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PHOTO (COLOR): RMS Program Cover by Susan Robinson THE THIRTY-SEVENTH TECHNICAL SESSION of the Rochester Mineralogical Symposium was cancelled this year due to the COVID-19 virus. By experimenting with the addition of mica of varying thickness to the optical path when viewing a flattened gahnite and garnet in crossed polars, we found that the observed interference figure was the result of the mica even when exceedingly thin. Multiple flattened almandine crystals have also been extracted from muscovite books from Avondale, Pennsylvania. White included the results of optical analyses performed by our research group on a flattened gahnite, which showed that the crystal exhibited a distinctly biaxial interference figure despite being an isometric mineral. [Extracted from the article]

Background: Paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera (L.) L'Hér. ex Vent) is a dioecious tree native to East Asia and mainland Southeast-Asia, introduced prehistorically to Polynesia as a source of bark fiber by Austronesian-speaking voyagers. In Oceania, trees are coppiced and harvested for production of bark-cloth, so flowering is generally unknown. A survey of botanical records of paper mulberry revealed a distributional disjunction: the tree is apparently absent in Borneo and the Philippines. A subsequent study of chloroplast haplotypes linked paper mulberry of Remote Oceania directly to a population in southern Taiwan, distinct from known populations in mainland Southeast-Asia. Methodology: We describe the optimization and use of a DNA marker designed to identify sex in paper mulberry. We used this marker to determine the sex distribution in selected localities across Asia, Near and Remote Oceania. We also characterized all samples using the ribosomal internal transcribed spacer sequence (ITS) in order to relate results to a previous survey of ITS diversity. Results: In Near and Remote Oceania, contemporary paper mulberry plants are all female with the exception of Hawaii, where plants of both sexes are found. In its natural range in Asia, male and female plants are found, as expected. Male plants in Hawaii display an East Asian ITS genotype, consistent with modern introduction, while females in Remote Oceania share a distinctive variant. Conclusions: Most paper mulberry plants now present in the Pacific appear to be descended from female clones introduced prehistorically. In Hawaii, the presence of male and female plants is thought to reflect a dual origin, one a prehistoric female introduction and the other a modern male introduction by Japanese/Chinese immigrants. If only female clones were dispersed from a source-region in Taiwan, this may explain the absence of botanical records and breeding populations in the Philippines and Borneo, and Remote Oceania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the ginseng collector is also a mineral collector, new exposures of interesting minerals occasionally turn up. This has led to a long and fruitful collaboration between amateur collectors and professional mineralogists who have described more than four hundred different mineral species and sixty-six new or type-locality minerals from this small quarry in Quebec. The minerals found at this exposure are distinct from those found a mere 90 meters south at the Wollastonite Skarn (WSK), the classic mineral occurrence at Rose Road. The mineral specimens recovered in the years that followed the discovery of the PDM have conveyed a fascinating and complex paragenesis involving numerous different types of pseudomorphs and mineral textures. [Extracted from the article]

Paper mulberry, Broussonetia papyrifera (L.) L’Hér. ex Vent. (Moraceae), a dioecious species, was transported by humans from Taiwan to the islands of Remote Oceania. Its introduction and cultivation in Remote Oceania was intentional due to its cultural importance as a fiber source for barkcloth textiles. The aim of this study was to explore the genetic diversity and structure of paper mulberry populations within Remote Oceania in order to infer dispersal patterns that may reflect past human interaction among island groups. We present the integrated analysis of 380 samples (313 contemporary and 67 herbarium specimens) collected in Near and Remote Oceania. Genetic characterization was based on a set of ten microsatellites developed for B. papyrifera and complemented with the analysis of the ribosomal internal transcribed spacer ITS-1 sequence, a sex marker and the chloroplast ndhF–rpl32 intergenic spacer. Microsatellite data identify a total of 64 genotypes, despite this being a clonally propagated crop, and show three major dispersal hubs within Remote Oceania, centered on the islands of Fiji, Tonga, and Pitcairn. Of 64 genotypes identified, 55 correspond to genotypes associated to female-sexed plants that probably descend from plants introduced by the prehistoric Austronesian-speaking voyagers. The ratio of accessions to genotypes between herbarium and contemporary samples, suggests recent loss of genetic diversity. In addition to the chloroplast haplotypes described previously, we detected two new haplotypes within Remote Oceania both originating in Taiwan. This is the first study of a commensal species to show genetic structuring within Remote Oceania. In spite of the genetic bottleneck, the presence of only one sex, a timespan of less than 5000 years, and asexual propagation of this crop in Remote Oceania, we detect genetic diversity and regional structuring. These observations suggest specific migration routes between island groups within Remote Oceania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reproducibility is a cornerstone of science and thus for geographic research as well. However, studies in other disciplines such as biology have shown that published work is rarely reproducible. To assess the state of reproducibility, specifically computational reproducibility (i.e. rerunning the analysis of a paper using the original code), in geographic research, we asked geoscientists about this topic using three methods: a survey (n = 146), interviews (n = 9), and a focus group (n = 5). We asked participants about their understanding of open reproducible research (ORR), how much it is practiced, and what obstacles hinder ORR. We found that participants had different understandings of ORR and that there are several obstacles for authors and readers (e.g. effort, lack of openness). Then, in order to complement the subjective feedback from the participants, we tried to reproduce the results of papers that use spatial statistics to address problems in the geosciences. We selected 41 open access papers from Copernicus and Journal of Statistical Software and executed the R code. In doing so, we identified several technical issues and specific issues with the reproduced figures depicting the results. Based on these findings, we propose guidelines for authors to overcome the issues around reproducibility in the computational geosciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Earth and life sciences are replete with portmanteau (blended) words and neologisms. Researchers at the interfaces between the traditional disciplines within the Earth and life sciences have coined dual titles for 'new' disciplines, such as geobiology/biogeology and ecohydrology/hydroecology. An upsurge in such coinage over the last few decades reflects a healthy willingness of many researchers to cross traditional disciplinary boundaries and to include the human sphere within their domains. However, some of the titles cause confusion because their meanings are not self-evident; rather, they sometimes demand extra research to reveal their meanings, thus rendering science less 'open' at a time when Open Science is being vigorously encouraged. After discussing the question of disciplinary neologisms, the paper probes the interchangeability of 15 dual 'new' discipline titles and concludes that six are more-or-less synonymous, three are nonsynonymous, and six are indeterminate for varying reasons. We question the usefulness of some, but by no means all, disciplinary neologisms, given that their meanings are not immediately apparent. Looking beyond portmanteau titles and other neologisms, the paper discusses the rise of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, as seen in the concepts of the Critical Zone, multifunctional landscapes, and Earth System Science, the last of which supports a conceptual model of the planet as an interdependent set of spheres from global to local scales that has the advantages of combining the biotic, abiotic, and human spheres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cooperation among kin is common in animal societies. Kin groups may form by individuals directly discriminating relatives based on kin recognition cues, or form passively through natal philopatry and limited dispersal. We describe the genetic landscape for a primitively eusocial wasp, Polistes dominula, and ask whether individuals choose cooperative partners that are nearby and/or that are genetic relatives. Firstly, we genotyped an entire sub-population of 1361 wasps and found genetic structuring on an extremely fine scale: the probability of finding genetic relatives decreases exponentially within just a few meters of an individual’s nest. At the same time, however, we found a lack of genetic structuring between natural nest aggregations within the population. Secondly, in a separate dataset where ~2000 wasps were genotyped, we show that wasps forced experimentally to make a new nest choice tended to choose new nests near to their original nests, and that these nests tended to contain some full sisters. However, a significant fraction of wasps chose nests that did not contain sisters, despite sisters being present in nearby nests. Although we cannot rule out a role for direct kin recognition or natal nest-mate recognition, our data suggest that kin groups may form via a philopatric rule-of-thumb, whereby wasps simply select groups and nesting sites that are nearby. The result is that most subordinate helpers obtain indirect fitness benefits by breeding cooperatively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital photogrammetry has experienced rapid development regarding the technology involved and its ease of use over the past two decades. We revisit the work of Jim Chandler who in 1999 published a technical communication seeking to familiarise novice users of photogrammetric methods with important theoretical concepts and practical considerations. In doing so, we assess considerations such as camera calibration and the need for photo-control and check points, as they apply to modern software and workflows, in particular for structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetry. We also highlight the implications of lightweight drones being the new platform of choice for many photogrammetry-based studies in the geosciences. Finally, we present three examples based on our own work, showing the opportunities that SfM photogrammetry offers at different scales and systems: at the micro-scale for monitoring geomorphological change, and at the meso-scale for hydrological modelling and the reconstruction of vegetation canopies. Our examples showcase developments and applications of photogrammetry which go beyond what was considered feasible 20 years ago and indicate future directions that applications may take. Nevertheless, we demonstrate that, in-line with Chandler's recommendations, the pre-calibration of consumer-grade cameras, instead of relying entirely on self-calibration by software, can yield palpable benefits in micro-scale applications and that measurements of sufficient control points are still central to generating reproducible, high-accuracy products. With the unprecedented ease of use and wide areas of application, scientists applying photogrammetric methods would do well to remember basic considerations and seek methods for the validation of generated products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantifying the impact of a scholarly paper is of great significance, yet the effect of geographical distance of cited papers has not been explored. In this paper, we examine 30,596 papers published in Physical Review C, and identify the relationship between citations and geographical distances between author affiliations. Subsequently, a relative citation weight is applied to assess the impact of a scholarly paper. A higher-order weighted quantum PageRank algorithm is also developed to address the behavior of multiple step citation flow. Capturing the citation dynamics with higher-order dependencies reveals the actual impact of papers, including necessary self-citations that are sometimes excluded in prior studies. Quantum PageRank is utilized in this paper to help differentiating nodes whose PageRank values are identical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Swarm-founding wasps are endemic and common representatives of neotropical fauna and compose an interesting social tribe of vespids, presenting both complex social characteristics and uncommon traits for a eusocial group, such as the absence of castes with distinct morphology. The paper wasp Protonectarina sylveirae (Saussure) presents a broad distribution from Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, occurring widespread in the Atlantic rainforest and arboreal Caatinga, being absent in the Amazon region. Given the peculiar distribution among swarm-founding wasps, an integrative approach to reconstruct the evolutionary history of P. sylveirae in a spatial-temporal framework was performed to investigate: the presence of genetic structure and its relationship with the geography, the evolution of distinct morphologic lineages and the possible historical event(s) in Neotropical region, which could explain the observed phylogeographic pattern. Individuals of P. sylveirae were obtained from populations of 16 areas throughout its distribution for DNA extraction and amplification of mitochondrial genes 12S, 16S and COI. Analysis of genetic diversity, construction of haplotype net, analysis of population structure and dating analysis of divergence time were performed. A morphometric analysis was also performed using 8 measures of the body of the adult (workers) to test if there are morphological distinction among populations. Thirty-five haplotypes were identified, most of them exclusively of a group and a high population structure was found. The possibility of genetic divergence because of isolation by distance was rejected. Morphological analysis pointed to a great uniformity in phenotypes, with only a small degree of differentiation between populations of south and the remaining. Divergence time analysis showed a Middle/Late Miocene origin, a period where an extensive marine ingression occurred in South America. Divergence of haplogroups began from the Plio/Pleistocene boundary and the last glacial maximum most likely modeled the current distribution of species, even though it was not the cause of genetic breaks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The action required to stem the environmental and social implications of climate change depends crucially on how humankind shapes technology, economy, lifestyle and policy. With transport CO2 emissions accounting for about a quarter of the total, we examine the contribution of CO2 output by scientific travel. Thankfully for the reputation of the scientific community, CO2 emissions associated with the trips required to present a paper at a scientific conference account for just 0.003% of the yearly total. However, with CO2 emissions for a single conference trip amounting to 7% of an average individual’s total CO2 emissions, scientists should lead by example by demonstrating leadership in addressing the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Positive semidefinite kernels on spheres cross time are on demand in spatial statistics, machine learning and numerical analysis, motivated by applications in the climate, environmental and earth sciences. Most of the recent literature has focused on kernels that are isotropic on the sphere and stationary in time, but this assumption is often overly limited in quantifying spatial dependence properly. A broader class of kernels can be obtained by trading isotropy for axial symmetry, i.e., stationarity with respect to longitudes only. This paper challenges theoretical aspects by providing a spectral representation that uniquely characterizes space-time positive semidefinite kernels that are axially symmetric on the sphere and stationary in time. We also address the problem of partial Fourier inversion and show that it is feasible under mild technical conditions. The second part of the paper focuses on constructive methods to build nonseparable kernels having axial symmetry on the sphere and stationarity over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an in-depth analysis of global research trends in Geosciences from 2014 to 2023. By integrating bibliometric analysis with expert insights from the Deeptime Digital Earth (DDE) initiative, this article identifies key emerging themes shaping the landscape of Earth Sciences. The identification process involved a meticulous analysis of over 400,000 papers from 466 Geosciences journals and approximately 5,800 papers from 93 interdisciplinary journals sourced from the Web of Science and Dimensions database. To map relationships between articles, citation networks were constructed, and spectral clustering algorithms were then employed to identify groups of related research, resulting in 407 clusters. Relevant research terms were extracted using the Log-Likelihood Ratio (LLR) algorithm, followed by statistical analyses on the volume of papers, average publication year, and average citation count within each cluster. Additionally, expert knowledge from DDE Scientific Committee was utilized to select top 30 trends based on their representation, relevance, and impact within Geosciences, and finalize naming of these top trends with consideration of the content and implications of the associated research. This comprehensive approach in systematically delineating and characterizing the trends in a way which is understandable to geoscientists. Thirty significant trends were identified in the field of Geosciences, spanning five domains: deep space, deep time, deep Earth, habitable Earth, and big data. These topics reflect the latest trends and advancements in Geosciences and have the potential to address real-world problems that are closely related to society, science, and technology. The analyzed data of this study only contain those were included in the Web of Science. This study will strongly support the organizations and individual scientists to understand the modern frontier of earth science, especially on solid earth. The organizations such as the surveys or natural science fund could map out areas for future exploration and analyze the hot topics reference to this study. This paper integrates bibliometric analysis with expert insights to highlight the most significant trends on earth science and reach the individual scientist and public by global voting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Editors and Staff of Earth and Space Science thank the reviewers whose selfless work has significantly contributed to the publication process of papers highlighting the best research in geophysics, planetary, and space science in 2023. Peer‐reviewing is a demanding and thankless job. It is however an essential component of the scientific process, requiring the highest standards of integrity and rigor. Reviewers check data and procedures and test reproducibility of methods and results; they share their expertise to verify that the interpretations and conclusions of a paper are consistent with assumptions and existing knowledge. Without this essential work it would not be possible to trust in the scientific process. Publication of papers in a multidisciplinary journal such as Earth and Space Science, that highlights methods, instruments, data and algorithms, relies directly on the expertise of its reviewers to verify and vouch for the quality of the papers that are published. We are indebted to all our reviewers and are delighted to acknowledge them publicly in this Editorial. Plain Language Summary: The Editors and Staff of Earth and Space Science acknowledge the importance of hundreds of peer reviewers who contributed to the scientific rigor of the papers published in the journal. The Editors wish to publicly recognize the 926 reviewers who gave selflessly of their time and expertise in 2023. Key Points: The editors thank the 2023 peer reviewers [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The International Symposium on Andean Geodynamics (ISAG) is an international conference that was held, on average, every 3–4 years in different European cities between 1990 (Grenoble) and 2008 (Nice). These symposia usually offer an opportunity for researchers from Latin American countries and Europe as well as other countries to review the state of knowledge in geosciences on the Andes. After a long period without an edition, the 8th ISAG was organized for the first time in a Latin American country, Ecuador, from 24th to 26th September 2019. The organizing committee led by Pablo Samaniego relied heavily on the Instituto Geofísico of the Escuela Politécnica Nacional (IG-EPN) and the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), in particular through its office in Quito, and through the Laboratoire Mixte International in France and Ecuador: "Seismes et Volcans dans les Andes du Nord" (LMI-SVAN); and the French Embassy in Ecuador. Field trips in tectonics, seismotectonics and volcanology at emblematic sites in Ecuador were organized by researchers from the IRD (Isterre and LMV), the Institut de Radio Protection Nucléaire (IRSN), IG-EPN and the University of Geneva. Four invited speakers gave presentations: Peter Molnar (University of Boulder) on the mechanisms of the Andes uplift, Suzanne Kay (Cornell University) on its magmatism, Victor Ramos (University of Buenos Aires) on the scientific approaches developed through time for the Andean orogeny and Eric Calais (Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris) on the difficulty of dialog between seismic risk specialists and the authorities in Haiti. The symposium also provided an opportunity for more than 250 participants to meet, with more than 80 oral presentations and over 150 posters. As a result of this conference, the Editor of the Journal of South American Earth Sciences proposed to the organizing committee to publish a special issue on the contours of these presentations. Following the peer review process, 19 papers are published in this special issue. These manuscripts reflect the various disciplinary fields, geophysics and deep imaging, tectonics, volcanism, geomorphology and seismic hazard, from the local scale to the Andes as a whole. Not surprisingly, a higher density of works is found in Ecuador and the northern Andes (Figure 1). As this collection of articles reflects the outlines of a symposium and not a specific scientific question, our aim here is not to develop a synthesis of current knowledge on the Andes. We therefore present these articles in sequence, by discipline, although this categorization may appear subjective since some articles are multidisciplinary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rock discontinuity information plays a key role in engineering activities. In severely fragmented and discontinuous samples, the identification accuracy of rock discontinuities can be improved with the help of geologic knowledge with identified spatial features and geoscience interaction mechanisms. Therefore, we proposed a new method – a knowledge-based intelligent recognition method for rock discontinuities that used point cloud data – to correct inaccurate identification by considering the spatial relationships of rock discontinuities. This paper integrated the geologic knowledge bases in rock discontinuity information extraction rules and combined the generative rule inference model with the region growing method for intelligent extraction. In the case study, we developed four typical rule sets as examples based on the constructed rule system to group rock discontinuities and subsume the fractured rock discontinuities. Results show that this new method is effective in identifying and classifying rock discontinuities of complex areas with a greater reduction in manual intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Elat/Timna area in Southern Israel provides an unparalleled opportunity for geological field studies due to its unique geology, spanning from the Neoproterozoic to the Holocene. The well-exposed rocks document the variability and evolution of three major processes: the creation of the Arabian-Nubian Shield during the Neoproterozoic, the accumulation of the Cambrian to Eocene sedimentary sequence, and the Miocene to Recent evolution of the Dead Sea Transform, an active plate boundary. The area's geological diversity and extensive documentation of its geology have made it a particularly important study site for geoscience students. Recently the Geological Survey of Israel published new 1:50,000 scale geological maps of the area, updated by additional fieldwork and presented in a series of reports. This paper presents a brief geological overview and a description of six key locations, complete with maps and photos that are a showcase document to the area's geological uniqueness as an excellently-exposed window into 800 million years of Neoproterozoic to Holocene evolution at the NE African plate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article critiques the comments made by Landing et al. on their paper, emphasizing that their interpretation of Cambrian strata in the Caledonian Highlands is flawed and lacks scientific support. It also discusses the issues with forced lithostratigraphic frameworks, the inadequate correlation methods used by Landing et al., and the inaccuracies in their data and interpretations regarding the Cambrian geological record.

This document provides supporting information for an article titled "Bacterial magnetofossil evidence for enhanced Pacific Ocean respired carbon storage during buildup of Antarctic glaciation." It includes details of materials and studied sites, magnetic and geochemical analytical methods, model configuration and boundary conditions for climate simulation experiments, sea-ice fraction simulation results, the age model adopted for the studied sites, parameters associated with components identified from isothermal remanent magnetization (IRM) unmixing analysis, and the BH/BS ratio from TEM results and IRM unmixing. The study collected sediment samples from two sites in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean to trace deep Pacific Ocean deoxygenation and its relation to Southern Ocean production variations. Magnetic and geochemical measurements were performed to analyze the sediment samples. This document provides information on sediment ages and climate simulation experiments. Sediment ages were determined using a revised age model, and various fluxes were calculated based on the mass accumulation rate. Climate simulations were conducted using the Community Earth System Model, which consists of multiple components that interact with each other. The simulations were based on the climate state at 35 million years ago and included factors such as vegetation distribution, orbital conditions, and CO2 concentrations. The document also includes figures and tables with additional data and results. The given text appears to be a compilation of data tables and references related to various scientific studies and research papers. The tables include numerical values and ratios related to different samples and measurements. The references provide sources for further reading [Extracted from the article]

This communication basically comprise replies to the comments raised by Singh and Rajendran (SR) on our paper Malik et al. (2023) published in Journal of Asian Earth Sciences. We would like to bring to the notice of the readers that our studies and findings are based on a robust methodology towards identification and interpretation of active fault traces. Based on detailed satellite data interpretations, field evidence, paleoseismic studies and GNSS Geodesy data we suggested that Khetpurali Taksal Fault (KTF) is a major fault system with prominent dextral strike-slip motion which marks the segment boundary between the Central and NW Himalaya. Further, an attempt was also made to understand the role of KTF in regional context. We disagree with the claims made by SR. The quires raised by SR are completely baseless and expose their lack of experience and understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) are chemicals that negatively impact endocrine system function, with effluent from paper mills one example of this class of chemicals. In Florida, female Eastern mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki) have been observed with male secondary sexual characteristics at three paper mill-impacted sites, indicative of EDC exposure, and are still found at one site on the Fenholloway River. The potential impacts that paper mill effluent exposure has on the G. holbrooki endocrine system and the stream ecosystem are unknown. The objective of this study was to use gene expression analysis to determine if exposure to an androgen receptor agonist was occurring and to couple this analysis with in vitro assays to evaluate the presence of androgen and progesterone receptor active chemicals in the Fenholloway River. Focused gene expression analyses of masculinized G. holbrooki from downstream of the Fenholloway River paper mill were indicative of androgen exposure, while genes related to reproduction indicated potential progesterone exposure. Hepatic microarray analysis revealed an increase in the expression of metabolic genes in Fenholloway River fish, with similarities in genes and biological processes compared to G. holbrooki exposed to androgens. Water samples collected downstream of the paper mill and at a reference site indicated that progesterone and androgen receptor active chemicals were present at both sites, which corroborates previous chemical analyses. Results indicate that G. holbrooki downstream of the Fenholloway River paper mill are impacted by a mixture of both androgens and progesterones. This research provides data on the mechanisms of how paper mill effluents in Florida are acting as endocrine disruptors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial is presented which discusses the collaborative writing with multiple authors which has additional challenges including varied levels of engagement of coauthors, provision of fair credit through authorship or acknowledgements and acceptance of diversity of work styles. Also discussed are the 10 simple rules for collaboratively writing a multi-authored paper which include to build a writing team wisely; to create a data management plan and to jointly decide on authorship guidelines.

High-resolution bathymetry provides critical information to marine geoscientists. Bathymetric big data help characterise the seafloor and its benthic habitats, understand sedimentary records, and support the development of offshore engineering infrastructures. From September 27th to October 20th, 2022, the new CNR Research Vessel GAIA BLU explored the seafloor of the Naples and Pozzuoli Gulfs, and the Amalfi coastal area (Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy) from 50 to more than 2000 m water depth, acquiring about 5000 km2 of multi beam echosounder data. This area is particularly vulnerable to abrupt changes driven by the dynamics of several volcanic complexes, active in the area, and by human-induced impacts reflecting the proximity to the highly populated and touristic coastal area of Naples and nearby famous islands. For these reasons, the seafloor of the area needs to be known and constantly monitored. The digital bathymetric data previously available are restricted to the shallow highly dynamic area of the Gulf of Naples and appear fragmented as they were acquired in successive years, with different goals thereby using a variety of devices, with markedly different spatial resolutions. In this paper, we present bathymetric maps of the Gulf of Naples and adjacent slope basins at unprecedented resolution using three state-of-the-art multi beam echosounders. These high-resolution data highlight the technological advances of geophysical surveys achieved over the last 20 years and contribute to assessing the most dynamic areas where changes in the seafloor over time can be quantified. The new digital multi-resolution bathymetric products are openly accessible via Marine Geosciences Data System MGDS (refer to section Data Availability, Table 8, for datasets and products DOIs), perfectly matching the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) and Open Science Principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studying Arctic ice formation stays in the focus of research groups over the past decades in the context of ice cover changes, thermal budget and climate agenda in general. Nevertheless, the phenomenon's underlying mechanisms are still not completely understood and described. The main reason for the lack in understanding is the limited experimental access to the field data when it comes to the processes that occur below the ice floe. Thus, there is a need to build competent analogies between the natural (ocean water–ice) and laboratory (here: binary alloy) conditions of the experiment as a step of data preparation for the verification of the mathematical model. In the current paper, the existing qualitative models describing the process of melting and crystallization were expanded and the experimental method was developed copying the layering of the natural ocean water–ice mixture. The experimental set‐up for studying the solidification within the intermediate zone was designed for Al–Cu alloys being the system with appropriate solidus line for creating a sufficient concentration gradient and by that temperature dependent phase fraction under isothermal conditions. The gained experimental data were used for validating a binary phase‐field model for solidification considering moving boundaries. The model includes the description of the free energy of both phases and their respective diffusion coefficients. It allows modeling a binary system at a mesoscopic spatial level by including the concentration‐driven phase transition and resolidification in the two‐phase region. The novel results will help the quantitative understanding of solidification phenomena and are highly‐evaluated from interdisciplinary point of view, including glaciology and geosciences, being ultimately significant for the understanding the global climate change landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the well-posedness of a class of evolutionary variational–hemivariational inequalities coupled with a nonlinear ordinary differential equation in Banach spaces. The proof is based on an iterative approximation scheme showing that the problem has a unique mild solution. In addition, we established the continuity of the flow map with respect to the initial data. Under the general framework, we consider two new applications for modeling of frictional contact for viscoelastic materials. In the first application, we consider Coulomb's friction with normal compliance, and in the second, normal damped response. The structure of the friction coefficient μ is new with motivation from geophysical applications in earth sciences with dependence on an external state variable α and the slip rate | u · τ |. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the advancements and challenges in seabed prospecting technology, emphasizing the importance of seabed geophysical data in understanding the planet and driving marine energy resource exploration and deep earth science research. It calls for further technical refinement in ocean bottom geophysical prospecting techniques and the integration of seabed exploration technology with big data and artificial intelligence. The article also introduces a special issue on seabed prospecting technology, which includes research papers covering a range of prospecting methods and geophysical applications. The document provides summaries of various research studies related to seismic data analysis and exploration, offering key findings and methodologies used in each study. [Extracted from the article]

Identifying pre-seismic atmospheric and ionospheric anomalies is of research importance but also meets difficulties, especially for earthquakes with varying magnitudes, focal depths and focal mechanisms. In this paper, atmospheric‒ionospheric disturbances associated with earthquakes in Nepal (April 25, 2015, M = 7.8 and May 12, 2015, M = 7.3) are investigated using atmospheric and ionospheric parameters. Ionospheric (vertical total electron content (VTEC)) and atmospheric (outgoing long wave radiation (OLR), cloud mask, vertical temperature gradient (VTG)) parameters are archived from IGS GPS stations and INSAT 3D data from Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) of Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India. The abnormal VTEC signal was noticed 3 days and 10 days prior to April 25, 2015 event and 2 days and 6 days prior to the May 12, 2015 event. Inter-quartile range (IQR) and associated running median over one day were determined as the upper limit reference to a signature of VTEC for the 51-days period of the Nepal earthquake, it can be clearly observed that the total electron content (TEC) has increased from the limits of UB (upper bound) at the stations closest to the earthquake epicentre such as LCK-4, LHAZ than the far stations such as IISC, HYDE, SGOC and URUM. Prior to these earthquakes, UB observed a 54‒60% increase in relative amplitude of VTEC. The overall geomagnetic storm condition was thoroughly examined using the global planetary index (Kp) and storm time disturbance index (Dst) over the 51-days period. The IQR range method was used to analyse its abnormal positive and negative signals. We found no geomagnetic signatures caused by geomagnetic storms during the seismic regime The OLR varied from 240 to 340 watts/m2 observed 4 days before the event. The vertical temperature gradient varied from 4.3 to 23.2 K. Daily variations of 51 days for the OLR showed good anomalous atmospheric responses a few days before the event. The shallow depth of the earthquake gives the best coupling, releasing a large amount of energy from the seismic zones, and could be a causal factor in the enhancement of anomalous VTEC patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document serves as a preface to a special issue of SCIENCE CHINA Earth Sciences that focuses on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) and its surrounding areas. The QTP is a significant region that impacts global climate change, organism distribution, and biodiversity patterns. The preface emphasizes the importance of understanding the geological evolution and tectonic dynamics of the QTP, as well as the stratigraphic framework and fossil faunas that contribute to reconstructing its history. The special issue includes 14 papers covering various geological periods and provides updated information on the QTP's paleogeography, paleoclimate, and natural resources. The document discusses the progress made in the study of the QTP and aims to stimulate further research in the area. [Extracted from the article]

Background: The mandate of journal metrics is to measure the performance of journals indexed in the concerned databases based on their citation impact. Such measurements are essential to understand the quality of research output and assess the quality of the journals in which such research gets reported. There are several such journal metrics in use and include Journal Impact Factors (JIF), CiteScore, Article Influence Factor, Eigenfactor (EF), Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP), SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), h-index, i-10 index, Altmetric Attention Score, and PlumX metrics. Journal metrics help decide which journal to choose to publish one's manuscript in. Objective: The purpose of this paper is to highlight the Scopus journal metrics of Indian Earth and Planetary Sciences journals and to identify the top Indian Earth and Planetary Sciences journals based on their journal indices in Scopus for the period 2011 to 2020. Method: Data on the Scopus-indexed Indian Earth and Planetary Sciences journals from SCImago Journal and Country Rank databases available at https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php was collected. These journals' metrics were collected from Scopus Source List available at https://www.scopus.com/sources.uri. Results: Indian Earth and Planetary Sciences Journals in Scopus are ranked based on their journal metrics in Scopus for the period 2011 to 2020. Conclusion: Based on the bibliometric parameters used, the Journal of Geological Society of India and the Journal of Earth System Sciences are the most impactful journals in Earth Science published in India. Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing follows. Both journals are published on behalf of the most influential scientific societies in Earth Science in India by Springer. Several Indian Earth and Planetray Science journals have over four decades of publishing records but have impact factors <1.5. When the journal's prestige is considered, these three journals are joined by the Journal of Astrophysics & Astronomy also. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zircon is the most important accessory mineral in geological research, and it records information on isotopes and trace elements, which is of great significance in Earth science research. Trace elements in zircons can be used to analyze the genesis of zircons, calculate the magma temperature and oxygen fugacity, and trace the magma source. Due to the limitation of visual dimensions, zircon information is mainly shown by low-dimensional diagrams in present studies, so high-dimensional relationships are difficult to determine during trace element analysis of zircons. However, with the development of machine learning, mining the high-dimensional relationships during trace element analysis of zircons has become possible. In this paper, four supervised learning algorithms including random forest, support vector machine, decision tree, and eXtreme Gradient Boosting, were implemented to analyze the trace elements of 3907 magmatic zircons from the GEOROC database, and a precise 13-dimensional data classifier model was established to distinguish the volcanic rift, ocean island, and convergent margin tectonic settings. Based on the results of accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score, eXtreme Gradient Boosting is the best machine learning approach in this paper and its results for accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score are 0.906, 0.907, 0.907, and 0.905, respectively. In summary, eXtreme Gradient Boosting could provide a high-dimensional discriminative approach to distinguish tectonic settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of big data science, the research paradigm in the field of geosciences has also begun to shift to big data‐driven scientific discovery. Researchers need to read a huge amount of literature to locate, extract and aggregate relevant results and data that are published and stored in PDF format for building a scientific database to support the big data‐driven discovery. In this paper, based on the findings of a study about how geoscientists annotate literature and extract and aggregate data, we proposed GeoDeepShovel, a publicly available AI‐assisted data extraction system to support their needs. GeoDeepShovel leverages state‐of‐the‐art neural network models to support researcher(s) easily and accurately annotate papers (in the PDF format) and extract data from tables, figures, maps, etc., in a human–AI collaboration manner. As a part of the Deep‐Time Digital Earth (DDE) program, GeoDeepShovel has been deployed for 8 months, and there are already 400 users from 44 geoscience research teams within the DDE program using it to construct scientific databases on a daily basis, and more than 240 projects and 50,000 documents have been processed for building scientific databases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The discordance between the conceptual de jure delimitation of the world space and the lived territorialities at the sites of the international boundaries is widely accepted in political geography. However, viewing the de facto phenomena as challenging, defying and ignoring the boundaries, or vice versa, is trapped in the modernist dualism. The paper follows Soja''s call for expanding the scope of geographical imagination into three interdependent and interreactive moments of space – conceived, perceived and lived – and through this tri-cameral lens examines the little known spaces on the Sino–Burmese boundary and the territorialities of the Kachin nation delimited into Burma and China. The paper accounts how the power of the ‘conceptual’ controls the perceived moment of space – explicit in the creative adjustments to the boundary by the local actors – while many Kachin spatial practices continue unchanged in the alternative lived space. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article presents a brief introduction of "10th International Symposium in Medical Geography," which was held in Manchester, England in the year of 2003. It represents a selection of papers presented at the Symposium. The conference attracted participants from 23 countries and saw over 100 presentations given over 4 days. The program covered the breadth of contemporary research in medical/health geographies with sessions focusing on issues of health, disease as well as qualitative and quantitative methods. The breadth of papers presented reflected the considerable changes seen in medical geography over the last decade which has, in many ways, reinvigorated our sub-discipline.

This document is a summary of a special collection of papers presented at the Korea-Japan Joint Conference on the Geochemical and Cosmochemical Applications of Microanalysis. The papers discuss various advancements in microanalytical techniques for earth and planetary sciences. Topics covered include dating of Quaternary zircons, microstructural analysis of zircons, observations of Asian and Saharan dust particles, isotopic variations in planetary materials, a new compact magnetic separator, nanoscale analysis of noble gases, chemical analysis of lunar zirconolites, precision of Pb isotopic dating, determination of elemental abundances, development of a new standard material for meteorite zircons, and non-destructive isotope analysis using a negative muon beam. These developments have the potential to improve analytical data and contribute to the advancement of geochemistry and cosmochemistry. [Extracted from the article]

In our original paper (Buono et al., 2020), we investigated the dynamics of degassing (e.g., bubble nucleation and growth, degassing styles and regimes) of H 2 O-, CO 2 - and H 2 O-CO 2 -rich evolved alkaline melts over a wide range of variables (final pressures, decompression rates, volatile compositions and contents, temperatures) through a comprehensive review of previous and new HP (high pressure)-HT (high temperature) decompression experiments. The criticism of Allabar and Nowak regards a restricted part of our results, i.e., those concerning homogeneous bubble nucleation from our new experiments on H 2 O-rich melts. Their aim is refusing the classical nucleation theory (CNT), widely accepted in literature to explain homogeneous bubble nucleation in magmas, for evolved alkaline melts in favour of the spinodal decomposition. We found that the Authors of the Comment do not provide any new evidence in support of their thesis, but they keep only arbitrary and erroneous conjectures of our new experimental data. As we stated in our original paper, the evaluation of the specific bubble nucleation mechanism (CNT vs. spinodal decomposition) is beyond the scope of our research, as appropriate studies on both experimental and natural products would be necessary to shed light on this complex issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gierlowski-Kordesch and Cassle (2015, Earth-Science Reviews 148, 209–227) interpreted microconchids (extinct tentaculitoid encrusters) as strictly marine, rejecting the previous conclusions that these organisms occupied a variety of habitats ranging from marine to non-marine. We argue that due to misunderstanding of previous statements concerning the affinity of microconchids, the authors used an actualistic approach and incorrectly compared microconchids with modern phoronids, which led to oversimplifications and misinterpretations. Also their idea that microconchids, as supposedly strictly marine organisms, were preserved in non-marine settings only because of transport by storm surges and tsunamis is unsupported on paleontological grounds. These errors led to mistaken conclusions about microconchid paleoecology that must be discussed in order to avoid an erroneous interpretation of microconchid paleoenvironments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines Tobler's First Law of Geography, that everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things. Nature of scientific laws from the perspective of the philosophy of science literature; Science studies; Local construction of the law.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to improve performance across a wide range of Earth system prediction tasks. As with any application of AI, it is important for AI to be developed in an ethical and responsible manner to minimize bias and other effects. In this work, we extend our previous work demonstrating how AI can go wrong with weather and climate applications by presenting a categorization of bias for AI in the Earth sciences. This categorization can assist AI developers to identify potential biases that can affect their model throughout the AI development life cycle. We highlight examples from a variety of Earth system prediction tasks of each category of bias. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: As artificial intelligence (AI) grows in popularity, its methods are being applied to a wide range of Earth system prediction tasks. Although AI can facilitate more accurate prediction at many tasks, it is not without potential pitfalls, especially if the developers are not as familiar with its potential drawbacks. In this paper, we provide a classification system for the types of bias that one is likely to see in applying AI to Earth sciences. Our classification system will assist current and future AI developers to recognize where their AI system or data are biased so they can take steps to alleviate this bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a critique of a previously published paper on behavioral and perception geography. The author disagrees with the negative assessment of the power of the image. He claims that the assertions made in the article are too sweeping, the treatment is unbalanced, and errors abound. The assumption that there is a strong relationship between environmental images and actual behavior is widely held. One should not assume that any general environmental image chosen to measure will be directly related to every highly specific environmental action.

Presents a list of abstracts and papers in geography as of March 1929. "The Physical Factors Affecting the Agricultural Utilization of the Southern Rocky Mountains," by Rollin S. Atwood; "Some Open Problems in the Physiograph of North America," by Wallace W. Atwood; "Significant Geographic Aspects of the Exploratory Period in the History of Central America," by Nels A. Bengston.

Presents a list of titles and abstracts of papers regarding geography presented to the Association of American Geographers from 1904 to 1910.

Lake-level changes and hominin occupations in the arid Turkana basin during volcanic closure of the Omo River outflows to the Indian Ocean - comment on the published paper by Boës et al. In black, the insolation curve reported from Boës et al. ([1]) and their inferred evolution of lake level (from fig. 9B in Boës et al., [1]). In their study, Boës et al. argue that Lake Turkana lake levels paralleled the 100-ka insolation curve in response to greater orbitally forced monsoon-related inputs from the Omo River. [Extracted from the article]

For geoscience text, rich domain corpora have become the basis of improving the model performance in word segmentation. However, the lack of domain-specific corpus with annotation labelled has become a major obstacle to professional information mining in geoscience fields. In this paper, we propose a corpus augmentation method based on Levenshtein distance. According to the technique, a geoscience dictionary of 20,137 words was collected and constructed by crawling the keywords from published papers in China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI). The dictionary was further used as the main source of synonyms to enrich the geoscience corpus according to the Levenshtein distance between words. Finally, a Chinese word segmentation model combining the BERT, Bi-gated recurrent neural network (Bi-GRU), and conditional random fields (CRF) was implemented. Geoscience corpus composed of complex long specific vocabularies has been selected to test the proposed word segmentation framework. CNN-LSTM, Bi-LSTM-CRF, and Bi-GRU-CRF models were all selected to evaluate the effects of Levenshtein data augmentation technique. Experiments results prove that the proposed methods achieve a significant performance improvement of more than 10%. It has great potential for natural languages processing tasks like named entity recognition and relation extraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We further support the development of adaptation pathways for the future directions for water management in light of expected climate changes (Finlayson I et al i ., [9]; Gell I et al i ., [17]), being aware that the Australasian chapter in the recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Lawrence I et al i ., [32]) has drawn attention to the difficulties that may arise with water sharing in the basin. ([4]) advocate with confidence that Lake Alexandrina must be kept fresh (as defined by Lester I et al., i [33], presumably) for the foreseeable future, as it was ever thus. ([4]) paper, as it was in similar advocacy papers and reports emerging from South Australia (Fluin I et al i ., [12]; Sim & Muller, [38]; Tibby I et al i ., [42]; and even Chiew I et al i ., [5]; who despite noting the records of the "mid-basin cores [are] indicative of intermediate salinity" [[5], p. 24], conclude that the lake was "largely fresh"). Maybe too, the father of Australian coastal geomorphology, Prof. Eric Bird, was misguided when he wrote in 1962 'After winter rains, and particularly after flooding in the Murray valley, the lakes became I almost fresh i , but in drought periods the reduction in freshwater inflow led to invasion of the lakes by sea water, and I high levels of salinity i were attained' (Bird, [3], p. 204). [Extracted from the article]