Remote sensing

Pictures in digital form taken from space or aircraft can be processed to reveal useful structural and compositional information on geology. Widespread, uniform coverage enhances our understanding of large areas of this and other planets. Continuing improvements in technology suggest that remote sensing will play an increasingly important role in geological research and exploration.     

A geological excursion in the Wadi Fatima area, near Jiddah, Saudi Arabia

Wadi Fatima, east of jiddah on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia, is a microcosm of the geology of the jiddah area. Rocks ranging in age from 800-million-year-old metamorphic rocks to Tertiary lava flows are exposed, and illustrate the geological richness of western Saudi Arabia. The valley is a major south-west-trending fault zone that has been active since Precambrian times. A major Tertiary dyke swarm in the vicinity of Wadi Fatima is related to the opening of the Red Sea as the African-Arabian landmass split apart.     

The Great Australian Wind Rush and the Devaluation of Landscape Amenity

Up until very recently--and in marked contrast to such countries as Spain, Denmark and Germany--Australia generated hardly any electricity from the wind. Driven largely by the mandatory targets embodied in the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 (Commonwealth) this situation is now changing. Australia has several operational small- to medium-sized wind energy power stations in Western Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. But--in the face of often strong local opposition--the Australian Wind Energy Association is keen to increase the number and scale of such projects. This paper outlines recent overseas developments in wind energy and then focuses on the environmental and planning dilemmas posed by this form of electricity production. Particular attention is focused on a highly controversial wind energy proposal in south-western Victoria, the Portland Wind Energy Project (PWEP). The argument presented is that wind is only one of a number of possible renewable energy options, that coastal landscapes are an 'endangered species', and that it is time for geographers to revisit methodologies concerned with evaluating landscape beauty and debating the place of landscape values within the ecologically sustainable development paradigm.     

The Klippfisk Formation—a new lithostratigraphic unit of Lower Cretaceous platform carbonates on the Western Barents Shelf

A new Lower Cretceous lithostratigraphic unit of the Western Barents Shelf, named the Klippfisk Formation, is formally introduced. The formation represents a condensed carbonate succession deposited on platform areas and structural highs, where it consists of limestones and marls, often glauconitic. The limestones may have a nodular appearance, and fossil debris, which are dominated by Inoceramus prisms, may be abundant. The Klippfisk Formation is composed of two members: the Kutling Member defined herein from cores drilled on the Bjarmeland Platform, and the coeval Tordenskjoldberget Member described on Kong Karls Land. The base of the formation is defined by the abrupt decrease in gamma-ray intensity, where the dark shales of the underlying Hekkingen or Agardhfjellet formations are replaced by marls. It is often unconformable. The Klippfisk Formation is of Berriasian to Early Barremian age and appears to be time-transgressive over parts of the Western Barents Shelf (including Kong Karls Land). It passes laterally into the basinal Knurr Formation. On Kongsøya (Kong Karls Land) a thin shale unit, bounded by unconformities, earlier included in the Tordenskjoldberget Member, represents the northernmost extension of the overlying Kolje Formation in the Barents Shelf.     

Breeding distribution and abundance of the great cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo carbo in Greenland

The Greenland population of the great cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo carbo numbers 2000–3000 pairs which breed in about 110 colonies distributed along a 1000 km long coastline in central and northern West Greenland. The number of colonies has increased and the breeding range has expanded in recent decades. These trends are believed to be related to a reduced hunting pressure. The number of nests per colony is smaller than in European colonies. The population is of particular conservation concern to Greenland because of its small size and presumed discrete status.     

THE WRITING'S ON THE WALL

Graffiti can be a marker of territory. Youthful grafffiti writers in Auckland have adopted ‘tagging’, a form of graffiti writing linked to the Americanisation of popular culture in New Zealand. Regularities in the presence of ‘tags’ are documented through field observation in suburban and central city locations and related to the daily activities of the taggers. Self-proclamation, not the marking out of turf appears to underlie the territorial dimensions of graffiti in Auckland's urban space.