Inventing the Earth

What is intelligence? What makes humans Homo sapiens – the intelligent species?Inventing Intelligence is a bold deconstruction of the history of intelligence. Uncoupling our understanding of this most familiar concept from its traditional social science moorings, this book trains a cultural studies lens on intelligence to expose it as yet another form of representation. Inventing Intelligence charts the history of intelligence from its earliest articulations through to postmodern AI. Individual chapters recount the loving spheres of divine intelligence imagined by Plato, the self-conscious stylings of the Renaissance Man, the politics of intelligence in the Enlightenment, as well as contemporary assessments of digital intelligence and the mysterious adventure of Einstein’s brain. Ambitious in its historical sweep, unflinching in its challenge to conventional wisdom, Inventing Intelligence is for everyone and anyone who used to think that the parameters and the stakes of intelligence—evident in the current controversy over “intelligent” design—had been negotiated and finalized.

The Early Earth: Accretion and Differentiation provides a multidisciplinary overview of the state of the art in understanding the formation and primordial evolution of the Earth. The fundamental structure of the Earth as we know it today was inherited from the initial conditions 4.56 billion years ago as a consequence of planetesimal accretion, large impacts among planetary objects, and planetary-scale differentiation. The evolution of the Earth from a molten ball of metal and magma to the tectonically active, dynamic, habitable planet that we know today is unique among the terrestrial planets, and understanding the earliest processes that led to Earth’s current state is the essence of this volume. Important results have emerged from a wide range of disciplines including cosmochemistry, geochemistry, experimental petrology, experimental and theoretical mineral physics and geodynamics. The topics in this volume include: Condensation of primitive objects in the solar nebula, planetary building blocks Early and late accretion and planetary dynamic modeling Primordial differentiation, core formation, Magma Ocean evolution and crystallization This volume will be a valuable resource for graduate students, academics, and researchers in the fields of geophysics, geochemistry, cosmochemistry, and planetary science.

Reliable and detailed information about the Earth’s subsurface is of crucial importance throughout the geosciences. Quantitative integration of all available geophysical and geological data helps to make Earth models more robust and reliable. The aim of this book is to summarize and synthesize the growing literature on combining various types of geophysical and other geoscientific data. The approaches that have been developed to date encompass joint inversion, cooperative inversion, and statistical post-inversion analysis methods, each with different benefits and assumptions. Starting with the foundations of inverse theory, this book systematically describes the mathematical and theoretical aspects of how to best integrate different geophysical datasets with geological prior understanding and other complimentary data. This foundational basis is followed by chapters that demonstrate the diverse range of applications for which integrated methods have been used to date. These range from imaging the hydrogeological properties of the near-surface to natural resource exploration and probing the composition of the lithosphere and the deep Earth. Each chapter is written by leading experts in the field, which makes this book the definitive reference on integrated imaging of the Earth. Highlights of this volume include: Complete coverage of the theoretical foundations of integrated imaging approaches from inverse theory to different coupling methods and quantitative evaluation of the resulting models Comprehensive overview of current applications of integrated imaging including hydrological investigations, natural resource exploration, and imaging the deep Earth Detailed case studies of integrated approaches providing valuable guidance for both experienced users and researchers new to joint inversion. This volume will be a valuable resource for graduate students, academics, industry practitioners, and researchers who are interested in using or developing integrated imaging approaches.

Modeling Uncertainty in the Earth Sciences highlights the various issues, techniques and practical modeling tools available for modeling the uncertainty of complex Earth systems and the impact that it has on practical situations. The aim of the book is to provide an introductory overview which covers a broad range of tried-and-tested tools. Descriptions of concepts, philosophies, challenges, methodologies and workflows give the reader an understanding of the best way to make decisions under uncertainty for Earth Science problems. The book covers key issues such as: Spatial and time aspect; large complexity and dimensionality; computation power; costs of 'engineering' the Earth; uncertainty in the modeling and decision process. Focusing on reliable and practical methods this book provides an invaluable primer for the complex area of decision making with uncertainty in the Earth Sciences.

Complexity is an intrinsic property of natural systems. In the oceanic system, it is linked to many interactions with the atmosphere, geosphere and biosphere with which it exchanges energy and matter. Complexity of the ocean system has, at different spatial and temporal scales, hydrodynamic mechanisms of these exchanges and dynamics of elements and compounds, they are involved in biogeochemical cycles or used as tracers. By its pedagogical approach, it defines the terms, methods, techniques and analytical tools used. Then, it analyzes the consequences of climate change, future projections, human impact and the concept introduced with planktonic pelagic ecosystem component

Though the deep interior of the Earth (and other terrestrial planets) is inaccessible to humans, we are able to combine observational, experimental and computational (theoretical) studies to begin to understand the role of the deep Earth in the dynamics and evolution of the planet. This book brings together a series of reviews of key areas in this important and vibrant field of studies. A range of material properties, including phase transformations and rheological properties, influences the way in which material is circulated within the planet. This circulation re-distributes key materials such as volatiles that affect the pattern of materials circulation. The understanding of deep Earth structure and dynamics is a key to the understanding of evolution and dynamics of terrestrial planets, including planets orbiting other stars. This book contains chapters on deep Earth materials, compositional models, and geophysical studies of material circulation which together provide an invaluable synthesis of deep Earth research. Readership: advanced undergraduates, graduates and researchers in geophysics, mineral physics and geochemistry.

Earth now is dominated by both biogeophysical and anthropogenic processes, as represented in these two images from a simulation of aerosols. Dust (red) from the Sahara sweeps west across the Atlantic Ocean. Sea salt (blue) rises into the atmosphere from winds over the North Atlantic and from a tropical cyclone in the Indian Ocean. Organic and black carbon (green) from biomass burning is notable over the Amazon and Southeast Asia. Plumes of sulfate (white) from fossil fuel burning are particularly prominent over northeastern North America and East Asia. If present trends of dust emissions and fossil fuel burning continues in what we call the Anthropocene epoch, then we could experience high atmospheric CO2 levels leading to unusual warming rarely experienced in Earth’s history. This book focuses on human influences on land, ocean, and the atmosphere, to determine if human activities are operating within or beyond the safe zones of our planet’s biological, chemical, and physical systems. Volume highlights include: • Assessment of civic understanding of Earth and its future • Understanding the role of undergraduate geoscience research and community-driven research on the Anthropocene • Effective communication of science to a broader audience that would include the public, the K-12 science community, or populations underrepresented in the sciences • Public outreach on climate education, geoscience alliance, and scientific reasoning Future Earth is a valuable practical guide for scientists from all disciplines including geoscientists, museum curators, science educators, and public policy makers. This volume was made possible with the support of the National Science Foundation through the National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics (EAR-0120914) and the Future Earth Initiative (DRL-0741760). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

This book covers the fundamentals of satellite microwave instrument calibration, remote sensing sciences and algorithms, as well as the applications of the satellite microwave observations in weather and climate research.

This book is a contribution to the International Year of Planet Earth arising from the 33rd International Geological Congress, held in Oslo, Norway during August 2008. The first section of the book considers aspects of geochemical processes which led to the development of the solid Earth as it is today. The second portion of the book shows how the rapidly-evolving analytical tools and approaches presently used by geochemists may be used to solve emerging environmental and other societal problems. This unique collection of reviews, with contributions from a range of internationally distinguished scientists, will be invaluable reading for advanced students and others interested in the central role geochemistry in the earth sciences.

Deep Earth: Physics and Chemistry of the Lower Mantle and Core highlights recent advances and the latest views of the deep Earth from theoretical, experimental, and observational approaches and offers insight into future research directions on the deep Earth. In recent years, we have just reached a stage where we can perform measurements at the conditions of the center part of the Earth using state-of-the-art techniques, and many reports on the physical and chemical properties of the deep Earth have come out very recently. Novel theoretical models have been complementary to this breakthrough. These new inputs enable us to compare directly with results of precise geophysical and geochemical observations. This volume highlights the recent significant advancements in our understanding of the deep Earth that have occurred as a result, including contributions from mineral/rock physics, geophysics, and geochemistry that relate to the topics of: I. Thermal structure of the lower mantle and core II. Structure, anisotropy, and plasticity of deep Earth materials III. Physical properties of the deep interior IV. Chemistry and phase relations in the lower mantle and core V. Volatiles in the deep Earth The volume will be a valuable resource for researchers and students who study the Earth's interior. The topics of this volume are multidisciplinary, and therefore will be useful to students from a wide variety of fields in the Earth Sciences.