Geology Today最新文献

Recent events in conflict zones have shown that the successful detection and characterization of buried military complexes is vitally important for geoforensic investigators globally, to reduce or solve criminal activities, address national security threats and avoid potential terrorist attacks. However, this can often prove difficult, particularly in urban areas. Generally, desktop studies assess pre-existing information that then inform appropriate survey design and technique(s) selection. Survey results then produce accurate plans of subsurface targets, with numerical modelling and correction for above-ground infrastructure provide confidence in interpretations. All investigations are of course unique, and require individual phased investigative approaches to improve detection rates of such important buried targets.

We all have books on the shelves of our personal libraries, not collecting dust, but regularly being pulled down and referred to despite their age. I have several that are still there and being used almost 50 years after I bought them, all wise investments, indeed. Directory of British Fossiliferous Localities is particularly cherished, capturing the flavour of geological fieldwork in a time now sadly lost.

A brief review of diamond mining covers the succession of dominating resources, from India to South Africa, to elsewhere in Africa and then to Russia and Canada. Kimberlite pipes have come to be recognized as the explosive transporters of diamonds upwards from their high-pressure sources in the deep crust and upper mantle of Archaean cratons.

President Trump's announcement of his desire to buy or annex Greenland—if necessary by military force—has projected this hitherto little-known territory into the international headlines. This article looks briefly at Greenland's widely quoted promise of hitherto untapped, but fabulously rich natural resources, examining America's history of land acquisition and its claim to Greenland. It provides a brief overview of the geography of Greenland, followed by its history and a description of geopolitical factors, before taking an overview of its possible exploitable mineral resources.

The mid-Cretaceous Kem Kem beds of Morocco contains an overabundance of giant theropod dinosaurs, including Spinosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus—both longer than Tyrannosaurus. Compared to modern and other Mesozoic continental ecosystems, in which herbivores represent most of the vertebrate biomass, predators are overrepresented in the mid-Cretaceous of North Africa. The reason is thought to be niche partitioning, with Spinosaurus being semi or perhaps even fully aquatic with other large theropods having a more traditional lifestyle. These conclusions are based on evidence from stable isotopes, skeletal anatomy and biomechanical studies which we will discuss in this article.

Traces and trace fossils are the spoor of organisms, such as tracks, trails, burrows, borings and coprolites. They provide a unique suite of data for geology, including stratigraphy, sedimentology and palaeontology.

Borings are traces that can be transported easily within clasts and shells. One of the commonest recent borings around the British Isles is the club-shaped Gastrochaenolites Leymerie. In the Mesozoic and younger, Gastrochaenolites was commonly a boring of bivalves, sometimes preserved in situ, but it extends back to the Ordovician with no evidence of the producer.

Small round holes in shells—the trace fossil Oichnus Bromley—range throughout the Phanerozoic and were doubtless the spoor of diverse invertebrates. Their function may have been predatory, parasitic or a domicile, but how do we tell which from the fossil evidence?