The Academic Conference and the Status of Women: The Annual Meetings of the Israeli Geographical Society*

The academic conference, a site of possible changes in professional knowledge and hierarchy, is an area of academic life rarely studied. Through three main concerns this article illuminates this point for the first time with respect to the status of women and gender research at the last thirty‐two annual meetings of the Israeli Geographical Society. First, although men still present the majority of the conference papers, women have increased their share and now constitute one‐third of all active participants. Second, women's appearance as chairs of sessions and keynote speakers is significantly lower in proportion to their overall participation in the conference, and they are consistently more involved in its less prestigious aspects. Third, the production of geographic knowledge as reflected in conference papers is gendered, but its pattern differs from that in academia in general. The findings reveal a new facet of the gendered construction of academic life in general, and of Israeli geography in particular, and offer new avenues to revealing the impact of social exclusion on academia.     

Hydrochemical signatures of deep groundwater circulation in a part of the Himalayan foreland basin

Groundwater samples were analyzed from 71 springs and wells as part of a larger study in a region of compressional tectonic regime. The study site covers the Peshawar basin and surroundings in the Himalayan foreland of Pakistan. The northern portion is mountainous and the water table is discontinuous in different intermontane valleys, with abundant springs (with normal and anomalous temperatures and composition). The southern part is divided into isolated basins with a number of drilled (“deep”) and dug (“shallow”) wells. Hydrochemical signatures of elevated strontium (Sr), SiO₂, boron (B)—and the geothermometric signatures—all indicate a deep circulation of the emerging groundwater. Moreover, for several of the sample sites, water chemical compositions, measured spring and water well temperatures, and reservoir temperatures calculated for spring waters, all point to origin from deep horizons within the basin. Remarkable proximity of all the thermal and hydrochemical anomalies to major faults suggests that the waters ascended along these faults from greater depths. The area is a natural western extension of the Himalayan Geothermal Belt described in earlier literature for the eastern and central Himalayas.     

The fungal and acritarch events as time markers for the latest Permian mass extinction:An update

The latest Permian extinction(252 Myr ago)was the most severe in the geologic record.On land,widespread Late Permian gymnosperm/seed-fern dominated forests appear to have suffered rapid and almost complete destruction,as evidenced by increased soil erosion and changes in fluvial style in deforested areas,signs of wildfires,replacement of trees by lower plants,and almost complete loss of peat-forming and fire-susceptible vegetation.Permian-Triassic boundary strata at many sites show two widespread palynological events in the wake of the forest destruction:The fungal event,evidenced by a thin zone with95%fungal cells(Reduviasporonites)and woody debris,found in terrestrial and marine sediments,and the acritarch event,marked by the sudden flood of unusual phytoplankton in the marine realm.These two events represent the global temporary explosive spread of stress-tolerant and opportunistic organisms on land and in the sea just after the latest Permian disaster.They represent unique events,and thus they can provide a time marker in correlating latest Permian marine and terrestrial sequences.