The ores of chromite, nickel, copper, and zinc show a wide distribution over geologic time, but those of iron, titanium, lead, uranium, gold, silver, molybdenum, tungsten, and tin are more restricted. Many of the limitations to specific time intervals are probably imposed by the evolving tectonic history of Earth interacting with the effects of the biomass on the evolution of the earth's s surf...

The history of Eastern African hominids has been linked to a progressive increase of open grassland during the past 8 million years. This trend was explained by global climatic processes, which do not account for the massive uplift of eastern African topography that occurred during this period. Atmosphere and biosphere simulations quantify the role played by these tectonic events. The reduced t...

In regard to the tectonic history of the Lachlan Fold Belt, Aitchison and Buckman (2012) argued that "numerous aspects of the observed geology appear to be incompatible with the existing model" and that an "alternative model envisages arc-continent collision events (quantum tectonics) as a primary means of largescale continental growth". My purpose is to challenge these arguments and to questio...

health consequences and the response to the Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) earthquake, which struck on January 17,1995, at 5:46 a.m., at an epicenter about 15 km to the south west of Kobe city in western Japan (Figure 1). Since Japan lies on the intersection of four tectonic plates, it has been hit by a number of earthquakes throughout its history (Table 1). The Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake -of m...

A well-preserved Cambrian section in the Zanskar Valley of northern India has previously been interpreted to record the transition from a passive to an active tectonic margin related to Cambrian–Ordovician orogenesis. This interpretation has been used to support the tectonostratigraphic interpretation of other successions across the Tethyan Himalaya. Our detailed paleoenvironmental analysis sig...

Deep-sea hydrothermal vents and cold seeps are submarine springs where nutrient-rich fluids emanate from the sea floor. Vent and seep ecosystems occur in a variety of geological settings throughout the global ocean and support food webs based on chemoautotrophic primary production. Most vent and seep invertebrates arrive at suitable habitats as larvae dispersed by deep-ocean currents. The recen...

The recognition of grain boundaries in deformed rocks from images of thin-sections or polished slabs is an essential step in describing and quantifying various features and analysis, which is usually achieved by image processing procedures. Recently, researchers from geoscience and computer science focused on this issue and many methods have been proposed. We begin with an application of minera...

The Shillong Plateau (northeastern India) constitutes the only significant topography in the Himalayan foreland. Knowledge of its surface uplift history is key to understanding topographic development and unraveling tectonic–climate–topographic coupling in the eastern Himalaya. We use the sedimentary record of the Himalayan foreland basin north of the Shillong Plateau to show that the paleoBrah...