ubiquitous lawsonite. Some Yolla Bolly rocks also contain one or more of the newly grown phases, pumpellyite, aragonite, glaucophane, and/or jadeitic pyroxene. These blueschist-facies metasandstones recrystallized under physical conditions of ~200–300°C and ~8 kbar at subduction-zone depths approaching 30 km. Petrologically similar Franciscan metaclastic-rich map units – Yolla Bolly terrane-like rocks, here designated the ‘YB’ unit – crop out in the central and southern California Coast Ranges. Recently published detrital zircon U?Pb SIMS and LA-ICPMS data for 19 ‘YB’ metagreywackes indicate maximum ages of formation as follows: ~110–115 Ma (8) in the NE California Coast Ranges; ~95–107 Ma (7) in the San Francisco Bay area + Diablo Range; and ~85–92 Ma (4) in the dextrally offset Nacimiento Block. These fault-bounded ‘YB’ strata do not constitute coeval parts of a single tectonostratigraphic unit. Instead the term tectonometamorphic is proposed for such time-transgressive map units. Based on the current and likely Cretaceous 30° angular divergence between NS-palaeomagnetic stripes of the Farallon oceanic plate and the NNW-trending California convergent margin, I infer that arrival at the arc margin and underflow of a relatively thick segment of oceanic crust and its largely clastic sedimentary blanket may have resulted in progressive southeastward migration of an accreted, subducted, then exhumed HP/LT metagreywacke section. During the ~30 million year interval, ~115–85 Ma, the locus of ‘YB’ accretion, underflow, and tectonic regurgitation evidently moved SE along an ~1000 km stretch of the accretionary margin of western California.