Man as a Geological Agent: An Account of His Actions on Inanimate Nature

Interest in the Anthropocene has risen dramatically and has been the subject of discussion in this journal. Decades prior to the current interest in the Anthropocene, the British geologist Robert Lionel Sherlock published his book Man as a Geological Agent: An Account of His Actions on Inanimate Nature (1922). In that book, Sherlock described the massive amount of sediment displaced in Great Britain up to the year 1914, and concluded that the human agency of surface modification of the Earth exceeded many times the natural processes of surface denudation. With the recent explosion of interest in the Anthropocene, Sherlock’s book has been “rediscovered” and is being frequently cited in the Anthropocene literature.

150-years have passed since the birth of famous Ukrainian and Russian scientist, academician V. I. Vernadsky (1863–1945) – the founder and the first president of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (UAS), as well as the first scientific library in Ukraine. The genius of scientific predictions of V. I. Vernadsky is undeniable: he is the founder of geochemistry, biochemistry and genetic mineralogy; the doctrine about living substance and its role in the evolution of the biosphere and the noosphere theory; the reasoning of the concept of the biosphere – the sphere of living organisms, their place and role in placental scope; the development of biogeochemistry. "There is no more stable "acting" chemical force on the Earth than all the living organisms" – V. I. Vernadsky pointed (Vernadsky, 1965). The scientist pointed that even in the early stages of life nascence the populations and communities always have been evolved. Thus, there is a set of organisms that are closely interacted with each other and with inanimate nature has arisen. According to Vernadsky, from the very beginning of the emergence of the biosphere, the living components (biomonomers and biopolymers) were differed by a great variety. Without such an initial heterogeneity of living systems on Earth, the conversion of solid, liquid and gaseous substances could not be carried out. Thus, the heterogeneity of the biosphere correlated with a variety of physical and chemical organization of different parts of the earth's surface. The chemical elemental composition of the earth's surface as well as elemental composition of living organisms, which are directly involved in chemical transformations on Earth, have never been significantly changed during whole geological history. "The variety of living substance, and life have always performed various biogeochemical functions at the same time" – V. Vernadsky pointed. The chemical transformations, the circulation of substance are evolving in the same time, they are interconnected with the circulation of chemicals, which in turn depend on rain, seasonal and other cyclic changes of light, temperature, pressure – meaning the chronoperiodic changes – V. I. Vernadsky followed the idea of continuity of living substance in outer space. Both – tasks and methodological bases of geochemistry and biogeochemistry were based in the theoretical ecology – environmental aspects of evolution, the principles of systemic analysis, biocenology problems, mathematical modeling, chronoperiodic reaction etc. Theoretical principles of ecology, developed by V. I. Vernadsky, their practical solution in some sections of biology led to the formation of different ecological areas: animal’s, plant’s and microorganism’s ecology, engineering ecology and others. Scientist drew the great attention to human ecology. With the changing of socio-economic formations, a role of a human in biosphere life has increased, especially in an era of scientific and technological revolution. The human activities as a source of energy, the active economic activity of Homo sapiens, the appearance of chemicals of anthropogenic origin, – these and many other directions of human activity allowed V. I. Vernadsky substantiate the place and role of new environmental factor – the noosphere, and hence a new research area – noospherology. Theoretical bases of ecology, developed by V. I. Vernadsky, find their practical implementation in medicine: the development of molecular genetics, genomic medicine, and detection of genetic predisposition to many diseases, so-called multifactorial diseases, environmental protection, the formation of new medicine areas – predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory one. Nowadays, the biomedical community, motivated by works of V. I. Vernadsky, feces the new horizons of therapy, diagnostics and prevention of diseases, based on the environmental factors.

The role of humans as geologic agents in the modification of the earth's surface has been broadly considered through study of so-called tecnogenic features and deposits. In this Master Dissertation, a new approach is presented in which tecnogenic process area analyzed as systems -tecnogenic systems (TS) -in a way similar to that employed in the analysis of depositional systems in Sedimentary Geology. Thus tecnogenic systems of the Municipality of So Paulo were studied within the context of their historical evolution, in which the fundamental point for the origin and development of the present metropolis was the rectification of the Tiet and Pinheiros rivers, for the purpose of generating hydroelectric energy, which gave rise to the TS of Canals and reservoirs. The installation of these canals resulted in the drainage of broad areas of the floodplains associated with the previous meandering regime of the rectified rivers. This led to the urban occupation of these areas by numerous engineering projects on infrastructure, most notably major highways marginal to the rivers. Concomitantly with increasing urbanization, there was increasing demand for primary resource for construction, originating the TS of Mining, marked by intense exploitation of gravel and alluvial sand. With urban sprawl onto the former floodplains, the sand extraction was impeded such that sand had to be extracted from the weathering mantle of granitic-gneissic rocks of the southern region and brought in other municipalities. The occupation of the floodplains also brought with it problems with flooding. The solution to these problems has been via the implantation of retention reservoirs ("piscines"), forming still another new and important tecnogenic system, whose effectiveness is becoming seriously compromised by silting-up due to erosion in regions of the headwaters. The sediments that accumulate in these reservoirs are removed to sanitary landfills (the TS of Residues) seriously limiting their capacity. The growth of the TS of urban occupation to areas outside the dominion of the sediments of the So Paulo Basin, and onto altered granitic-gneissic basement rocks has created numerous areas of risk, subject to landslides which comprise a dynamic, new tecnogenic system (TS of Mass Moviment), together with the TS of Contaminaded Areas, which has resulted from extensive industrialization. Approaching tecnogenic processes and products from a systemic point of view has made it possible to identify the dynamics, interaction and evolution of one system to another. This is proving to be an efficient way to contribute positively to proposal for the treatment of urban and environmental problems of the city of So Paulo.

OBSOLETE: Geomorphological evidence

Human topographic signatures and derived geomorphic processes across landscapes

The essence of Technogene Geology resides in the effective consideration of the man as geological agent, in addition to the consideration of human activities establishment - and in particular the activity mainly human, the production of its livelihood - regarding certain conditions of relief and substratum. The fundamental point that let us treat the man as such is the comparision of his activities with the resulting effects of natural causes of exogenous processes over the earth surface, for instance the climatic changes. Such eomparisons have already been shown by several authors, mainly in respect to the rapid erosion induced by agricultural praetiees. In short, the human action over the nature has geological-geomorphologic consequences concerning to three approach leveis: in the relief modification and physiographieal changes (technogenic reliefs); changes in landscape physiology (creation, induction, intensification or changes in exogenous processes behavior); in the creation of superficial correlative deposits (technogenic deposits), that is to say, setting themselves up as stratigraphical limits. However, the action of the man as geological agent introduces something essentially new, that differentiates him from ali other types of agents and geological factors: the ontological labor category. While factors essentially natural happen through causal chains, the human action happens through teleological postures, purposes, objectives previously idealized (even if the results of this action do not necessarily correspond to the preset objectives and many times even otherwise, since such results is a resultant from a produtive alienated activity).Technogenic deposits are linked to processes resulting from human types of relief appropriation, and, due to the originality of this determination, their existence Period characterize a distinct geological age: Quinary or Technogene. However, the Quaternary to Technogene passage, on stratigraphical point of view, is not homogenous, due exactly to temporal discrepancy (heterocrony) on the development and spreading of the technique through the planet and regions. It is in urban areas that the processes resulting from human transformation action over the nature concentrate and intensify. In the alluvial plains or hillsides of the city of Sao Paulo can be identified processes and deposits, that is a resut not from natural legality rupture but from changes in the category (while patterns of existence of these natural beings) from natural to humanized forni.

Nematodes are the most abundant multi-cellular animals in soil, influencing key processes and functions in terrestrial ecosystems. Yet, little is known about the drivers of nematode abundance and diversity in forest soils across climatic zones. This is despite forests covering approximately 30% of the Earth's land surface, providing many crucial ecosystem services but strongly varying in climatic conditions and associated ecosystem properties across biogeographic zones. Here, we collected nematode samples from 13 forests across a latitudinal gradient. We divided this gradient into temperate, warm-temperate and tropical climatic zones and found that, across the gradient, nematode abundance and diversity were mainly influenced by soil organic carbon content. However, mean annual temperature and total soil phosphorus content in temperate zones, soil pH in warm-temperate zones, and mean annual precipitation in tropical zones were more important in driving nematode alpha-diversity, biomass and abundance. Additionally, nematode beta-diversity was higher in temperate than in warm-temperate and tropical zones. Together, our findings demonstrate that the drivers of nematode diversity in forested ecosystems are affected by the spatial scale and climatic conditions considered. This implies that high resolution studies are needed to accurately predict how soil functions respond if climate conditions move beyond the coping range of soil organisms.

The shift in viewpoint from a static to a mobilistic solid Earth, as brought about by paleomagnetism, opened many new directions of research that continue to be exciting today and hold prospects for an exciting future. Here five topics of current research on Earth's mobilistic surface are reviewed and their future directions discussed. First, dividing Earth's solid surface into two domains, (1) nearly rigid plate interiors and (2) plate boundaries, some of them very wide, leads to a review and discussion of the kinematics of wide plate boundaries. Many more adjustable parameters will be needed to describe the complex kinematics of plate boundaries, which cover ∼15% of Earth surface, than the few dozen parameters needed to describe the kinematics of plate interiors, which cover ∼85% of Earth's surface. Second, the question of the degree of rigidity of plate interiors is discussed. The integral of the velocity gradient across plates interiors is at least a few hundredths or tenths of millimeters per year and in several well‐determined cases less than 2 or 3 mm/yr. Future investigations will no doubt be aimed at narrowing these limits and to expanding the area of Earth's surface over which limits are known. Third, space geodetic data, mainly from very long baseline inter‐ferometry, satellite laser ranging, and the Global Positioning System, have demonstrated a remarkable similarity of velocities of stable plate interiors averaged over a few to a dozen years with plate velocities averaged over a few million years. Already, however, significant differences of a few millimeters per year are emerging, and the tectonic and dynamic significance of these differences need to be evaluated. Fourth, despite more than two decades of investigation, the question of how fast hotspots move relative to one another is still a contentious issue. One group of researchers maintains that maximum speeds are 3 mm/yr, whereas another maintains that speeds are 10–20 mm/yr or more. The differences cannot be reconciled until the uncertainties in plate reconstructions relative to hotspots are systematically and properly incorporated into analyses of hotspot motion. Fifth, paleomagnetists have estimated true polar wander over the past 200 Myr by equating it with the apparent polar wander of hotspots. However, the possible motion among hotspots and the neglect of the uncertainties in reconstructions relative to the hotspots have left these analyses unconvincing. Further progress requires the incorporation of these uncertainties. A possible exception is the apparent polar wander of the hotspots over the past ∼10–20 Myr or less, which requires only small adjustments for plate motion and has presumably smaller uncertainties due to plate reconstructions. The cause of this apparently significant, geologically recent shift of the pole is poorly understood. Compared with the rate and direction of the secular shift of the pole observed this century from the International Latitude Service and for 1976 to 1994 from space geodetic data, the paleomagnetically observed shift is unlikely to be due to the removal of northern hemisphere midlatitude ice sheets, which is the commonly accepted explanation for the shift observed over the past century. I speculate instead that the apparently rapid uplift of the Tibetan Plateau sometime during the past ∼10–20 Myr is at least partly responsible for the geologically recent shift of the pole. Finally, I conclude that the theory of plate tectonics has provided a framework that leads naturally to further quantification of the kinematics and deformation of Earth's solid surface chiefly because of the key assumption of the rigidity of plate interiors, which permits specific predictions to be made. This revolution in quantification still has far to go and holds exciting prospects for future tectonic studies.

Magnetoreception

The article is focused on the issue of climate change mitigation and strin Englishthening the sustainability of cultural heritage objects, taking into account the specifics of the landscape organization of buffer zones, which perform not only the function of their protection in the middle of modern cities, but also function as public spaces. The purpose of the article is to identify threats to climate change for cultural heritage objects and to justify the effectiveness of methods of landscape organization of their buffer zones in order to strin Englishthen the stability of these objects. The article uses a systematic approach, methods of generalization and analogies, empirical and comparative analysis. The research revealed the specifics of the functioning of the "active surface" of the city and its non-urban territories, which is caused by the "two-phase mechanism" of the formation of "urban heat islands" (the direction of heat flows depends on the location of underlying surfaces in space with the contrast of temperatures and time of day - morning/afternoon or evening/night). The results of research on remote sensing of the Earth's surface and satellite monitoring of the thermal environment of cities have been systematized and summarized; factors and conditions for the emergence of "urban heat islands" over cities in temperate zones (Birmingham, Brno, Budapest, Bucharest, Warsaw, Kyiv, Prague) and "urban cool islands" over cities in zones with hot and arid climates (Abu Dhabi, Acre, El Kuwait, Cairo, Casablanca, Singapore, Shanghai). The results of studies of the "thermal behavior" of urban surfaces indicate that the formation of "cool oases" in the summer is caused by the prolonged shading of "urban canyons" in the desert and the cooling effect of the urban (due to shading, landscaping and watering of the territory) and natural breeze in the coastal zone. By analogy with the formation of oases of coolness in the desert, landscape means of strin Englishthening the climate change resistance of cultural heritage sites (as well as public spaces) during the summer overheating of modern cities, there may be additional "mobile" and "stationary" landscaping and watering of urban surfaces, such as "Flower carpets of Brussels," sometimes even with fountains; "blue-green" roofs of Amsterdam, "The Vertical Garden" of Paris and Madrid, "green facades" of Kyiv. The practical value of the study is the ability to take into account its results when developing scientifically sound adaptive-regulatory programs to mitigate the effects of climate change and enhance the sustainability of cultural heritage sites.

IN the Bibliothèque Universelle et Revue Suisse for the 15 th February, M. Favre, in an article on the above subject, remarks that for some years the discovery of traces left by man of the pre-historic age on the earth have multiplied with a rapidity only explicable on the supposition that the population inhabiting a certain region of the globe was formerly abundant, and that numerous observers have recently applied themselves to the subject with extraordinary energy and zeal. He takes up the question whether the age of stone does or does not extend back to the tertiary period, and he thinks it will prove interesting to give a résumé of the various observations tending to show that man inhabited the earth at an epoch anterior to the great extension of the glaciers southwards, and during the tertiary epoch. On à priori grounds no substantial reasons can be advanced against the existence of man at the latter period. The temperate zone was then somewhat warmer than at present, and the temperature of Greeenland and Spitzbergen sufficiently agreeable to be adapted to the development of terrestrial mammals. But it is difficult to represent the duration of the period that elapsed between the end of the tertiary deposits and the termination of the glacial epoch. The portion of the quaternary period characterised by the enormous extension of the glaciers was very protracted, and many ages must have elapsed before the glaciers of the Alps were so large as to be able to transport erratic boulders to the height of 1352 metres on the Jura (near Soleure), and the glacier of the Rhone approximated the Rhine, or perhaps even reached it by passing across the cantons of Valais, of Vaud, of Freibourg, of Berne, of Soleure, and of Aargau. The form of the earth's surface must have presented to the eye of such old world inhabitants a very different aspect from that exhibited at present, and if they already existed in the middle tertiary period, they would have been contemporary with the upheaval of the Alps, and with an almost entirely distinct flora and fauna. Under these circumstances man would have to be included amongst the creatures who have survived two geological periods. M. Favre then proceeds to review the evidence that has at present been collected, embracing the following points:—First, the observations of M. Desnoyers in 1863 made at Saint-Prest near Chartres, but previously (1848) known to M. Boisvillette, and (1860) to MM. Langel and Lartel. Here, in a pliocene formation, were found the bones of the Elephas meridionalis, Hippopotamus major, Equus arnensis, Cervus carnulorum, and two other species of Cervus, Bos, Trojonotherium Cuvieri (a kind of large beaver), striated in such a manner as to convince.M. Desnoyers that the markings were the effects of the handiwork of man. This conclusion has, however, been contested by Sir C. Lyell; but in 1867 arrow or lance-head flint instruments were found in this spot by M. l'Abbé Bourgeois, one of which appeared to have been subjected to the action of fire, though this might have resulted from exposure to forests burning by the action of lightning. Soon afterwards M. Delaunay discovered markings of an analogous nature to the former, on the bone of a Halitherium at Pouancé (Maine et Loire) in a miocene formation containing the bones of Dinotherium. About the same time M. Bourgeois found similar flints in a still older formation (the calcareous strata of Beauce) at Thênay, and at Billy near Selles-sur-Cher. Some differences of opinion exist as to whether these flints are really worked by the hand of man; but the majority of those who have seen them, and are competent to judge, is decidedly in favour of that view. Nevertheless, M. Fraas observes that he has himself seen a lamina of silex become detached from a mass by the action of the sun's rays alone in Egypt; Livingstone and Dr. Wetzstein seem to have observed similar phenomena; and a point that now demands intelligent observation is the greater or less similarity such fragments detached by natural causes bear to the flint instruments or the masses from which they have been detached. He refers also to two fragments of the jaw of a Rhinoceros pleuroceros found in the lacustrian chalk of Limaque, and which appear to have, been grooved by man, which, however, he admits to be doubtful; and to, the observations of Whitney in California, which tend to show the existence of man anterior to the glacial epoch and to the period of the mastodon and elephant, at an epoch since which vertical erosion of the surface has taken place to the extent of two or three thousand feet of hard and crystallisable rocks. Finally he refers to the observations of M. Issel in Piedmont.

Global Distribution of Wetlands

The mean caloric balance of the atmosphere is represented by diagram No. 1, which shows the usual lay-out, but is filled in with new figures according to own calculations based uponS. Fritz's new value of the earth's albedo. Possibilities of exchange between the heat surplus of the earth's surface and the heat deficiency of the atmosphere and between differing spots of the same layer are discussed. Regarding the vertical pattern of heat sources and cold sources, it may be seen that in the humid climates (tropics and temperate zone) the lower troposphere receives considerable amounts of heat and the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere lose heat, while in arid regions (subtropics and the cold pole of the earth), the lower layer does not receive heat or even radiates it. For finding geographic differences in heat economy, the individual changes of temperature of the air may be used. A map of the heat balance of the northern hemisphere in January shows zones of warmth over the warm ocean currents and zones of cooling over the continents.

A ring similar to those surrounding Saturn today may have existed around Earth 34 million years ago, according to John A. O'Keefe of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. He calculates that the ring, composed of tektites (glass meteorites), lasted one to several million years. The shadow of the rings on Earth's surface caused dramatic climatic changes in the temperate zones.The sudden climatic change 34 million years ago has been known to geologists for many years as the terminal Eocene event. This change is considered to be the most profound climatic event to have occurred during the entire Tertiary period, between 65 million and 2 million years ago.

Parent materials: Loess