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After the Earth Quakes: Elastic Rebound on an Urban Planet

Susan Elizabeth Hough and Roger G. Bilham

Earthquakes rank among the most terrifying natural disasters faced by mankind. Out of a clear blue sky-or worse, a jet black one-comes shaking strong enough to hurl furniture across the room, human ... More

Earthquakes rank among the most terrifying natural disasters faced by mankind. Out of a clear blue sky-or worse, a jet black one-comes shaking strong enough to hurl furniture across the room, human bodies out of bed, and entire houses off of their foundations. When the dust settles, the immediate aftermath of an earthquake in an urbanized society can be profound. Phone and water supplies can be disrupted for days, fires erupt, and even a small number of overpass collapses can snarl traffic for months. However, when one examines the collective responses of developed societies to major earthquake disasters in recent historic times, a somewhat surprising theme emerges: not only determination, but resilience; not only resilience, but acceptance; not only acceptance, but astonishingly, humor. Elastic rebound is one of the most basic tenets of modern earthquake science, the term that scientists use to describe the build-up and release of energy along faults. It is also the best metaphor for societal responses to major earthquakes in recent historic times. After The Earth Quakes focuses on this theme, using a number of pivotal and intriguing historic earthquakes as illustration. The book concludes with a consideration of projected future losses on an increasingly urbanized planet, including the near-certainty that a future earthquake will someday claim over a million lives. This grim prediction impels us to take steps to mitigate earthquake risk, the innately human capacity for rebound notwithstanding. Less

Fluid Physics in Geology: An Introduction to Fluid Motions on Earth’s Surface and Within its Crust

David Jon Furbish

Fluid Physics in Geology is aimed at geology students who are interested in understanding fluid behavior and motion in the context of a wide variety of geological problems, and who wish to pursue ... More

Fluid Physics in Geology is aimed at geology students who are interested in understanding fluid behavior and motion in the context of a wide variety of geological problems, and who wish to pursue related work in fluid physics. The book provides an introductory treatment of the physical and dynamical behaviors of fluids by focusing first on how fluids behave in a general way, then looking more specifically at how they are involved in certain geological processes. The text is written so students may concentrate on the sections that are most relevant to their own needs. Helpful problems following each chapter illustrate applications of the material to realistic problems involving groundwater flows, magma dynamics, open-channel flows, and thermal convection. Fluid Physics in Geology is ideal for graduate courses in all areas of geology, including hydrology, geomorphology, sedimentology, and petrology. Less

Geostatistical Analysis of Compositional Data

Vera Pawlowsky-Glahn and Richardo A. Olea

Geological data, notably geochemical data, often take the form of a regionalized composition. The concept of regionalized composition combines the concepts of composition and coregionalization. A ... More

Geological data, notably geochemical data, often take the form of a regionalized composition. The concept of regionalized composition combines the concepts of composition and coregionalization. A composition, also known in the literature as a closed array (Chayes 1962), is a random vector whose components add up to a constant. A coregionalization is a set of two or more regionalized variables defined over the same spatial domain, which is modeled as a realization of a vector random function. Here the term regionalized composition is used both for the vector random function used to model a composition and for the realization that we can observe. A regionalized composition can be, for example, a heavy-mineral suite along a river valley. The minerals are quantitatively determined through frequency counts and represented as percent-proportions of the entire heavy-mineral occurrence. Another example is the set of grades in a lead-copper-zinc deposit. In this instance, all components of each specimen are not quantitatively recorded and the grades are also not expressed as proportions of the whole of the measured components: only a small fraction of the composition in ppm is accounted for in each specimen. The problem with the statistical analysis of compositions has been stated historically in terms of correlations: the covariances are subject to essential nonstochastic controls, i.e., distortions which are due to the constant-sum constraint. These numerically induced covariances and correlations arise also with regionalized compositions and are called spurious spatial correlations. They falsify the picture of the spatial covariance structure and can lead to misinterpretations. This problem arises not only when the whole regionalized composition is analyzed, but also when interest lies only in a subvector. A second problem, singularity of the covariance matrix of a composition, has generally been considered only from a numerical point of view. Singularity is a direct consequence of the constant-sum constraint and, as in other multivariate methods, it rules out the use of estimation techniques such as cokriging of all components. Numerically the problem can be tackled either by taking generalized inverses or, equivalently, leaving one component out to avoid singularity of the matrices of coefficients.Less

Impact!: The Threat of Comets and Asteroids

Gerrit L. Verschuur

Most scientists now agree that some sixty-five million years ago, an immense comet slammed into the Yucatan, detonating a blast twenty million times more powerful than the largest hydrogen bomb, ... More

Most scientists now agree that some sixty-five million years ago, an immense comet slammed into the Yucatan, detonating a blast twenty million times more powerful than the largest hydrogen bomb, punching a hole ten miles deep in the earth. Trillions of tons of rock were vaporized and launched into the atmosphere. For a thousand miles in all directions, vegetation burst into flames. There were tremendous blast waves, searing winds, showers of molten matter from the sky, earthquakes, and a terrible darkness that cut out sunlight for a year, enveloping the planet in freezing cold. Thousands of species of plants and animals were obliterated, including the dinosaurs, some of which may have become extinct in a matter of hours. In Impact, Gerrit L. Verschuur offers an eye-opening look at such catastrophic collisions with our planet. Perhaps more important, he paints an unsettling portrait of the possibility of new collisions with earth, exploring potential threats to our planet and describing what scientists are doing right now to prepare for this awful possibility. Every day something from space hits our planet, Verschuur reveals. In fact, about 10,000 tons of space debris fall to earth every year, mostly in meteoric form. The author recounts spectacular recent sightings, such as over Allende, Mexico, in 1969, when a fireball showered the region with four tons of fragments, and the twenty-six pound meteor that went through the trunk of a red Chevy Malibu in Peekskill, New York, in 1992 (the meteor was subsequently sold for $69,000 and the car itself fetched $10,000). But meteors are not the greatest threat to life on earth, the author points out. The major threats are asteroids and comets. The reader discovers that astronomers have located some 350 NEAs ("Near Earth Asteroids"), objects whose orbits cross the orbit of the earth, the largest of which are 1627 Ivar (6 kilometers wide) and 1580 Betula (8 kilometers). Indeed, we learn that in 1989, a bus-sized asteroid called Asclepius missed our planet by 650,000 kilometers (a mere six hours), and that in 1994 a sixty-foot object passed within 180,000 kilometers, half the distance to the moon. Comets, of course, are even more deadly. Verschuur provides a gripping description of the small comet that exploded in the atmosphere above the Tunguska River valley in Siberia, in 1908, in a blinding flash visible for several thousand miles (every tree within sixty miles of ground zero was flattened). He discusses Comet Swift-Tuttle--"the most dangerous object in the solar system"--a comet far larger than the one that killed off the dinosaurs, due to pass through earth's orbit in the year 2126. And he recounts the collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter in 1994, as some twenty cometary fragments struck the giant planet over the course of several days, casting titanic plumes out into space (when Fragment G hit, it outshone the planet on the infrared band, and left a dark area at the impact site larger than the Great Red Spot). In addition, the author describes the efforts of Spacewatch and other groups to locate NEAs, and evaluates the idea that comet and asteroid impacts have been an underrated factor in the evolution of life on earth. Astronomer Herbert Howe observed in 1897: "While there are not definite data to reason from, it is believed that an encounter with the nucleus of one of the largest comets is not to be desired." As Verschuur shows in Impact, we now have substantial data with which to support Howe's tongue-in-cheek remark. Whether discussing monumental tsunamis or the innumerable comets in the Solar System, this book will enthrall anyone curious about outer space, remarkable natural phenomenon, or the future of the planet earth. Less

Lectures on Geophysical Fluid Dynamics

Rick Salmon

Lectures on Geophysical Fluid Dynamics offers an introduction to several topics in geophysical fluid dynamics, including the theory of large-scale ocean circulation, geostrophic turbulence, and ... More

Lectures on Geophysical Fluid Dynamics offers an introduction to several topics in geophysical fluid dynamics, including the theory of large-scale ocean circulation, geostrophic turbulence, and Hamiltonian fluid dynamics. Since each chapter is a self-contained introduction to its particular topic, the book will be useful to students and researchers in diverse scientific fields. Less

Mathematical Geophysics: An introduction to rotating fluids and the Navier-Stokes equations

Jean-Yves Chemin, Benoit Desjardins, Isabelle Gallagher, and Emmanuel Grenier

Aimed at graduate students, researchers and academics in mathematics, engineering, oceanography, meteorology, and mechanics, this text provides a detailed introduction to the ... More

Aimed at graduate students, researchers and academics in mathematics, engineering, oceanography, meteorology, and mechanics, this text provides a detailed introduction to the physical theory of rotating fluids, a significant part of geophysical fluid dynamics. The text is divided into four parts, with the first part providing the physical background of the geophysical models to be analyzed. Part two is devoted to a self contained proof of the existence of weak (or strong) solutions to the imcompressible Navier-Stokes equations. Part three deals with the rapidly rotating Navier-Stokes equations, first in the whole space, where dispersion effects are considered. The case where the domain has periodic boundary conditions is then analyzed, and finally rotating Navier-Stokes equations between two plates are studied, both in the case of periodic horizontal coordinated and those in R2. In Part IV, the stability of Ekman boundary layers and boundary layer effects in magnetohydrodynamics and quasigeostrophic equations are discussed. The boundary layers which appear near vertical walls are presented and formally linked with the classical Prandlt equations. Finally spherical layers are introduced, whose study is completely open. Less

Principles of Mathematical Petrophysics

John H. Doveton

The pioneering work of Gus Archie moved log interpretation into log analysis with the introduction of the equation that bears his name. Subsequent developments have mixed empiricism, physics, ... More

The pioneering work of Gus Archie moved log interpretation into log analysis with the introduction of the equation that bears his name. Subsequent developments have mixed empiricism, physics, mathematical algorithms, and geological or engineering models as methods applied to petrophysical measurements in boreholes all over the world. Principles of Mathematical Petrophysics reviews the application of mathematics to petrophysics in a format that crystallizes the subject as a subdiscipline appropriate for the workstations of today. The subject matter is of wide interest to both academic and industrial professionals who work with subsurface data applied to energy, hydrology, and environmental issues. This book is the first of its kind, in that it addresses mathematical petrophysics as a distinct discipline. Other books in petrophysics are either extensive descriptions of tool design or interpretation techniques, typically in an ad hoc treatment. It covers mathematical methods that are applied to borehole and core petrophysical measurements to estimate rock properties of fluid saturation, pore types, permeability, mineralogy, facies, and reservoir characterization. These methods are demonstrated by a variety of case studies and summaries of applications. Principles of Mathematical Petrophysics is an invaluable resource for all people working with data related to petrophysics. Less

Statistical Methods for Estimating Petroleum Resources

P.J. Lee

Jo Anne DeGraffenreid (ed.)

This book describes procedures for determining the total hydrocarbon (petroleum) resource or resource potential in a region. Statistical concepts and methods employed in petroleum resource ... More

This book describes procedures for determining the total hydrocarbon (petroleum) resource or resource potential in a region. Statistical concepts and methods employed in petroleum resource assessment are the subject of the manuscript, extensively illustrated by numerous real case studies. Prof. Lee's computer-aided Petroleum Information Management and Resource Evaluation System (PETRIMES) methodology has been adopted by governments around the world and by major multinational oil companies to perform resource assessment and to predict future oil and gas production. Though this methodology is so widely used, there is no "user's guide" to it, and this book will be the definitive resource for PETRIMES users. Less