edited by P R Sammonds (University of College London, UK) & J M T Thompson (University of Cambridge, UK)

Table of Contents (69k)
Preface (77k)
Chapter 1: Introduction (102k)

Advances in Earth Science outlines the latest developments and new research directions currently being made world-wide in the earth sciences. It contains invited and refereed articles by leading younger researchers on their cutting-edge research, but aimed at a general scientific audience.

This exciting volume explains how powerful methodologies such as satellite remote sensing and supercomputing simulations are now profoundly changing research in the earth sciences; how the earth system is increasingly being viewed in a holistic way, linking the atmosphere, ocean and solid earth; and how the societal impact of the research in the earth sciences has never been more important.

Published by Imperial College Press in collaboration with the Royal Society of London, the book features many articles originating from invited papers published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Eleven of the distinguished contributors hold prestigious Royal Society Research Fellowships.

• Environmental Change:
  • The Price of Climate Change (D S Reay)
  • Carbon in the Atmosphere and Terrestrial Biosphere in the Early Anthropocene (Y Malhi)
  • Dust in the Earth System: The Biogeochemical Linking of Land, Air, and Sea (A Ridgwell & K E Kohfeld)
  • The Late Permian Mass Extinction Event and Recovery: Biological Catastrophe in a Greenhouse World (R J Twitchett)
• Dynamics of the Earth:
  • Space-Plasma Imaging — Past, Present and Future (C N Mitchell)
  • Fault Structure, Stress, Friction and Rupture Dynamics of Earthquakes (E Fukuyama)
  • Some Remarks on the Time Scales of Magmatic Processes Occuring Beneath Island Arc Volcanoes (S P Turner)
  • The Break-Up of Continents and the Generation of Ocean Basins (T A Minshull)
  • Properties and Evolution of the Earth's Core and Geodynamo (F Nimmo & D Alfè)
• Applied Earth Science:
  • Giant Catastrophic Landslides (C R J Kilburn)
  • Remote Monitoring of the Earthquake Cycle Using Satellite Radar Interferometry (T J Wright)
  • Human Influence on the Global Geochemical Cycle of Lead (D J Weiss et al.)
  • Natural and Artificial Platinum and Palladium Occurrences World-Wide (H M Prichard)
  • Data Assimilation and Objectively Optimised Earth Observation (D J Lary & A Koratkar)