Geochemistry

The Long Thaw: How Humans Are Changing the Next 100,000 Years of Earth's Climate (Science Essentials)

If you think that global warming means slightly hotter weather and a modest rise in sea levels that will persist only so long as fossil fuels hold out (or until we decide to stop burning them), think again. In The Long Thaw, David Archer, one of the world's leading climatologists, predicts that if we continue to emit carbon dioxide we may eventually cancel the next ice age and raise the oceans by 50 meters. By comparing the global warming projection for the next century to natural climate changes of the distant past, and then looking into the future far beyond the usual scientific and political horizon of the year 2100, Archer reveals the hard truths of the long-term climate forecast.

Archer shows how just a few centuries of fossil-fuel use will cause not only a climate storm that will last a few hundred years, but dramatic climate changes that will last thousands. Carbon dioxide emitted today will be a problem for millennia. For the first time, humans have become major players in shaping the long-term climate. In fact, a planetwide thaw driven by humans has already begun. But despite the seriousness of the situation, Archer argues that it is still not too late to avert dangerous climate change--if humans can find a way to cooperate as never before.

Revealing why carbon dioxide may be an even worse gamble in the long run than in the short, this compelling and critically important book brings the best long-term climate science to a general audience for the first time.

Wills' Mineral Processing Technology, Seventh Edition: An Introduction to the Practical Aspects of Ore Treatment and Mineral Recovery

Wills' Mineral Processing Technology provides practising engineers and students of mineral processing, metallurgy and mining with a review of all of the common ore-processing techniques utilized in modern processing installations.

Now in its Seventh Edition, this renowned book is a standard reference for the mineral processing industry. Chapters deal with each of the major processing techniques, and coverage includes the latest technical developments in the processing of increasingly complex refractory ores, new equipment and process routes. This new edition has been prepared by the prestigious J K Minerals Research Centre of Australia, which contributes its world-class expertise and ensures that this will continue to be the book of choice for professionals and students in this field.

This latest edition highlights the developments and the challenges facing the mineral processor, particularly with regard to the environmental problems posed in improving the efficiency of the existing processes and also in dealing with the waste created. The work is fully indexed and referenced.

· The classic mineral processing text, revised and updated by a prestigious new team
· Provides a clear exposition of the principles and practice of mineral processing, with examples taken from practice
· Covers the latest technological developments and highlights the challenges facing the mineral processor
· New sections on environmental problems, improving the efficiency of existing processes and dealing with waste.

Crystals and Crystal Growing

This clearly illustrated explanation the basic principles of crystals may be used as a text or supplementary sourcebook by high-school students (for which it was originally written), students at the junior college or undergraduate level, or the general reader with an interest in science.

Ocean Biogeochemical Dynamics

Ocean Biogeochemical Dynamics provides a broad theoretical framework upon which graduate students and upper-level undergraduates can formulate an understanding of the processes that control the mean concentration and distribution of biologically utilized elements and compounds in the ocean. Though it is written as a textbook, it will also be of interest to more advanced scientists as a wide-ranging synthesis of our present understanding of ocean biogeochemical processes.

The first two chapters of the book provide an introductory overview of biogeochemical and physical oceanography. The next four chapters concentrate on processes at the air-sea interface, the production of organic matter in the upper ocean, the remineralization of organic matter in the water column, and the processing of organic matter in the sediments. The focus of these chapters is on analyzing the cycles of organic carbon, oxygen, and nutrients.

The next three chapters round out the authors' coverage of ocean biogeochemical cycles with discussions of silica, dissolved inorganic carbon and alkalinity, and CaCO₃. The final chapter discusses applications of ocean biogeochemistry to our understanding of the role of the ocean carbon cycle in interannual to decadal variability, paleoclimatology, and the anthropogenic carbon budget. The problem sets included at the end of each chapter encourage students to ask critical questions in this exciting new field. While much of the approach is mathematical, the math is at a level that should be accessible to students with a year or two of college level mathematics and/or physics.

Volcanism

Volcanic eruptions are the clear and dramatic expression of dynamic processes going on in planet Earth. The author, one of the most profound specialists in the field of volcanology, explains in a concise and easy to understand manner the basics and most recent findings in the field of volcanology. Based on plate tectonics and illustrated with more than 300 color figures, the book offers insights into the generation of magmas and the occurrence and origin of volcanoes. The analysis and description of volcanic structures is followed by process-oriented chapters discussing the role of magmatic gases, as well as explosive mechanisms and sedimentation of volcanic material. The final chapters deal with the forecast of eruptions and their influence on climate. Students and scientists from a broad range of fields will find this book an interesting and attractive source of information.

From the reviews:

"The science of volcanology has made tremendous progress over the past 40 years, primarily because of technological advances and because each tragic eruption has led researchers to recognize the processes behind such serious hazards. Yet scientists are still learning a great deal because of photographs that either capture those processes in action or show us the critical factors left behind in the rock record.

Volcanism by Hans-Ulrich Schmincke has photos of the best quality I have ever seen in a text on the subject. I found myself wishing that I had had the photo of Nicaragua’s Masaya volcano, which was the subject of my dissertation, but it was Schmincke who was able to include it in his book. In addition, the schematic figures in their wide range of styles are clear, colorful, and simplified to emphasize the most important factors while including all significant features. The book’s paper is of such high quality that at times I felt I had turned two pages rather than one.

I have really enjoyed reading and rereading Schmincke’s book. It fills a great gap in texts available for teaching any basic course in volcanology. No other book I know of has the depth and breadth of Volcanism. I was disappointed that the text did not arrive on my desk until last August, when it was too late for me to choose it for my course in volcanology. I am also disappointed about another fact—the book’s binding is already becoming tattered because of my intense use of it!

Schmincke is a volcanologist who, in 1967, first published papers on sedimentary rocks of volcanic origin, the direction traveled by lava flows millions of years ago, and the structures preserved in explosive ignimbrites, or pumice-flow deposits, that reveal important details of their formation. Since then, his studies in Germany’s Laacher See, the Canary Islands, the Troodos Ophiolite of Cyprus, and many other regions have forged great fundamental advances. Such contributions have been recognized with his receipt of several international awards and clearly give him a strong base for writing the book.

However, as a scientist who has focused on the challenges of monitoring the very diverse activities of volcanoes, I think that the text’s overriding emphasis on the rock record has its cost. The group of scientists who are struggling with their goals to reduce or mitigate the hazards of the eruptions of tomorrow need to learn more about the options of technology, instrumentation, and methodology that are currently available. More than 500 million people live near the more than 1500 known active volcanoes and are constantly facing serious threats of eruptions. An extremely energetic earthquake caused the horrific tsunamis of 2004. However, the tsunamis of 1792, 1815, and 1883, which were caused by the eruptions of Japan’s Unzen volcano and Indonesia’s Tambora and Krakatau volcanoes, each took a similar toll.

( Stanley N. Williams, PHYSICS TODAY, April 2005)

An Introduction to the Rock-Forming Minerals (2nd Edition)

This revised edition has entailed a thorough re-writing of the text, taking account of the impressive advances that have been made in all aspects of earth sciences, particularly mineralogy, over the recent years.

Geochemical and Biogeochemical Reaction Modeling

This book provides a comprehensive overview of reaction processes in the Earth's crust and on its surface, both in the laboratory and in the field. A clear exposition of the underlying equations and calculation techniques is balanced by a large number of fully worked examples. The book uses The Geochemist's Workbench® modeling software, developed by the author and already installed at over 1000 universities and research facilities worldwide. Since publication of the first edition, the field of reaction modeling has continued to grow and find increasingly broad application. In particular, the description of microbial activity, surface chemistry, and redox chemistry within reaction models has become broader and more rigorous. These areas are covered in detail in this new edition. This text is written for graduate students and academic researchers in the fields of geochemistry, environmental engineering, contaminant hydrology, geomicrobiology and numerical modeling.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of reaction processes in the Earth's crust and on its surface. Many new applications of reaction modeling are covered in detail in this new edition. This text is written for graduate students and researchers across a broad spectrum of the geosciences.

Environmental Modeling: Using MATLAB®

The book has two aims: to introduce basic concepts of environmental modeling and to facilitate the application of the concepts using modern numerical tools such as MATLAB. It is targeted at all natural scientists dealing with the environment: process and chemical engineers, physicists, chemists, biologists, biochemists, hydrogeologists, geochemists and ecologists.
MATLAB was chosen as the major computer tool for modeling, firstly because it is unique in it's capabilities, and secondly because it is available in most academic institutions, in all universities and in the research departments of many companies.

The Biomarker Guide: Volume 2, Biomarkers and Isotopes in Petroleum Systems and Earth History

The second volume itemizes parameters used to genetically correlate petroleum and interpret thermal maturity and extent of biodegradation. It documents most known petroleum systems by geologic age throughout Earth history.

Biomarkers are compounds found in crude oil with structures inherited from once-living organisms. They persist in oil spills, refinery products and archaeological artifacts, and can be used to identify the origin, geological age and environmental conditions prevelant during their formation and alteration. The two volumes of the Biomarker Guide detail the origin of petroleum, technology for its analysis and key parameters for interpretation. It will be an invaluable resource for geologists, petroleum geochemists, biogeochemists, environmental and forensic scientists, natural product chemists and archaeologists.

Groundwater Geochemistry: A Practical Guide to Modeling of Natural and Contaminated Aquatic Systems

The second edition of "Groundwater Geochemistry – A practical guide to modeling of natural and contaminated aquatic systems" remains a comprehensive text book offering beginners and advanced modelers alike a minimum theoretical background and a strong focus on the practical solution of geochemical modeling with PHREEQC. The new edition covers the possibility of using the CD-MUSIC concept within the new version of PHREEQC. Examples for reactive transport use PHREEQC´s 1d features as well as the coupled 3d code PHAST with the graphical user interface WPHAST. Implementing uncertainties of thermodynamic data is addressed by means of the program LJUNGSKILE. As in the first edition, detailed descriptions on how to solve each problem guide the user step by step from basic to more and more advanced hydrogeochemical modeling. The computer programs and the solutions for all problems (PHREEQC input files) are enclosed on a CD.