Monitoring Saline Discharge Areas: Farrell Flat,a Case Study

By monitoring saline groundwater discharge areas, an indication of the extent of dryland salinisation processes occurring in an area may be determined. Processed remotely sensed data (SPOT MS and aerial photography) has been analysed within a geographic information system database to identify the dynamic relationship between changing vegetation cover and increasing salt levels on a saline groundwater discharge area. Temporal analysis of this database was conducted for a saline discharge area on a wheat/sheep property in South Australia from the period 1966 to 1990. The results provide a directional and quantitative assessment of the change in salt affected areas during the study period. Information of this type benefits land managers at the regional scale by quantifying salinisation trends.     

NORBERT ELIAS,THE CIVILIZING PROCESS: SOCIOGENETIC AND PSYCHOGENETIC INVESTIGATIONS—AN OVERVIEW AND ASSESSMENT

Norbert Elias's The Civilizing Process, which was published in German in 1939 and first translated into English in two volumes in 1978 and 1982, is now widely regarded as one of the great works of twentieth‐century sociology. This work attempted to explain how Europeans came to think of themselves as more “civilized” than their forebears and neighboring societies. By analyzing books about manners that had been published between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries, Elias observed changing conceptions of shame and embarrassment with respect to, among other things, bodily propriety and violence. To explain those developments, Elias examined the interplay among the rise of state monopolies of power, increasing levels of economic interconnectedness among people, and pressures to become attuned to others over greater distances that led to advances in identifying with others in the same society irrespective of social origins. Elias's analysis of the civilizing process was not confined, however, to explaining changing social bonds within separate societies. The investigation also focused on the division of Europe into sovereign states that were embroiled in struggles for power and security. This article provides an overview and analysis of Elias's principal claims in the light of growing interest in this seminal work in sociology. The analysis shows how Elias defended higher levels of synthesis in the social sciences to explain relations between “domestic” and “international” developments, and changes in social structure and in the emotional lives of modern people. Elias's investigation, which explained long‐term processes of development over several centuries, pointed to the limitations of inquiries that concentrate on short‐term intervals. Only by placing short‐term trends in long‐term perspective could sociologists understand contemporary developments. This article maintains that Elias's analysis of the civilizing process remains an exemplary study of long‐term developments in Western societies over the last five centuries.     

PARADIGMS BEHIND (AND BEFORE) THE MODERN CONCEPT OF RELIGION

This essay identifies five paradigms that are basic to understanding the historical emergence and uses of the generic idea of “religion” in the Christian cultures of Europe and America. The spread of this concept has been sufficiently thorough in recent centuries as to make religion appear to be a “social fact,” to use Durkheim's phrase, rather than so many cultural expressions and different social practices. The supremacy of Euro‐American culture—and an academy still saturated with Christian ideas—has enjoined other cultures and forms of religiosity to conform to this idea of religion; for these cultures contentment with the status quo can vie with the anxieties of influence, including “modernization.” The key paradigms discussed are the following: Christianity as the prototype; religion as the opposite of reason; the modern formulation of “world religions”; the cultural necessity of religion; and critical analysis of the Western “construction” of religion. These paradigms demonstrate the limits on theoretical variety in the field, the difficulty in making real changes in set ways of thinking, and productive foci for interdisciplinary methods of study.     

THE EFFECT OF HF ACID ETCHING ON THE MORPHOLOGY OF QUARTZ INCLUSIONS FOR THERMOLUMINESCENCE DATING

The assumption of isotropic etching in hydrofluoric acid of quartz grains prepared for thermoluminescence dating has been tested by optical and scanning electron microscopy. We have found that the rate of etch is very irregular over the surface of many grains and that some grains are attacked much more severely than others. The uncertainty introduced into TL dating by this effect is discussed.     

Beware of false prophets: biology, human nature and the future of International Relations theory

The disciplinary history of International Relations (IR) has been marked by confrontation between those who believe that the study of politics can and should be modelled on the natural sciences, a position defended most forcibly in the United States, and those who have dissented, viewing this ambition as methodologically unjustified and ethically undesirable. But the scientific template against which to judge such claims is constantly shifting. In this article it is suggested that mainstream IR theorists are likely to turn increasingly to the biological sciences for inspiration and intellectual legitimacy. Some of the possibilities and problems involved in this move are explored, focusing in particular on the prominent role played by evolutionary psychology in the social sciences. A variety of reasons are offered, political and theoretical, as to why IR scholars should be extremely wary of looking to the biological sciences to provide universalistic accounts of human behavioural patterns.     

Oscillatory zoning and trace element incorporation in hydrothermal minerals: insights from calcite growth experiments

Oscillatory zoning and fine‐scale variations in trace element chemistry are commonly observed in hydrothermal minerals. It has been suggested that fine‐scale chemical variations are caused by extrinsic changes in the parent hydrothermal system, such as varying fluid composition, pressure or temperature, as well as changes in mineral growth rate. In this study, LA–ICP–MS (laser ablation, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer) analyses were carried out on calcite crystals grown in Ca–NH₃–Cl solutions doped with rare earth elements (REE). The variety of crystal morphologies observed (euhedral to acicular), likely relate to variations in trace element abundance and calcite supersaturation state. Crystals display oscillatory and sector zoning, with significant variations in REE concentrations among zones. Cyclic variations in REE concentrations (exceeding 10‐fold) occur over distances of <1 mm along the growth direction of acicular calcite crystals. In general, trace element concentrations decrease during progressive crystal growth, implying that the concentration of trace and REEs within crystals reflects the overall composition of the growth solution. However, bulk changes in crystal composition are modulated by fine‐scale (<1 mm) variations, which are inferred to be caused by growth‐rate‐controlled incorporation of trace elements. These results have important implications for using hydrothermal minerals to infer fluctuations in fluid compositions in ancient, exhumed hydrothermal systems.     

The stress regime of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin

All available information relevant to in situ stress orientations and magnitudes in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) were examined to provide a better understanding of how regional stress fields may affect geothermal development. The smallest principal stress is horizontal over most of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin, and it varies in magnitude across the region. Horizontal stress trajectories show that S_Hmax axes are generally aligned SW–NE. A total of 1643 measurements of microfracture and minifracture closure pressures, leak‐off pressures and fracture breakdown pressures have been harnessed to map S_Hmin gradients across the basin at depths of 156–500, 500–1000, 1000–4185 and 2000–4185 m. Vertical stress magnitudes, calculated in 91 wells, showed that at constant depth, S_V increases towards the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Resultant regional stress maps show consistent trends in orientation of stress axes. As a result, predictions can be made that propagation axes of subsurface hydraulic fractures will be dominantly SW–NE, except over the Peace River Arch area, where they will trend more towards SSW–NNE. Engineered geothermal systems in the WCSB can be optimised by drilling horizontal wells parallel to S_Hmin.     

Doing Building Work: Methods at the Interface of Geography and Architecture

This paper summarises the methodological approach taken in an interdisciplinary project involving geographers and architects. The project charted the diverse afterlives of the modernist‐inspired, state‐sponsored, residential high‐rise, and did so drawing on two cases: Red Road Estate in Glasgow and Bukit Ho Swee Estate in Singapore. In offering a specific account of, and reflection upon, the methodologies used in the High‐rise Project, we hope to advance the methodological repertoire of human geography generally and contribute further to the new wave of scholarship on geography and architecture.