Exploratory Practices Research Articles

Lines Underground: Exploring and Mapping Venezuela's Cave Environment

How do the lines on a map come into being? What stories do they tell? These questions are examined in the context of cave exploration and mapping in Venezuela. Ethnographic analysis focuses on mapping in the field, the translation of notes into final maps, and discourses surrounding these practices. The lines that cave surveyors sketch in field books while traversing underground passages reveal a dialectic between cartographic and exploratory practices. Two key factors shape this dynamic: first, the experience of probing humans “pushing passages” with no obvious end in sight, and second, the coordinated and skilled use of tools by explorers working in teams. Here, humans define both the scale and perspective of cartographic representations. But bodies slithering along passages make lines, too. This paper simultaneously considers lines of lead on paper and traces of bodies in the earth as a way to think of exploration and mapping as emergent engagements. This case powerfully illustrates the ontogenic nature of maps, highlighting the (re)production of social relations that continually brings them into being along with the environment that engenders these engagements. Finally, cave exploration and mapping illustrate the limits of our vision and technologies to grasp and order nature.

Mirror symmetry of the crust in the oil/gas region of Shengli, China

The concept of mirror-image symmetry describes the correlation between the bottom of a sedimentary basin and the top of the underlying mantle. The degree of mirror symmetry is analyzed here using thickness data from Mesozoic–Cenozoic sedimentary basins and the Moho depth, with the purpose of investigating the implications for tectonics and exploratory practices in oil/gas-bearing basins. Our attention is focused on different tectonic elements of a multi-scale tectonic partition in the oil/gas region of Shengli, southeast of Bohai Bay, China. By applying standard least-squares analysis methods to both datasets, we obtained the average thickness h of the consolidated crust and the mirror symmetry factor a for every tectonic unit, thereby allowing us to explore the correlation between the bottom depth of a sedimentary basin and the top of the underlying mantle. A detailed analysis of data uncertainties and their potential effects led to small fluctuations of h and a within a narrow band around the mean values of 33.26km and −1.43, respectively; thus, the results can be considered valid if they are constrained by these error bounds. The issues of crust–mantle interaction and the deviation of the crust from isostatic equilibrium are also addressed for their tectonic implications. Other structural parameters related to the deep-rooted crust beneath the tectonic elements that make up the study region, such as the ratio R of the thickness of the consolidated crust to the absolute value of the symmetry factor, the ratio k of the maximum sediment thickness to the maximum uplift of the mantle, and the product kh, are also evaluated for their implications in geophysical prospecting. The symmetry signature of the crust is compared to the symmetry of other sedimentary basins in China and in the world, suggesting symmetry as a feasible prognostic tool in exploration for oil/gas reservoirs. The key result is that those locations where oil/gas reservoirs have been found to date are basins in which the crust–mantle interaction is active and the crust is isostatically compensated. Both of those parameters can be quantitatively constrained. Conversely, oil and gas reserves are poor or nonexistent in regions where the crust–mantle interaction is inactive and the crust is far from isostatic equilibrium. However, an intermediate case between these two extreme scenarios, wherein the crust–mantle interaction is rather moderate but the crust is in a state close to isostasy, cannot be entirely ruled out.

Improving Design with Open Innovation: A Flexible Management Technology

OVERVIEW:Is it necessary or even possible to apply the management technology of open innovation to all projects in the same way? An analysis of the practices used in different product development projects in the same European medical company shows that commercially successful projects did apply many of the best practices for open innovation. However, projects were not equally successful. The outcome seems to be highly influenced by the type of collaborative arrangements used and their application. In particular, the analysis indicates that organizational factors seem to be indicative but not sufficient for success, and some open innovation practices were more successful than others. The most open and exploratory practices were not so successful in this company. This might be due to the nature of innovation, which develops in unpredictable and nonlinear ways. These observations suggest that those involved in open innovation need both a broad knowledge of the various potential elements of an open innovation effort and a flexible attitude toward their application.

The Exchanged Portrait and the Lethal Picture: Visualization Techniques and Native Knowledge in Samuel Hearne's Sketches from His Trek to the Arctic Ocean and John Webber's Record of the Northern Pacific

Published accounts of the British circumnavigations from the 1770-80s effect the passage from complex knowledge inscribed in logbooks, astronomical and longitude calculations, charts, and natural history drawings to a new type of illustrated travelogue that associated the art of writing with techniques of visualizing the unknown. This model of maritime exploration and publication remained dominant for at least a century, obscuring other exploratory practices that will be investigated comparatively in this essay. I will contrast the uses of visual media in Samuel Hearne's trek through the plains of Canada (1769-72) with the artistic production developed by John Webber during James Cook's last voyage to the Pacific Ocean (1776-80). In comparing engravings from the two accounts, I will examine the ways in which different forms of expeditions and their specific visualizing techniques affect power relations during encounters as well as the subsequent production of knowledge. The different uses and appropriations of inscription techniques played a decisive role in the relationship established with the natives who were encountered by scientific maritime expeditions and by individual (or small team) explorations by ground.

The Exchanged Portrait and the Lethal Picture: Visualization Techniques and Native Knowledge in Samuel Hearne's Sketches from His Trek to the Arctic Ocean and John Webber's Record of the Northern Pacific

Published accounts of the British circumnavigations from the 1770-80s effect the passage from complex knowledge inscribed in logbooks, astronomical and longitude calculations, charts, and natural history drawings to a new type of illustrated travelogue that associated the art of writing with techniques of visualizing the unknown. This model of maritime exploration and publication remained dominant for at least a century, obscuring other exploratory practices that will be investigated comparatively in this essay. I will contrast the uses of visual media in Samuel Hearne's trek through the plains of Canada (1769-72) with the artistic production developed by John Webber during James Cook's last voyage to the Pacific Ocean (1776-80). In comparing engravings from the two accounts, I will examine the ways in which different forms of expeditions and their specific visualizing techniques affect power relations during encounters as well as the subsequent production of knowledge. The different uses and appropriations of inscription techniques played a decisive role in the relationship established with the natives who were encountered by scientific maritime expeditions and by individual (or small team) explorations by ground.