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Books in Earth and planetary sciences

Elsevier's Earth and Planetary Sciences collection brings together pioneering research on the complexities of our planet and beyond. Covering topics from Earth's structural dynamics and ecosystems to planetary exploration, these titles support advancements in geoscience, environmental science, and space studies, offering essential insights for researchers, professionals, and students.

  • Small-Scale Turbulence and Mixing in the Ocean

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 46
    • J.C.J. Nihoul + 1 more
    • English
    This volume contains the proceedings of the 19th International Liège Colloquium on Ocean Hydrodynamics, the programme of which focused on the relationships between small-scale mixing and large-scale features, transports and processes. The presentation of papers on various methods of parameterization of small-scale turbulent mixing for numerical ocean models was particularly encouraged and this resulted in more than a third of the papers presented at the Colloquium dealing in one way or another with the parameterization problems; many of these papers demonstrate the direct results of modelling. These proportions are well reflected in this volume of proceedings and thus emphasize once more the importance of small-scale turbulence research for such vital practical applications as ocean modelling and forecasting.
  • Advances in Insect Physiology

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 20
    • English
  • The Physiology of Developing Fish: Viviparity and Posthatching Juveniles

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 11B
    • English
    FROM THE PREFACE: Dramatic changes occur in the physiology of most animals during their development. Among the vertebrates, birds are entirely oviparous, live for variable periods in a cleidoic egg, and show fundamental alterations in excretion, nutrition, and respiration at the time of hatching. In contrast, the eutherian mammals are all viviparous, depend on the maternal circulation and a specialized placenta to provide food, exchange gases, and discharge wastes. The physiology of both mother and fetus is highly specialized during gestation and changes fundamentally at the time of birth. Fishes exemplify both the oviparous and the viviparous modes of development, with some examples that are intermediate between the two.In these two volumes, selected reviews of many, but not all, aspects of development are presented. The chapters in Part A relate to the physiology of eggs and larvae; those in Part B concern viviparity and the physiology of posthatching juvenile fishes.
  • Chemistry of the Natural Atmosphere

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 41
    • Warneck
    • English
  • Chemistry of Soil Organic Matter

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 17
    • K. Kumada
    • English
    Despite the large number of papers and books published on soil organic matter (humus), our knowledge of the subject is still very limited, as is our knowledge of humic acid. The author of this book began to study humus at the end of the 1940s and continued until 1984 when he retired from Nagoya University. With the intention of establishing a systematic understanding of soil organic matter, he has compiled facts and a discussion of humus based on his extensive experimental results during the past 40 years.In this book, humic acids are classified into A, B, Rp and P types, based on their optical properties. The elementary composition and other chemical properties of humic acid types are shown to be regularly different from each other. A new method for humus composition analysis applied to various kinds of soils in Japan and several other countries indicates that the diversity of humus compositions of soils is systematically understandable. These findings lead the author to novel theories on the chemical configuration and formation of humic acids and humic substances. Diagenesis of humus under terrestrial conditions is illustrated as to the buried humic horizons of Black soil (Andosol).The book will be useful not only to soil scientists and agronomists but also to geochemists, oceanographers, limnologists, water scientists, biologists and chemists who are dealing with organic matter in terrestrial, aquatic, and sedimentary environments.
  • Methods in Microbiology

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 19
    • English
  • Carbonate-Clastic Transitions

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 42
    • Laurence (Hy) Doyle + 1 more
    • English
    Over the years, the field of sedimentology has become subdivided into various specialities. Two of the largest groups are those who study clastic rocks and those who study carbonates. There is little communication between the two: journals appear which are exclusively devoted to one or the other, and research conferences tend to be mutually exclusive. On the other hand, rocks themselves cannot be "pigeon-holed" in this way - the facies change from clastic to carbonate both laterally and through time. This volume stems from the editors' observations of such changes in the Gulf of Mexico and their realization that these geologically important transitions were being largely ignored because of professional compartmentilization... book opens with a chapter which gives an overview of the whole picture of global patterns of carbonate and clastic sedimentation. It then proceeds to a discussion of sedimentary models of siliciclastic deposits and coral reef relationships. The rest of the book comprises eight case studies on carbonate-clastic transitions, and a final chapter on control of carbonate-clastic sedimentation systems by baroclinic coastal currents.The aim of the book is to emphasize that clastic and carbonate sedimentation are not separate but part of a continuum - a transition which needs to be more thoroughly investigated and better understood. The excellent research papers presented here will undoubtedly help to achieve this goal.
  • Middle Atmosphere Dynamics

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 40
    • David G. Andrews + 2 more
    • English
    For advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students in atmospheric, oceanic, and climate science, Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate Dynamics is an introductory textbook on the circulations of the atmosphere and ocean and their interaction, with an emphasis on global scales. It will give students a good grasp of what the atmosphere and oceans look like on the large-scale and why they look that way. The role of the oceans in climate and paleoclimate is also discussed. The combination of observations, theory and accompanying illustrative laboratory experiments sets this text apart by making it accessible to students with no prior training in meteorology or oceanography.
  • Advances in Heat Transfer

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 18
    • English
  • Biogeography and Plate Tectonics

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 10
    • J.C. Briggs
    • English
    One needs to look at only a small portion of the enormous literature on plate tectonics published in the last 15 years to realize that there are many differences between the various reconstructions that have been presented. It becomes obvious that, although there is a general agreement about the presence of an assembly of continents (a Pangaea) in the early Mesozoic, there is considerable disagreement among earth scientists as to the configurement of the assembly and the manner and timing of the subsequent dispersal. While the revolution in geophysics was taking place, systematic work in paleontology and neontology was being carried out. This book is an attempt to incorporate the biological evidence into the theory of plate tectonics.The author traces the changing relationships among the various biogeographic regions and demonstrates how such changes may often be correlated with the gradual geographic alteration of the earth's surface. He analyses recent information about the distribution of widespread groups of terrestrial and freshwater vertebrates, invertebrates and plants, and discusses the biogeographical effects of the movement of oceanic plates.It is particularly important to obtain dependable information about certain critical times in the history of continental relationships. We need to know when the terrestrial parts of the earth were broken apart and when they were joined together. The present investigation makes it clear that we cannot depend entirely on evidence from plate tectonics nor will purely biological evidence suffice. This book thus provides much of interest to systematists working on contemporary groups of plants and animals, paleontologists, evolutionary biologists, and professors teaching courses in biogeography.