Skip to main content

Books in Earth and planetary sciences

Elsevier's Earth and Planetary Sciences collection brings together pioneering research on the complexities of our planet and beyond. Covering topics from Earth's structural dynamics and ecosystems to planetary exploration, these titles support advancements in geoscience, environmental science, and space studies, offering essential insights for researchers, professionals, and students.

  • Principles of Soil and Plant Water Relations

    • 1st Edition
    • M.B. Kirkham
    • English
    Principles of Soil and Plant Water Relations combines biology and physics to show how water moves through the soil-plant-atmospher... continuum. This text explores the instrumentation and the methods used to measure the status of water in soil and plants. Principles are clearly presented with the aid of diagrams, anatomical figures, and images of instrumentation. The methods on instrumentation can be used by researchers, consultants, and the military to monitor soil degradation, including measurements of soil compaction, repellency, oxygen diffusion rate, and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity.Intende... for graduate students in plant and soil science programs, this book also serves as a useful reference for agronomists, plant ecologists, and agricultural engineers.
  • Advanced Reservoir Engineering

    • 1st Edition
    • Tarek Ahmed + 1 more
    • English
    Advanced Reservoir Engineering offers the practicing engineer and engineering student a full description, with worked examples, of all of the kinds of reservoir engineering topics that the engineer will use in day-to-day activities. In an industry where there is often a lack of information, this timely volume gives a comprehensive account of the physics of reservoir engineering, a thorough knowledge of which is essential in the petroleum industry for the efficient recovery of hydrocarbons.Chapter one deals exclusively with the theory and practice of transient flow analysis and offers a brief but thorough hands-on guide to gas and oil well testing. Chapter two documents water influx models and their practical applications in conducting comprehensive field studies, widely used throughout the industry. Later chapters include unconventional gas reservoirs and the classical adaptations of the material balance equation.
  • Introduction to the Modelling of Marine Ecosystems

    (with MATLAB programs on accompanying CD-ROM)
    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 72
    • W. Fennel + 1 more
    • English
    Modelling of marine ecosystems is a rapidly developing branch of interdisciplinary oceanographic research. Introduction to the Modelling of Marine Ecosystems is the first consistent and comprehensive introduction to the development of models of marine ecosystems. It begins with simple first steps of modelling and develops more and more complex models. This step-by-step approach to increasing the complexity of the models is intended to allow students of biological oceanography and interested scientists with only limited experience in mathematical modelling to explore the theoretical framework and familiarize oneself with the methods. The book describes how biological model components can be integrated into three dimensional circulation models and how such models can be used for 'numerical experiments'.The book illustrates the mathematical aspects of modelling and gives application examples. The tutorial aspect of the book is supported by a set of MATLAB programs, which are provided on an accompanying CD-Rom and which can be used to reproduce many of the results presented in the book.Also available in paperback, ISBN 0-444-51704-9
  • Wetlands Ecosystems in Asia: Function and Management

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 1
    • M. H. Wong
    • English
    This book on wetlands ecosystems in Asia deals with function and management. It is the first volume in the Developments in Ecosystems series.
  • Quaternary Glaciations - Extent and Chronology

    Part II: North America
    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 2
    • J. Ehlers + 1 more
    • English
    This book is the second of three volumes in which the recent knowledge of the extent and chronology of Quaternary glaciations has been compiled on a global scale. This information is seen as a fundamental requirement, not only for the glacial community, but for the wider user-community of general Quaternary workers. In particular the need for accurate ice-front positions is a basic requirement for the rapidly growing field of palaeoclimate modelling. In order to provide the information for the widest-possible range of users in the most accessible form, a series of digital maps was prepared.The glacial limits were mapped in ArcView, the Geographical Information System (GIS) used by the work group. Included with the publication is a CD with digital maps, showing glacial limits, end moraines, ice-dammed lakes, glacier-induced drainage diversions and the locations of key sections through which the glacial limits are defined and dated. The last deglaciation is also shown in 500 year time-steps. The digital maps in this volume cover the USA and Canada and include Greenland and Hawaii. Both overview maps and more detailed maps at a scale 1: 1,000,000 are provided.Also available:Part I: Europe, ISBN 0-444-51462-7Part III: South America, Asia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica, ISBN 0-444-51593-3
  • Aqueous Systems at Elevated Temperatures and Pressures

    Physical Chemistry in Water, Steam and Hydrothermal Solutions
    • 1st Edition
    • Roberto Fernandez-Prini + 2 more
    • English
    The International Association for the Properties of Water and Steam (IAPWS) has produced this book in order to provide an accessible, up-to-date overview of important aspects of the physical chemistry of aqueous systems at high temperatures and pressures. These systems are central to many areas of scientific study and industrial application, including electric power generation, industrial steam systems, hydrothermal processing of materials, geochemistry, and environmental applications. The authors’ goal is to present the material at a level that serves both the graduate student seeking to learn the state of the art, and also the industrial engineer or chemist seeking to develop additional expertise or to find the data needed to solve a specific problem.The wide range of people for whom this topic is important provides a challenge. Advanced work in this area is distributed among physical chemists, chemical engineers, geochemists, and other specialists, who may not be aware of parallel work by those outside their own specialty. The particular aspects of high-temperature aqueous physical chemistry of interest to one industry may be irrelevant to another; yet another industry might need the same basic information but in a very different form.To serve all these constituencies, the book includes several chapters that cover the foundational thermophysical properties (such as gas solubility, phase behavior, thermodynamic properties of solutes, and transport properties) that are of interest across numerous applications. The presentation of these topics is intended to be accessible to readers from a variety of backgrounds. Other chapters address fundamental areas of more specialized interest, such as critical phenomena and molecular-level solution structure. Several chapters are more application-oriented... addressing areas such as power-cycle chemistry and hydrothermal synthesis. As befits the variety of interests addressed, some chapters provide more theoretical guidance while others, such as those on acid/base equilibria and the solubilities of metal oxides and hydroxides, emphasize experimental techniques and data analysis.
  • Seismic While Drilling

    Fundamentals of Drill-Bit Seismic for Exploration
    • 1st Edition
    • F.B Poletto + 1 more
    • English
    The purpose of this book is to give a theoretical and practical introduction to seismic-while-drilli... by using the drill-bit noise. This recent technology offers important products for geophysical control of drilling. It involves aspects typical of borehole seismics and of the drilling control surveying, hitherto the sole domain of mudlogging.For aspects related to the drill-bit source performance and borehole acoustics, the book attempts to provide a connection between experts working in geophysics and in drilling.There are different ways of thinking related to basic knowledge, operational procedures and precision in the observation of the physical quantities. The goal of the book is to help "build a bridge" between geophysicists involved in seismic while drilling - who may need to familiarize themselves with methods and procedures of drilling and drilling-rock mechanics - and drillers involved in geosteering and drilling of "smart wells" - who may have to familiarize themselves with seismic signals, wave resolution and radiation. For instance, an argument of common interest for drilling and seismic while drilling studies is the monitoring of the drill-string and bit vibrations. This volume contains a large number of real examples of SWD data analysis and applications.
  • Geochemical Investigations in Earth and Space Sciences

    A Tribute to Isaac R. Kaplan
    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 9
    • R.J. Hill + 7 more
    • English
    This volume is the product of a technical session organized for the 2002 Geological Society of America Annual Meeting in recognition of Isaac Kaplan's many contributions to various fields of geochemistry. As Kaplan enters his sixth decade of scientific investigation, it is fair to say that his work has touched or influenced innumerable scientists either directly or indirectly. Readers of this volume are presented with a collection of 29 papers written by former students, post-doctoral researchers, friends and colleagues from countries all over the world (including Sweden, Japan, Taiwan, New Zealand, Australia, Israel and the United States) from the fields of stable isotope, forensic, environmental and petroleum geochemistry, atmospheric chemistry and cosmochemistry.The stable isotope section includes papers investigating climate change, diagenesis, recent sediment and petroleum geochemistry and cosmochemistry problems. The forensic and environmental geochemistry section includes a variety of papers ranging from trace metals in soils to atmospheric CO2 projections. The petroleum geochemistry section includes both basic research and applied geochemistry papers. The ancient and recent sediments section contains papers ranging from carbon flux in modern sediments to Precambrian microfossils. All of the articles together cover a broad range of geochemical studies and represent the diverse and distinguished career of Isaac Kaplan.
  • Quaternary Glaciations - Extent and Chronology

    Part I: Europe
    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 2
    • J. Ehlers + 1 more
    • English
    This book is the first of three volumes in which the recent knowledge of the extent and chronology of Quaternary glaciations has been compiled on a global scale. This information is seen as a fundamental requirement, not only for the glacial workers, but for the wider user-community of general Quaternary workers. In particular the need for accurate ice-front positions is a basic requirement for the rapidly growing field of palaeoclimate modelling. In order to provide the information for the widest-possible range of users in the most accessible form, a series of digital maps was prepared.The glacial limits were mapped in ArcView, the Geographical Information System (GIS) used by the work group. Digital maps, showing glacial limits, end moraines, ice-dammed lakes, glacier-induced drainage diversions and the locations of key sections through which the glacial limits are defined and dated are included. For major parts of Europe also the extent of the maximum Eemian transgression has been indicated. The digital maps in this volume cover all of Europe and parts of northwestern Siberia. Both overview maps and more detailed maps are provided.
  • Introduction to the Physics of Cohesive Sediment Dynamics in the Marine Environment

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 56
    • Johan C. Winterwerp + 1 more
    • English
    This book is an introduction to the physical processes of cohesive sediment in the marine environment. It focuses on highly dynamic systems, such as estuaries and coastal seas. Processes on the continental shelf are also discussed and attention is given to the effects of chemistry, biology and gas.The process descriptions are based on hydrodynamic and soil mechanic principles, which integrate at the soil-water interface. This approach is substantiated through a classification scheme of sediment occurrences in which distinction is made between cohesive and granular material. Emphasis is also placed on the important interactions between turbulent flow and cohesive sediment suspensions, and on the impact of flow-induced forces on the stability of the seabed. An overview of literature on cohesive sediment dynamics is presented and a number of new developments are highlighted, in particular in relation to floc formation, settling and sedimentation, consolidation, bed failure and liquefaction and erosion of the bed. Moreover, it presents a summary on methods and techniques to measure the various sediment properties necessary to quantify the various parameters in the physical-mathematica... model descriptions. A number of examples and case studies have been included.