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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.

BooksJournals

  • Industrial Minerals and Rocks

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 18
    • M. Kucera
    • English
    Industrial Minerals and Rocks is a collection of research papers concerning the study of industrial mineral deposits. This work is composed of 17 chapters that specifically highlight the research done by Czech and Slovak economic geologists in non-metallic deposits, including talc, magnesite, kaolin, and clay. After an introduction to the history of industrial minerals and rocks, this book goes on reviewing the origin, principal element cycle, genetic types, form, and size of these deposits. Considerable chapters describe the deposits of industrial minerals, rocks, and building raw materials. The remaining chapters deal with the geophysical methods prospecting and exploration and production of industrial raw materials, rocks, and minerals. This book will prove useful to mineral geologists and researchers.

  • Nuclear Methods in Mineral Exploration and Production

    • 1st Edition
    • Jerome G. Morse
    • English
    Developments in Economic Geology, 7: Nuclear Methods in Mineral Exploration and Production elaborates on the status of applicable nuclear techniques used in mineral exploration and production. The selection first offers information on radiometric methods and X-ray analysis in mineral exploration. Discussions focus on gamma-ray spectrometry, radon detection, autoradiography of uranium and thorium, X-ray diffraction, and application of X-ray analysis. The text then examines X-ray fluorescence geochemical analysis on the surface of Mars and radioactivation methods, as well as nuclear geochemical measurements of planetary surface; radioactivation methods for mineral exploration; and radioactivation sources. The publication takes a look at nuclear well logging for petroleum and the potential of plowshare for resource development. Topics include natural radiation, induced logs, description of potential applications related to energy resources, and obstacles to the development of a commercial plowshare program in the U.S. The selection is a dependable source of data for readers interested in the use of nuclear techniques in mineral production and exploration.

  • Advances in Irrigation

    Volume 4
    • 1st Edition
    • Daniel Hillel
    • English
    Advances in Irrigation, Volume 4 covers articles on the development and management of irrigation. The book presents articles on the improved method for distributing water in furrows, termed cablegation; the analysis of drip irrigation design based on the criterion of statistical uniformity; and the spatial distribution of water in sprinkling-irrigatio... systems. The text also includes articles on the critical evaluation of crop yields as influenced by irrigation uniformity; the concept of evapotranspiration from the scale of a field to the scale of an entire region; as well as the drainage of irrigated lands under sequential water application. Articles on the comparison of several models for the purpose of appraising the effect of irrigation on wheat and barley yields and on the economics of kiwifruit production under irrigation in New Zealand are also encompassed. The book concludes with an article about the modification and testing of a model simulating root and shoot growth as related to soil water dynamics. Agriculturists, agricultural engineers, and hydrologists will find the book invaluable.

  • Introduction to the Mathematics of Inversion in Remote Sensing and Indirect Measurements

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 3
    • S. Twomey
    • English
    Developments in Geomathematics, 3: Introduction to the Mathematics of Inversion in Remote Sensing and Indirect Measurements focuses on the application of the mathematics of inversion in remote sensing and indirect measurements, including vectors and matrices, eigenvalues and eigenvectors, and integral equations. The publication first examines simple problems involving inversion, theory of large linear systems, and physical and geometric aspects of vectors and matrices. Discussions focus on geometrical view of matrix operations, eigenvalues and eigenvectors, matrix products, inverse of a matrix, transposition and rules for product inversion, and algebraic elimination. The manuscript then tackles the algebraic and geometric aspects of functions and function space and linear inversion methods, as well as the algebraic and geometric nature of constrained linear inversion, least squares solution, approximation by sums of functions, and integral equations. The text examines information content of indirect sensing measurements, further inversion techniques, and linear inversion methods. The publication is a valuable reference for researchers interested in the application of the mathematics of inversion in remote sensing and indirect measurements.

  • Evolutionary Paleobiology of Behavior and Coevolution

    • 1st Edition
    • A.J. Boucot
    • English
    This book is the culmination of many years of research by a scientist renowned for his work in this field. It contains a compilation of the data dealing with the known stratigraphic ranges of varied behaviors, chiefly animal with a few plant and fungal, and coevolved relations. A significant part of the data consists of ``frozen behavior'', i.e. those in which an organism has been preserved while actually ``doing'' something, as contrasted with the interpretations of behavior of an organism deduced from functional morphology, important as the latter may be.The conclusions drawn from this compilation suggest that both behaviors and coevolved relations appear infrequently, following which there is relative fixity of the relation, i.e., two rates of evolution, very rapid and essentially zero. This conclusion complies well with the author's prior conclusion that community evolution followed the same rate pattern. In fact, communities are regarded here, as in large part, expressions of both behavior and coevolved relations, rather than as random aggregates controlled almost wholly by varied, unrelated physical parameters tracked by organisms, i.e., the concept that communities have no biologic reality, being merely statistical abstractions.The book is illustrated throughout with more than 400 photographs and drawings. It will be of interest to ethologists, evolutionists, parasitologists, paleontologists, and palaeobiologists at research and post-graduate levels.

  • Global Tectonics and Earthquake Risk

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 5
    • C. Lomnitz
    • English
    Global Tectonics and Earthquake Risk discusses the geostatistical treatment of earthquake probabilities. The book reviews global tectonics and geologic history, including evidence of change, Pangaea, geochronology, tectonic revolutions, and the breakup of Pangaea. The book discusses the formation of Pangaea which later broke down into the present continental cores of Asia, Europe, Africa, Australian, Antarctica, and the Americas. The book describes the separation of North and South America from Europe, how Africa became established during the Cretaceous time, and how India split off from Africa to became welded to Asia at the Himalayas. The text also explains earthquake risk in terms of stochastic processes, point processes, and illustrates modeling of the earthquake process. The "Large-Earthquake Model" is based on a list of the largest earthquakes in the region, while a more sophisticated model requires the incorporation of non-Markovian effects (aftershock sequences). The book cites an application of investigations done on California where an earthquake of magnitude 5 is expected to occur every three months. An earthquake of magnitude 8 or greater is predicted to happen every 100 years but the book notes that the return period exceeds the range of the period of recorded data (which is only 31 years). Presented in another way, the text concludes that the probability of occurrence of an event of magnitude 8 earthquake or over in any given year is about one percent. The book can prove helpful for geologists, seismologists, meteorologists, or practitioners in the field of civil and structural engineering.

  • Waves, Tides and Shallow Water Processes

    Prepared by an Open University Course Team
    • 1st Edition
    • Open Open University
    • English
    Waves, Tides and Shallow-Water Processes is designed as a textbook on Oceanography, intended for Open University students. The text covers aspects on waves, tides, and shallow-water processes. Chapter 1 describes the qualitative aspects of water waves, briefly reviews modern methods of wave measurement, and explores some of the simple relationships of wave dimensions and characteristics. Chapter 2 outlines the mechanism of tides. This chapter also deals with the interaction of the tide with shoals, coasts and estuaries, and with the prediction of both normal and abnormal tides. Chapter 3 introduces the nature of shallow marine sediments and the types of environments in which they are deposited. Chapter 4 considers, in general terms, the physical conditions that lead to the erosion, transport and deposition of sediment by flowing water. Chapter 5 examines the conditions under which sediment is moved by waves, the rate at which it is moved and the way in which waves enhance currents. Chapter 6 examines two types of coastal areas where tidal processes are more important than wave processes: tidal flats and estuaries. Chapter 7 explains how the differences in the relative influences of rivers, tidal currents and wave energy lead to differences in sediment dispersal and give various types of deltas their characteristic shapes. Chapter 8 outlines how currents and waves can affect sediments in water as deep as the shelf break, and considers how sediment transport paths across the sea-bed in current dominated shelf seas can be determined. Finally, an outline is given of the mineral resources of continental shelf areas. Oceanographers and students of oceanography will find the book very useful and educational.

  • Igneous Petrology

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 7
    • C.J. Hughes
    • English
    A balanced text that bridges the gap between introductory petrography-oriented texts and the more advanced texts that have a thermodynamic and/or chemical approach. Well-indexed, well-referenced and written in a particularly readable style, it leads the reader from classical to modern concepts in igneous petrology.

  • Advances in Hydroscience

    Volume 10
    • 1st Edition
    • Ven Te Chow
    • English
    Advances in Hydroscience, Volume 10-1975 covers articles on the evergrowing scientific knowledge on water. The book presents articles on modeling techniques for groundwater evaluation and tidal theory and computations, including the basic equations for the prediction of tides, the hydrodynamic tidal equations for the dynamic behavior of the tides, and tidal computations in rivers, seas, and coastal waters. The text also includes articles on hydrothermal convection in saturated porous media, as well as the theory of Weirs. Hydroscientists, harbour engineers, coastal engineers, oceanographic engineers, and future designers and users of hydraulic structures for water resources development will find the book invaluable.

  • Freshwater Ecosystems

    Modelling and Simulation
    • 1st Edition
    • A.H. Gnauck + 1 more
    • English
    Ecosystem analysis and ecological modelling is a rapidly developing interdisciplinary branch of science used in theoretical developments in ecology and having practical applications in environmental protection. In this book, the authors introduce new holistic, particularly cybernetic, concepts into ecosystem theory and modelling, and provide a concise treatment of mathematical modelling of freshwater ecosystems which covers methods, subsystem models, applications and theoretical developments.Part I begins with a brief introduction to the principles of systems theory and their applications to ecosystems, and provides a summary of various methods of systems analysis. In Part II emphasis is laid on the pelagic processes in standing water, characterised by relatively uninvolved structures from which models can be readily developed. Part III describes applications of the technique of modelling to solutions of theoretical and practical problems, with different modelling methods and objectives being used in the various chapters. More recent developments in the methods and theory of ecosystem modelling are covered in Part IV which also includes a discussion of future trends. The book is addressed to practising ecologists and engineers in the fields of ecology, limnology, environmental protection, and water quality managements, as well as to graduate/post-gradua... university students in science and engineering. Students and researchers involved in environmental applications of mathematics and cybernetics will also find the book of interest.

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