Twenty-Second European Congress of the Regional Science Association

Abstract

In his article, “Whither Geography?,” Jay R. Harman raised a number of important issues regarding the nature and direction of geographic scholarship. In this response I critically address some of those issues and offer an alternative perspective. In doing so, I support Harman's desire for the discipline to “help answer deep human questions” but argue that rather than reinforce the vitality and legitimacy of the discipline, a market-based approach of the sort he advocates could instead potentially undermine such objectives and compromise disciplinary integrity by discouraging critical inquiry. While acknowledging the influence of “the market,” I defend a place for critical inquiry within the discipline.     

Pacific Futures? Geography and Change in the Pacific Islands

Abstract. The alarm raised by the prospect of global warming and rising sea levels has led to concern about the future of Pacific Island states. Although major problems may eventuate from global climatic change, this paper argues that the range, magnitude and uncertainty of other mainly social and economic processes is such that simple prediction is impossible. Instead a more wide ranging geographical approach is required which recognises both regional diversity and human activity and response.     

Travel times for Pacific earthquakes

Summary. Pacific earthquakes studied by Gogna, also three important explosions in the Tuamotu archipelago, are rediscussed. The results are very consistent, but those from Tuamotu are later than Gogna's by about 1 s in the times of P about 60°. Both sets of data give PKP residuals about -5 s about 140° - 142°, indicating that the observations there referred to the neighbourhood of the cusp of the travel-time curve but the ISS had compared them with the DEF branch. The corresponding difference in the 1940 tables is about 2 s.
Analysis at intervals of 1° indicated that the cusp of PKP is about 141° instead of 143° as in the 1940 tables and the difference between it and the DEF branch at these distances is about - 5 s.
Travel times of S under the Pacific were found but need more data, especially at distances under 10°.
Times of PcP reported by Kogan and Carder were compared with those calculated from P in Gogan's explosions, and indicated a radius of the core of 3479.8 ± 1.8 km.