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The fate of the dying Aral Sea is globally recognised. The author opens with an introduction which will give the reader basic preliminary information about the Aral crisis, providing an historical and bibliographic overview.

Customer Reviews (2)

Needed the book and it helped
Without this book I would not have gotten such a good grade. Great book, easy to follow.

Item cheap, quickly shipped, as described
Item was received promptly and as described for a low price. Would do business with seller again. ... Read more

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This digital document is a journal article from Journal of Historical Geography, published by Elsevier in 2007. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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In drawing attention to how 'place' situates and configures scientific practice, recent scholarship examining historical geographies of science tends to overlook how natural places shape scientific ideas, practices and institutions. This paper suggests that environmental factors may be conceived in terms of the interplay of 'site and situation' in environmental science. It examines the pioneering marine pollution research program developed at the Fisheries Research Board of Canada's Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, British Columbia. Beginning with an analysis of pulp mill effluent in Alberni Inlet on Vancouver Island, oceanographers at the station undertook studies aimed at minimizing threats to commercial fisheries from aquatic pollution on the B.C. coast. As a key site of pollution research, Alberni Inlet was situated within a variety of environmental, institutional and social contexts: the politics of resource exploitation in B.C., institutions of fisheries research and regulation, and the disciplinary practices of marine pollution science on the Pacific coast. By the 1960s, the board's Pacific Oceanographic Group had developed a leading research program in marine pollution science, and the Alberni experience formed the basis for a coast-wide inventory of environments receiving industrial wastes. Oceanographers framed pollution control in terms of 'assimilative capacity,' or the ability of natural waters to dilute, disperse and absorb industrial wastes without harm to valuable commercial fish species. As subsequent pollution problems revealed, however, this instrumental approach to environmental management tended to ignore ecological complexity and variability, and the unforeseen consequences of engineering natural systems as waste sinks. ... Read more

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Essays from the third Maury Workshop held in June 2001 at the facilities of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute on the role of technology in advancing and shaping our understanding of the marine environment. ... Read more

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The El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon is a recurrent feature of the climate in tropical regions. A primary example of large scale coupled ocean-atmosphere interactions, ENSO has received much attention in past years, as a result of widespread climatic anomalies (severe drought and floods, Indian monsoon failure, etc.) that are often associated with the development of such episodes. To enhance our understanding of the mechanisms involved in the low frequency behavior of ENSO and to help improve our ability to forecast the future behavior of this phenomenon, we have combined analysis of the modern aspects of ENSO morphology, modelling and variability with chapters dealing with its historical and prehistorical behavior. this volume examines different approaches to reconstructing ENSO based on a variety of proxy sources. It also illustrates how, in the past, the climatic manifestations associated with ENSO may have been different, in the frequency of occurrence as well as amplitude. This book will be of importance to all professional scientists and researchers in climatology, meteorology and the earth and environmental sciences, while graduate students in these disciplines will find the book a useful reference source. ... Read more

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This marine-geological approach to the structure and function of the earth is unique in its presentation of how a practicing earth scientist actually studies the earth. Exposition begins under the oceans and ends up on the continents, covering a far-reaching range of topics, from the history of geology under the sea to the examination of the driving force of the lithospheric plates. Illustrated. ... Read more

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The ensemble of manuscripts presented in this special volume captures the stimulating cross-disciplinary dialogue from the International Symposium on Deep Structure, Composition, and Evolution of Continents, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 15-17 October 1997. It will provide an update on recent research developments and serve as a starting point for research of the many outstanding issues.

After its formation at mid-oceanic spreading centers, oceanic lithosphere cools, thickens, and subsides, until it subducts into the deep mantle beneath convergent margins. As a result of this continuous recycling process oceanic lithosphere is typically less than 200 million years old (the global average is about 80 Myr).

A comprehensive, multi-disciplinary study of continents involves a wide range of length scales: tiny rock samples and diamond inclusions may yield isotope and trace element signatures diagnostic for the formation age and evolution of (parts of) cratons, while geophysical techniques (e.g., seismic and electromagnetic imaging) constrain variations of elastic and conductive properties over length scales ranging from several to many thousand kilometers. Integrating and reconciling this information is far from trivial and, as several papers in this volume document, the relationships between, for instance, formation age and tectonic behavior on the one hand and the seismic signature, heat flow, and petrology on the other may not be uniform but may vary both within as well as between cratons. These observations complicate attempts to determine the variations of one particular observable (e.g., heat flow, lithosphere thickness) as a function of another (e.g., crustal age) on the basis of global data compilations and tectonic regionalizations.

Important conclusions of the work presented here are that (1) continental deformation, for instance shortening, is not restricted to the crust but also involves the lithospheric mantle; (2) the high wavespeed part of continental lithospheric mantle is probably thinner than inferred previously from vertically travelling body waves or form global surface-wave models; and (3) the seismic signature of ancient continents is more complex than expected from a uniform relationship with crustal age.
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Talk of the human-enhanced greenhouse effect and the ways in which it may affect our lives has made many people more aware of environmental change. We have come to realize that the environment is and has always bean in a state of continuous change, and that we and other organisms have had to adjust our lifestyles accordingly. This book focuses on the Pacific Basin, a vast region which can be considered a microcosm of the entire surface of the Earth and which has suffered from being marginalized in most accounts of Earth-surface processes and phenomena. In this book, the Pacific Basin includes the Pacific Ocean and Islands and also the Pacific Rim which is divided into the subregions of Antarctica, South America, Central America, North America, Beringia, East Asia and Australasia. Professor Nunn begins by outlining the distant origins of the modern Pacific Basin more than 1000 million years ago, then traces its development through the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic into the Cenozoic Era. For this time — the last 66 million years - the history of environmental change becomes progressively better known. For the last 1.8 million years (the Quaternary period), the Earths climate has oscillated between warm and cool, producing synchronous environmental changes throughout most of the Pacific Basin. The importance of volcanism and tectonics (land-level movements) — for which the Pacific Basin is well known — as causes of environmental change is explained in detail. The effects of human activities on most Pacific Basin environments began to be registered only during the Holocene — the last 12 000 years — culminating in the environmental crisis which currently afflicts many parts of this region. While the role of humans in altering Pacific Basin environments is discussed in detail, considerable attention is also given to the ways in which environmental change caused changes to human lifestyles which had far-reaching consequences. ... Read more

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The sea has been the site of radical changes in human lives and national histories. It has been an agent of colonial oppression but also of indigenous resistance, a site of loss, dispersal and enforced migration but also of new forms of solidarity and affective kinship. Oceans and Voyagers re-evaluates the view that history happens mainly on dry land and makes the case for a creative reinterpretation of the role of the sea: not merely as a passage from one country to the next, but a historical site deserving close study. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Sea Changes : Historisizing the Ocean
Japan has been invaded by some types of Historicism ever since the Meiji Restoration(1867). Maybe a lot of late-starting industrial nations had the same fate. I wish, as a Japanese, there will be some other altanative in our future. What is the Past for us all? My father was a insurance company man a long time ago. I am interested in a story about slave insurance in this book. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is a journal article from Journal of Historical Geography, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
The first comprehensive map of any ocean basin-covering the North Atlantic region-was created in the US in the 1950s. Compiled by Bruce C. Heezen and Marie Tharp, researchers at Columbia University's Lamont Geological Observatory, the Heezen-Tharp physiographic map of 1957 was significant in several respects. It defined the large-scale physiological provinces of the seafloor, and highlighted its major physical features (including the Rift Valley of mid-oceanic ridge, which Tharp discovered). Military funding for oceanographic research in the early Cold War made possible extensive sea voyages that provided these Columbia researchers sea-floor depth profiles and other critical information; military secrecy persuaded Heezen and Tharp to adopt the physiographic approach when national security restrictions made new bathymetric maps 'born classified'. But overlooked until now is that the Heezen-Tharp map also deeply depended on extensive support from Bell Labs, then laboring to install the first transatlantic telephone lines. Heezen's hope that the map would support the theory of the expanding earth over the resurrected theory of continental drift did not succeed. But the 1957 North Atlantic Physiographic Chart did reaffirm that representations of the seafloor, mediated by new technologies, fundamentally reflected changing motivations for studying the oceans. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is a journal article from Journal of Historical Geography, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
The first comprehensive map of any ocean basin-covering the North Atlantic region-was created in the US in the 1950s. Compiled by Bruce C. Heezen and Marie Tharp, researchers at Columbia University's Lamont Geological Observatory, the Heezen-Tharp physiographic map of 1957 was significant in several respects. It defined the large-scale physiological provinces of the seafloor, and highlighted its major physical features (including the Rift Valley of mid-oceanic ridge, which Tharp discovered). Military funding for oceanographic research in the early Cold War made possible extensive sea voyages that provided these Columbia researchers sea-floor depth profiles and other critical information; military secrecy persuaded Heezen and Tharp to adopt the physiographic approach when national security restrictions made new bathymetric maps 'born classified'. But overlooked until now is that the Heezen-Tharp map also deeply depended on extensive support from Bell Labs, then laboring to install the first transatlantic telephone lines. Heezen's hope that the map would support the theory of the expanding earth over the resurrected theory of continental drift did not succeed. But the 1957 North Atlantic Physiographic Chart did reaffirm that representations of the seafloor, mediated by new technologies, fundamentally reflected changing motivations for studying the oceans. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Fascinating Story, But Written in Heavy Scientific Terms
This book tells the story of the discovery of one of the most amazing aspects of our oceans...the ability of the water to circulate and transmit salinity and temperature from one area of the world to another. It also details how this movement affects air temperatures in various regions and what would happen if the system were disrupted.It describes, it detail, how the author set the hypothesis, and then went about proving that such a geologic system existed. It also details findings that contradicted the author's assumptions and how that affected the thought process. The process was a puzzle, with each new piece adding, and sometimes subtracting, from the entire end result.

The book is readable and enjoyable, but I would warn readers that it is heavily scientific and there is a lot of knowledge of geology and chemistry needed to fully appreciate the story. If you don't know your isotopes of oxygen, or have a strong feeling for geologic time, you will have a very difficult time reading this book.
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Six million years ago, a vast ocean--which scientists have named Tethys--vanished from the face of the earth. How could such a huge body of water simply disappear? More interesting, how is it possible for scientists to know with certainty that Tethys existed for a quarter of a billion years, a period that includes the entire "Age of Dinosaurs" and almost all of the "Age of Mammals," right up to the point when our distant ancestors began to walk upright.

Vanished Ocean tells the fascinating story of Tethys, offering an illuminating account of the scientific evidence for the ocean's existence. Renowned geologist Dorrik Stow describes the powerful forces that shaped the ocean; the marine life it once held and the rich deposits of oil that life left behind; and the impact of its currents on environment and climate. The story of Tethys is also a story of extinctions, floods, and extraordinary episodes such as the virtual drying up of the Mediterranean, before being filled again by a dramatic cascade of water over the straits of Gibraltar. In telling this story, Stow reveals how geologists and oceanographers have spent years proving the former existence of Tethys, from a remarkable series of clues locked away in rocks now exposed high up in mountain ranges and buried in sediments deep beneath today's oceans. Indeed, these myriad clues are now scattered from Morocco to China and from the depths of the Caspian Sea to the highest Himalayan peaks.

Here then is the gripping story of the merging and splintering of continents, the rise and fall of mountain ranges, and an ancient, vast ocean that simply vanished from sight. It is a story that reminds us of the profound impact of oceans and their currents on the environment, climate, and life of our planet. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Placid, unhurried and a bit boring
Stow's style is very relaxed and unhurried. Although I didn't find any part of the book too difficult to follow, I would be hard put to explain in a few succinct sentences what it is all about, apart from the obvious, i.e. how Tethys grew and shrank. I would have preferred a different approach, one which - at least in parts - went into a bit more depth, detailing the clues scientists had found, how they used them to form a hypothesis, how they tested, changed their minds, came up with an improved version, etc.
Even the potentially most exciting bits, e.g. the mass extinction at the end of the Permian are quite bland. I was really disappointed about Stow's depiction of the end of the dinosaurs. Stow believers the dinosaurs were not killed off by a meteorite. This would have been his opportunity to list all the arguments supporting the impact theory and show in detail why each one of them must be wrong. He does do a bit of this. But looking closely at the pros and cons is simply not his style.
This book fails to convey the excitement that is part of scientific discovery and the passion that can make scientists devote many years of their life to finding answers. This book fails at several levels. It does not have an overreaching arc that puts all the individual bits in perspective, at the more detailed level it only hints at how scientific discoveries were made how the conclusions were reached and finally it doesn't draw you into a story, making you wish, you could have been there and shared the adventure. It would be too harsh to call it boring but it's definitely not a page turner.

A marvelous view of a long vanished ocean and its impact on the planet
Dorrik Stow is a geologist who specializes in mud. Not just any mud, mind you, but the muds created in a long vanished ocean called Tethys. And what an ocean it was, girdling the Earth for about 255 million - yes, million - years and playing an important role in the near-extinction of all life on the planet, scattering its debris on four fossils and instrumental in the formation of the vast pools of oil under the Earth's surface and so much more.

Stow talks to the lay reader in a conversational tone that assumes the reader is of higher than average intelligence and has at least a very minimal understanding of the history of the planet. Stow's broad knowledge is both impressive and fascinating as he explores the world for evidence of the scope, breadth and remains of Tethys.

His description of the innumerable forms of life that originated or evolved in Tethys and their contribution to the world's development is masterly. He takes what we have accepted as commonplace, such as the white chalk cliffs of Dover (England) and explains how the walls hundreds of feet high are the remains of once living creatures. A grain of sand in his hands is demonstrated to be an artifact 500 million years old. Read this book and you'll never feel the same as you walk a beach or a mountain path:you'll realize that you are in the midst of living history, often hundreds of millions of years old.

Stow is really great at bringing geology and its lessons to life for the lay reader.

Unfortunately, he preens a lot. I quickly grew tired of his proclaiming his favorite wines here, there and everywhere. His sermonizing on human caused global warming is almost offensive, especially in light of the growing body of evidence disputing such claims and linking global warming alarmism to the quest for continuous grants to fund scientific expeditions of the very kind Stow is recounting here. "Thou doth protest too much" rings true here.

This is not a science textbook in any way. There are no footnotes in the text. There is a sort bibliography of suggested reading and a helpful glossary.

Stow's knowledge of the history of Tethys is indeed vast. He covers its proabable impact on so many things from weather to the creation of arid deserts, sea levels at various epochs, the extinctions, history as recorded in the fossil record, continent and mountain formation and so much more.Stow writes in a comfortable manner that will not numb you with scientific jargon. He casts him as an iconoclast when it comes to the extinction of the dinosaurs, offering instead his own theories of what led to their demise.

Overall, this is a marvelous book on a part of the planet's history that would otherwise be neglected by the average reader.

Jerry

Wonderful Writing, Up-to-date Geology
It's rare to find a book that's so accessible to the general well-read reader in the field of marine geology and science. Books available seem to either emphasize the complex details of a researcher's work, or to gloss over science and focus on the strange or grandiose.
Vanished Ocean is sometimes a bit whimsical and personal, which lightens the reading. But it's also an excellent overview of what we know right now about a strange period in our planet's history, when life first nearly vanished in the blink of an eye (90 to 96 percent of Earth's life forms disappeared) then reappeared with a grand flourish in the warm, broad, shallow seas of the Tethys Ocean.
Very cool reading.

Seeing world's history with the eyes of a geologist...
I assume some scientists, once reached (or well past) the apex of their careers, feel the need to gush out part of their excitement, insight and lifetime drive to a big public of layreaders who'd otherwise remain totally oblivious of the wonders they could find out in their professional lives... And that's exactly how this book feels like, once you've read it! It's your good old geologist uncle sitting right next to you on that gently cracking rocking chair in some dimly lit porch, recounting ancient stories of this world and some past ones too. (With a notable British accent, I presume...)
After dealing with some of Dorrik Stow's papers on fine-grained turbidites and deep-water massive sandstones, was fun to discover he wrote this little, pleasant book in an attempt to popularize the philosophical bliss a geologist experiences in looking at the world in ways no one else truly can...

In a terse (if occasionally somewhat too dreamy and self-referential!) prose, the author slowly and systematically unwinds the whole history of an ancient oceanic realm whose legacy stands out today in the mountainous landscapes of four continents, in the fossil collections of many great musea, and in the rush and sounds of our everyday lives, fuelled as they are by oil and gas mainly originated in that ancient seaway....
The book's structure follows a chronological progression, from old times, when the Tethys Sea can first be identified in the rock record, to more recent ages, when it's slow demise left place to the world's geography as we know it. The simple but informative elegance of original paleogeographic maps opens every chapter, and helps to find one's way to all the ideas and corners of the world touched by the historical narrative. Here and there, the scientific discourse is accompanied by quick forays into the present, to describe places, life and resources in which the heritage of old geological history is still recognizable somehow... And it's a brave publisher today who allows an author to write an essay stretching well over 250 pages, in order to explore the many topics he needs for his magic, instead of the typical, meager 150ish pages for popular science books today!

Even so, I am left with the feeling that many subjects have been touched upon too quickly, too fast, from plate tectonics to biological evolution, from mass extinctions to oceanography. Some readers without a background in science might find it hard to tie up the many untold details into one coherent picture without further explanation. A few pages more here and there would have helped, and the final glossary, although a worthy effort, might not be enough for that job...
As such, I am convinced the book's main value would be as an accompanying read for 1st year Earth system or general geology courses, in order for students to catch a tantalizing glimpse of the vast scope of interests they will explore in the Earth Sciences. And also, in order for them to learn to look at what's around them with eyes that probe nature's beauty a little deeper than just the here and now... The eyes of a geologist.. ... Read more

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This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's preservation reformatting program. ... Read more