Although predictive power and explanatory insight are both desiderata of scientific models, these features are often in tension with each other and cannot be simultaneously maximized. In such situations, scientists may adopt what I term a ‘division of cognitive labor’ among models, using different models for the purposes of explanation and prediction, respectively, even for the exact same phenomenon being investigated. Adopting this strategy raises a number of issues, however, which have received inadequate philosophical attention. More specifically, while one implication (...) may be that it is inappropriate to judge explanatory models by the same standards of quantitative accuracy as predictive models, there still needs to be some way of either confirming or rejecting these model explanations. Here I argue that robustness analyses have a central role to play in testing highly idealized explanatory models. I illustrate these points with two examples of explanatory models from the field of geomorphology. (shrink)

This paper presents an in-depth analysis and research on the spatial distribution pattern of the urban landscape in the Central Plains digital landscape form and proposes an optimization scheme. Based on the basic theories of systematics and complexity, this paper analyzes the self-similar characteristics of urban morphology, establishes the concept of schema, and constructs a multiscale and multilevel morphological map research framework by drawing on the “planar pattern” morphological analysis method of the school and the “matrix, patch, and corridor” spatial (...) expression model of landscape ecology. The framework of morphological map research at multiple scales has been established, and the theory and method of describing, understanding, judging, and analyzing morphological evolution have been formed. Cities have self-similarity at different scales, and urban evolution is a process of recursion from small-scale hierarchy to large-scale hierarchy, and hierarchy is a phenomenon presented by the natural evolution of cities. After any morphological process is completed, it can only be transformed into the other two ways, so the static morphological description can be transformed into dynamic morphological process analysis. (shrink)

In the spirit of explanatory pluralism, this chapter argues that causal and noncausal explanations of a phenomenon are compatible, each being useful for bringing out different sorts of insights. After reviewing a model-based account of scientific explanation, which can accommodate causal and noncausal explanations alike, an important core conception of noncausal explanation is identified. This noncausal form of model-based explanation is illustrated using the example of how Earth scientists in a subfield known as aeolian geomorphology are explaining the formation (...) of regularlyspaced sand ripples. The chapter concludes that even when it comes to everyday "medium-sized dry goods" such as sand ripples, where there is a complete causal story to be told, one can find examples of noncausal scientific explanations. (shrink)

Nature sports include pursuits such as paragliding, white-water kayaking, free diving, mountaineering, and surfing. Participants in nature sports interact with geographical features (e.g. mountains, rivers, oceans, snow fields, ice sheets, caves, rock faces) as well as the dynamic forces that produce them (e.g. gravity, waves, thermal currents, flowing water, wind, rain, sun). In this article, I engage a representational approach to analyze how participants in nature sports interact with nature. Anthropocentric representations privilege participants’ interests, wants, desires, and ends; they typically (...) refer to claims of conquest/achievement in nature, or praise nature for its therapeutic qualities. In contradistinction, ecocentric representations recognize humankind as one entity in an interdependent world that comprises all living organisms and the geological processes and geomorphological features that sustain them. Ecocentric representations of nature sports highlight networks of participants and landforms that help preserve a balance between people and the environment. Yet, notwithstanding the allure of ecocentric representations, especially in the wake of evidence that human-induced greenhouse gases are predisposing environmental calamities, there is a substantial gap between the ontological concepts and categories of ecocentrism and lived sporting experiences and practices in nature. (shrink)

This accessible and engaging text explores the relationship between philosophy, science and physical geography. It addresses an imbalance that exists in opinion, teaching and to a lesser extent research, between a philosophically enriched human geography and a perceived philosophically ignorant physical geography. Science, Philosophy and Physical Geography , challenges the myth that there is a single self-evident scientific method, that can and is applied in a straightforward manner by physical geographers. It demonstrates the variety of alternative philosophical perspectives. Furthermore it (...) emphasizes the difference that the real world geographical context and the geographer make to the study of environmental phenomenon. This includes a consideration of the dynamic relationship between human and physical geography. Finally, it demonstrates the relevance of philosophy for both an understanding of published material and for the design and implementation of studies in physical geography. Key themes such as global warming, species and evolution and fluvial geomorphology are used to provide illustrations of key concepts in each chapter. Further reading is provided at the end of each chapter. (shrink)

Philosophy, it is said, has always been concerned with space and nature. Since Aristotle, even since the pre-Socratics, and up to Descartes and Leibniz at least, no one was worthy of the title of philosopher if he had not written something about meteors. And not only about meteors: observations on the movements of the Earth and changes in nature, changes of state or speed, transitions and contacts between strange elements, spatial geometrical properties, the order of coexistences - their limits - (...) and the correspondences between scales; force and matter, constructive typologies and geomorphology were an indissoluble part of the philosophical field. It is not that philosophy reflected on these external themes, but that these themes formed the fabric of the philosophical body. What happened, then, between the end of the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth century? How did the themes related to space and nature become diluted and disappear from philosophical discourses? It is not a question of the split between man and nature, ancient and incommensurable, but of the separation of nature itself, modern and discontinuous, by means of which it was placed alongside the barren, the inert, as a category. -/- La filosofía, se dice, se ocupó siempre de los espacios y de la naturaleza. Desde Aristóteles, incluso desde los presocráticos, y hasta Descartes y Leibniz por lo menos, nadie era digno del título de filósofo si no había escrito algo sobre los meteoros. Y no sólo sobre los meteoros: las observaciones sobre los movimientos de la Tierra y la mudanza en la naturaleza, los cambios de estado o de velocidad, las transiciones y los contactos entre elementos extraños, las propiedades geométricas espaciales, el orden de las coexistencias —sus límites— y las correspondencias entre las escalas; la fuerza y la materia, las tipologías constructivas y la geomorfología formaban parte indisoluble del campo filosófico. No es que la filosofía reflexionase sobre esos temas externos, sino que esos temas formaban el tejido del cuerpo filosófico. ¿Qué sucedió, entonces, entre el final del siglo XVII y la primera mitad del siglo XVIII? ¿Cómo fue que los temas relacionados con el espacio y la naturaleza se diluyeron y desaparecieron de los discursos filosóficos? No se trata de la escisión entre hombre y naturaleza, antigua e inconmensurable, sino de la separación de sí de la naturaleza misma, moderna y discontinua, por medio de la cual fue puesta al lado de lo yerto, lo inerte, como una categoría. (shrink)

Resumo: A literatura disponível a respeito do currículo cultural da Educação Física denota a necessidade de expandir o conceito de “mapeamento” enquanto operador fundamental ao trabalho pedagógico. O último trabalho dedicado à questão – O mapeamento no currículo cultural da Educação Física: cartografia e vadiagem, publicado em 2022 na revista Educação e Filosofia, pontua a dificuldade de delimitação do mapeamento, assim como abre caminho para uma relação inédita com a cartografia, do modo imaginado por Gilles Deleuze e Félix Guattari. Partimos (...) do pressuposto que tal dificuldade provém do próprio funcionamento do mapeamento. O artigo desconsidera que o mapeamento só acontece de maneira articulada em dois movimentos concomitantes: o primeiro, que chamamos genealógico; e o segundo, que arriscamos nomear como geomorfológico. Neste estudo, apoiamo-nos no pensamento deleuze-guattariano para desenvolver esse raciocínio. Argumentamos que o mapeamento toma como inspiração a cartografia ressignificada, o que levará o professore ou a professora a posicionar-se como inventor ou inventora da correlação entre as forças e os poderes de um território em particular, qual seja, a escola. Para tanto, baseamo-nos em três noções principais: 1) mapeamento e genealogia; 2) mapeamento e geomorfologia; e a 3) ressignificação da cartografia. Palavras-chave: Educação Física; Currículo Cultural; Mapeamento; Geomorfologia; Cartografia. Mapping in the cultural curriculum of Physical Education: the double movement Abstract: The literature on the cultural curriculum of physical education makes it clear that we must expand the concept of "mapping" as a fundamental operator in pedagogical work. The last job dedicated to the issue, "Mapping in the Cultural Curriculum of Physical Education: Cartography and Wandering," published in 2022 in the journal Educação e Filosofia, definitively points out the difficulty of delimiting mapping. It also opens the way for an unprecedented relationship with cartography, as envisioned by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. We are certain that this difficulty stems from the very functioning of mapping. The article fails to acknowledge that mapping occurs in two distinct, simultaneous movements: the first, which we refer to as genealogical, and the second, which we propose to call geomorphological. This study is based on Deleuze-Guattarian thinking. We assert that mapping is inspired by re-signified cartography, which positions teachers as inventors of the correlation between the forces and powers of a particular territory, namely the school. To do this, we base ourselves on three main notions: 1) mapping and genealogy; 2) mapping and geomorphology; and 3) the re-signification of cartography. Keywords: Physical Education; Cultural Curriculum; Mapping; Geomorphology; Cartography. Mapeo en el currículo cultural de la Educación Física: el doble movimiento Resumen: La literatura disponible sobre el currículo cultural de Educación Física indica la necesidad de ampliar el concepto de «cartografía» como operación fundamental en el trabajo pedagógico. El último trabajo dedicado al tema, Mapping in the cultural curriculum of Physical Education: cartography and wanderings, publicado en 2022 en la revista Educación e Filosofia, señala la dificultad de delimitar el mapeo y abre el camino a una relación sin precedentes con la cartografía, tal como la concibieron Gilles Deleuze y Félix Guattari. Partimos de la suposición de que esta dificultad se debe al propio funcionamiento del mapeo. El artículo obvia el hecho de que el mapeo solo ocurre de forma articulada mediante dos movimientos concomitantes: el primero, al que llamamos genealógico, y el segundo, que podríamos llamar geomorfológico. En este estudio, partimos del pensamiento de Deleuze y Guattari para desarrollar este razonamiento. Afirmamos que el mapeo está inspirado en una cartografía reinterpretada, que llevará a los docentes a posicionarse como creadores de la correlación entre las fuerzas y los poderes de un territorio en particular: la escuela. Para ello, nos basamos en tres conceptos principales: 1) el mapeo y la genealogía; 2) el mapeo y la geomorfología; y 3) la reinterpretación de la cartografía. Palabras clave: Educación Física; Currículo Cultural; Mapeo; Geomorfología; Cartografía. Data de registro: 10/08/2024 Data de aceite: 19/03/2025. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to examine how weather phenomena affect the landscape, not only in terms of its visual or geomorphological appearance, but also by modifying the emotional disposition that the landscape evokes. By adopting an atmospheric perspective, I intend to demonstrate that each landscape possesses its own mood (Stimmung), closely linked to the atmospheric-climatic events that unfold within it. My hypothesis is that such phenomena, due to their pervasiveness on a sensory level, can produce a real metamorphosis (...) of the landscape, which also extends to the affective qualities that the landscape ‘radiates’, and which therefore do not primarily depend on the perceiver. My analysis is structured into two parts. In the first part, a) I attempt to prove that meteorological and climatic atmospheres, due to their extra-psychic nature, cannot be explained in empathic-projective terms; and b) I propose understanding the landscape as an expressive whole whose ‘emotional physiognomy’ changes according to the atmospheres that pass through it. In the second part, I support my argument with a literary example to show how the fundamental emotional tone (Grundstimmung) of the landscape can change radically following the manifestation of a specific atmospheric phenomenon. (shrink)

Abstract:Geodiversity is defined as “the natural range (diversity) of geological (rocks, minerals, fossils), geomorphological (land form, processes) and soil features. It includes their assemblages, relationships, properties, interpretations and systems.” This very physical definition is enlarged by a holistic point of view associated to cultural geomorphology which embraces social and artistic representations of landforms, sometimes considered as a geo-heritage. In this point of view, coal mining memory is symbolized by heap and mine's galleries which are anthropogenic landforms. With abandonment, their (...) appearance has changed through time and in the North of France, the “black gold” became “green gold.” This paper aims to reconstitute the landscape trajectories of these recently rediscovered “coalscapes” and focuses on European coal landscapes, particularly on the Atlantic Front. The studies of the iconography of the National Work Archives compared to present landscapes shows that new heritage statuses focus on picturesque landscape but also reveal an evolution of this model: after having included ecology, (geo)heritage coalscapes make the picturesque model change by taking into account environmental changes, new touristic practices (eco and geo-tourism) and new perceptions of industrial and mining landscapes. In a broader sense, this perception of landscapes refers to the anthropocene times, where human artifacts such as mining features represent human prints on the environment. This paper questions European coal landscape as symbols of migrating landscapes that linked, scientifically and aesthetically, old and modern Europe. (shrink)

This article aims to characterize the main geomorphological dynamics in the Itea plain. Based on three years of field surveys, numerous cartographic documents, oceanographic projects as well as several stratigraphic sections accessible in the plain, this paper presents the results in the form of two previously unpublished geomorphological maps. The results demonstrate the predominance of the Hylaithos River in the Holocene construction of the plain and a clear dissymmetry between deltaic environments in Itea and a recently filled coastal marsh at (...) Kirrha. The study of coastal dynamics, associated with oceanographic sonar and underwater seismic surveys, has also made it possible to locate submerged structures whose association with the ancient port of Delphi has yet to be discussed. (shrink)

Considering the three intrinsic components of streamflow time series, the overall performance of the streamflow modeling tool is associated with the correct estimation of these components. In this study, a new hybrid method based on the wavelet transform as a multiresolution forecasting tool and exponential smoothing method, with two presented scenarios, was introduced. To this end, the performance of the proposed method was investigated versus four conventional methods of the autoregressive integrated moving average, ES ad-hoc, artificial neural network, and wavelet-ANN (...) for daily and monthly streamflow modeling of West Nishnabotna and Trinity River watersheds with different hydro-geomorphological conditions. In the presented WES technique, firstly, WT is employed for decomposing the observed signal to one approximation and more diverse components of subseries. Then, for the first scenario, only two subseries are introduced to the model as input parameters; however, for the second scenario, decomposed subseries are separately used as the inputs of ES models. The obtained results indicated that combining WT with the ES method and ANN led to more accurate modeling. The proposed methodology that used all decomposed subseries separately improved the efficiency of models up to 30% and 10% for the daily dataset and up to 88% and 57% for the monthly dataset, respectively, for the West Nishnabotna and Trinity Rivers. (shrink)

TOPOGRAPHICAL MISSIONS ΤΟ LATO I (2005-2007): A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE PLAN BY J. DEMARGNE AND V. SEYK (1901) In the years 2005 and 2007 the site of Lato in Crete was the object of three new topographical and geomorphological study campaigns. The works carried out over the entire site permitted in particular the analysis of the only to date available complete plan of the city, that of J. Demargne and the architect V. Seyk undertaken in 1900. The objectif was (...) to establish its documentary interest and limits in use, and thus better prepare new measurements and guide renewed field work. To do this, it was first necessary (I) to retrace the history of previous graphic documentation, (II) to analyse the work of J. Demargne and V. Seyk, so as (III) to gauge its value against the standards of current research, and (IV) to establish its interest in terms of the cultural resource management of the site. A second paper to appear in BCH will develop, on basis of a new documentation, the urban and morphological analysis of the remains of Lato. (shrink)

The objective is that of looking for an explanation for the environmental crisis not only as a negative effect of industrialization and massification, but also as a consequence of a historical succession of philosophical and cultural options. These can be recognized in the «fractures» of philosophical, religious, scientific nature, in which it is possible today to rediscover the premises for a split in the relationship of complementarity between man and nature, the results of which have seen man consciously change his (...) own relationship with nature, from «complementary integration» to «unilateral abuse of power». It was the school of Frankfurt, headed by Adorno that, in our century, placed thinking on the crisis regarding the relationship between man and nature on a primary level, making the base of the contemporary western ratio, according to which nature is considered to be a passive object to be submitted to all possible exploitation, date back to Biblical tradition. In a diametrically opposed perspective, the Greek civilization held nature in high consideration and, consequently, the relationship between nature and man was built on different bases. Nature: an integral part of the «cosmos». The act of conceiving the cosmos as a vast organic system meant, according to the Greek philosophy, placing man in nature and, not by chance, the first Western philosophers were naturalists: in fact, they went in search of the regulative laws of the universe in natural phenomena. But the crisis of the man-nature relationship for a certain contemporary philosophical outlook has roots that are even deeper and more complex. Other contemporary philosophers, from Husserl, actually shifted their own reflection during the XVI and XVII century in particular, that is, at the birth of modern science with Cartesio and Galileo. These concepts have been thoroughly analyzed and criticized in the present-day era (Heiddeger, Husserl, Derrida, Habermas …) in the effort to repropose a fair relationship of parthership between man and nature; research that obviously assumes a second philosophical and cultural divarication. This concept of man's superiority over nature and of nature as an object of possession continues with the age of llluminism, with English Empiricism in the XVII and XVIII century and with Positivism in the last century: through the sectorialization of the disciplines, empirical research and technological specialization, the goal is increasingly becoming that of responding to the growing problems of the world with ever increasing promptness. The third cultural «fracture» that precedes the birth of subjective revision, even though for a short time, took place in the religious world reformed by Calvinism. With Protestantism, in fact, man's attitude towards nature changed, even within the Christian religion and the Jewish tradition: the salvation of the soul could take place through the «good governing» of one's daily life and material success of each individual was demonstrated and interpreted as a sign of the gratification and favour of God. This concept is considered, maybe «improperly», to date back to the birth of the Capitalistic and Industrialistic philosophy that implies the strengthening of man's rule over nature in virtue of the «economic reason» that lies at the base of human behaviour, according to which the value of the exchange of material goods constitutes the necessary standard of measurement of man's relationships with reality. But the progressive distancing of man from nature was also strengthened within the Christian world, with the birth of Protestantism. This is what we define the third fracture: the conviction that happiness and material success should be interpreted as a sign of God's gratification contrasts with the world of poverty, with the world seen as a passage-way towards a non-terrestrial happiness of the Christian religion and the Jewish tradition. And the step is brief, according to certain writers, towards the spirit of capitalism and industrialism according to which the value of any good is measured only by the economical value that can be deduced from it. These, in synthesis, are the «historical passages» of the divarication between man and nature: and today? The industrial revolution that has dragged the disruptive urbanism behind it has invested the city and, not lastly, the environment in its own totality of meaning: as physical space, biological space, political space and social space. Over the past few decades the territory has been subdivided in the same way in which the division of work takes place within the productive process: the aptitude that a certain area has to be destined to certain uses and not to others is determined by purely economical, infrastructural, industrial conditions and any kind of environmental conditioning is overlooked. The territory, thus, is divided into areas of «value» (in that they contribute to economical development), or otherwise in «non value» areas (in that they are extraneous to the process of this development). During the industrial period, territory is therefore the home of economical activity and infrastructural facilities that render these activities possible and convenient: a so-called «plate» where «one places the abstract picture of the man/machine relationship» that, once nature has been defeated, uses and consumes the territory, an infinite resource dependent on the economical theories of development. The crisis of this model began to reveal itself with environmental decay: the negative results of the exaggerated exploitation of any economical resource have brought its quantitative and qualitative narrowness to light: pollution has shown the potential danger of this involution to the collective conscience. Certain researchers have recently attempted to substitute the quantitative method of accounting based on the values of exchange, referring to the values of use: an indicator that, for example, measures the «gross nation well-being» for which, moreover, as G.Nebbia himself sustains, «a unit in which this can be expressed» is as yet unknown. We live, therefore, in a society that has created vast super-specialized technology which, however, increases the distance between the human community and the understanding of the real qualitative consistency of human relations and of the limits of the available resources. To express this using B. Commoner's words, «we live in a historical moment characterized by an enormous technological power and by eternal human misery … Our arrival at the crisis (environmental) is due to the fact that the means used by us in order to extract wealth from the ecosphere are destructive to the ecosphere itself». But the vastness of economical development contrasts today with the «sense of the limit» that society retains necessary for the exploitation of the resources. This awareness implies the necessity of disciplining economical development, i.e. the intransgressible need for programming: programming, however, that is strictly connected to planning as an instrument for the regulation of the effects of economical development on territorial transformation. The slogan that reads «start with territory and environment» means considering the territory no longer as an object of intervention, almost an obligation to be surpassed in order to make the productive machine efficient, but as a complex subject: a combination of anthropic, natural, cultural, environmental, landscape and productive factors. If a tightly-bound connection exists between social expectations for environmental and land planning quality, then the planners must finally make up their minds to abandon the «classical»—quantitative—models and rules borrowed from the positive social-economical sciences, that are, at this point, inequivocably inable to evaluate the multiple qualitative variables on their own. This is definitely not a step back to Rosseau's «good wilderness»: simply because society has recognized the collective control of the environmental «variable», apart from the economical variable, as fundamental to its own existance and survival, the interdisciplinary cognitive-intentional contribution becomes more and more necessary, to be taken as an integrated reinterpretation of the vocations of the territory towards the plan. Such au important process should be not fragmented into incommunicable sectorial itineraries, but coordinated on all levels of discipline and competences. Therefore, before any choice regarding the plan, the «conceptual picture» that must inspire the choice itself must be reliably defined: it is unthinkable to continue under the wrong conception (that, unfortunately, seems to be long-lasting) according to which the concept of environment is reduced to the concept of natural beauty. It is necessary, therefore, to conceive the environment in its totality of significance, no longer remaining tied to the idealistic, impressionistic, elitist or sectorial conceptions, but one must also investigate in areas that are usually foreign to the environmental question. As far as Di Giovine is concerned, managing the environment essentially means putting together a series of economical, naturalistic, hygienic, sanitary, cultural … interests in a dynamic, procedural way. Other scholars agree on the surpassing of a landscape conception aimed at idealistic precepts: according to Alessandro Dal Piaz «a better suited consideration of the sistemic character of the environment is necessary and, therefore, of the definition of directions and norms for the integrated protection of all of the environmental components (ground, waters, atmosphere, geomorphological conformations, vegetation, fauna, cultural assets, ethno graphic wealth, etc.), as well as the integration of environmental protection in urbanistic and territorial protection». It is exactly this integration that in fact permits the social, cultural and economical importance of environmental protection to be highlighted, but not only: by connecting environmental protection to planning, one passes from a strategy of preservation of the exterior aspects to a strategy of active protection, programmed and related to developments needs. This means defining the hypotheses of economic-settling development only as far as these are compatible with the specific objectives of environmental protection. But which plan is able to translate the previously outlined theoretical presumptions into practice? Or, otherwise, is the traditional plan, as it is structured in its content and form, able to guarantee the secure safeguarding and utilization of the environment? And more: is the plan, whichever it is, really the only suitable instrument? The reflection, therefore, as to which instrument is capable of carrying out the goal of environmental protection is revealed to be necessary. For this reason, it becomes fundamentally important to verify whether the giuridical picture in Italy that we have at our disposal is congruent not only with the global concepts of the various environmental themes, but also sufficient to guarantee the safety of a «positive» and incisive environmental strategy. From this evaluation, one cannot but realize how the legislative body is fraying and segmented in several sectors, with evident contradictions and/or serious absences. Protection «remains chopped up» in the single disciplinary circles in such a way as that the problems, instead of being considered in a sole question, are considered and treated in a sectorial logic that reflects the legislative reality and «remains tied to it». The limit of sectoriality never blends with the acquired knowledge of the sistemic character of the notion of environment. We refer to the lack of real coordination of the various duties defined by the myriad of laws in force, to the difficulties involved in being able to govern the environmental complexness and specificness that influence the entire territory. This is the reason for the plan, but which plan? A historical reading aimed at verifying whether the traditional plans can now translate the new stimulii generated by environmental problems should therefore be developed in detail. It is certain that one cannot but see what one has under one's nose: many ugly cities, deforested mountains, abused landscapes … but one cannot put the «blame» solely on plans. Instead, let's ask ourselves how cities would be today without these plans. Certainly, errors and contradictions have marked the strategies of plan, but it cannot be «redeeming» for us to claim that they are the main, if not the sole, culprits of the current situation of decay. All of these questions evidently, lead to the need of changing the plan, not so much by adding a few more norms, but by reviewing the theoretical statement: if not a complete turn-over of the traditional objective, certainly a hierarchization needs to be done, placing the protection of the environmental quality as the main option to be followed. And there is no doubt that a strategy based on interdisciplinarity, on the method of globality of the analyses, on the constant consideration of the necessity of a fundamentally preventive vision, i.e. a plan strategy, has greater possibilities of success with respect to sectorial laws or politics. Today, in any case, reflection becomes an obligation: never before has the environmental conscience made such long strides in society and, today more than ever, what should be changed, must be changed. From laws to plans, therefore, we must regain what we believe is right and, in the meantime, renew what by now has shown itself to be outdated by our way of viewing the environment. Risk is always present: we may always have optimum laws, optimum plans, but our wretched political power will have to change. (shrink)

Though virtually unknown before 1851, the exceptionally scenic Yosemite Valley of California soon attracted continuing attention as a geological anomaly. J. D. Whitney, state geologist and Harvard professor, advocated a tectonic theory of its origin. Despite its seemingly official status, Whitney's theory even failed to convince some of his own subordinates. An unexpectedly effective dissenter not associated with Whitney was John Muir, then a tatterdemalion vagrant. Though the two men never met, conflict between their inflexible and mutually exclusive geological theories (...) persisted well into the twentieth century. Eventually, both dogmatists were proved wrong, but Muir had come closer to what we now accept. Several geological and geomorphological issues of importance entered into later discussions of Yosemite. The whole controversy, moreover, illuminates such further issues as the influence of preconceptions on theorizing, the role of authority in science, and the interactions of professionals with amateurs. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Triangular Landscapes: Environment, Society, and the State in the Nile Delta under Roman Rule by Katherine BlouinBrendan HaugKatherine Blouin. Triangular Landscapes: Environment, Society, and the State in the Nile Delta under Roman Rule. London and New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. xxvi + 429 pp. 14 halftones, 28 tables, 5 maps. Cloth, $150.00.American journalist Hal Boyle is often said to have remarked, “What makes a river so restful (...) to people is that it doesn’t have any doubt—it is sure to get where it is going and it doesn’t want to go anywhere else.” Restful, perhaps. But the single-mindedness of a river’s flow can also be a source of anxiety. In contemporary America, the Lower Mississippi’s steady westward shift is a prominent example. Were its floodgates removed and the river allowed to “get where it is going,” it would soon abandon the cities of Baton Rouge and New Orleans, decimating their port-dependent economies.An awareness of such fluvial hazards has percolated into the study of ancient history over the last decade and a half, and works on the ancient Mediterranean’s riverine environments have been appearing with frequency. As in ancient environmental [End Page 528] history more broadly, Francophone scholars have led the way; Philippe Leveau’s work on the Rhône and the multiple colloquia spearheaded by Ella Hermon are particularly notable (e.g., Philippe Leveau, ed. “Le Rhône romain,” Gallia 56 [1999]; Ella Hermon, ed. Riparia dans l’Empire romain [2010]). On the Anglophone side, Gregory Aldrete’s Floods of the Tiber in Ancient Rome 2007, Peter Thonemann’s The Maeander Valley 2011, and Brian Campbell’s Rivers and the Power of Ancient Rome 2012 are essential.Katherine Blouin’s new study of the Mendesian nome (administrative division) in Egypt’s northeastern Nile Delta unites these twin streams. The book, an updated version of a French dissertation supervised by Hermon, focuses on the changing course and eventual extinction of the Nile’s Mendesian branch, documenting the effects of a shifting fluvial landscape, environmental stressors, and Roman agro-fiscal policy on the society and economy of the Delta during the first few centuries c.e. By merging Francophone scholarship on rivers, theoretical perspectives drawn from American environmental history, and a thorough command of the papyrological evidence, Blouin has made a significant contribution to the emerging field of ancient environmental history.In her introduction, Blouin grounds herself in what Hermon dubs “l’approche écosystémique” to environmental history. Casting aside environmental determinism and lachrymose tales of pristine nature violated (“l’approche égologique”), ecosystems thinking characterizes environments as “dynamic, multidimensional entities made up of a complex amalgam of continuities and ruptures” (7). While humanity is regarded as a constituent element of the natural world, human beings nonetheless possess the ability to adapt natural phenomena in significant ways. Thus, nature’s impacts upon society are never predetermined, for they are always mediated by human decision-making at multiple levels.The rest of the book is divided into four thematic sections. Part I situates the reader within the geomorphological and hydrological contexts of the Mendesian nome and reviews the surviving evidence. Parts II and III reconstruct the landscape and investigate agricultural diversification. Part IV offers environmental perspectives on a fiscal crisis in the late second century c.e. and the famous revolt of the Boukoloi.Synthesizing previous geomorphological and archaeological scholarship, chapter 1 traces the evolution of the Nile Delta from at least seven major branches to the modern two—the Rosetta and Damietta—by the early Arab period, a process significantly abetted by large-scale canalization projects (35). (See also John P. Cooper, The Medieval Nile [2014], who carries the story forward.)In chapter 2, Blouin surveys the archaeological and papyrological evidence for the Mendesian nome. Although excavations at its two ancient metropoleis of Mendes (Tell al-Rub’a) and Thmuis (Tell al-Timai) are ongoing—the latter partly under Blouin’s own direction—their evidence is secondary to her arguments, which depend primarily upon the papyri. This corpus is comprised of some ninety texts spanning the fourth century b.c.e. to the sixth century c.e., the majority... (shrink)

To celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, the Carolina Geological Society invited forty-three authors to contribute to the creation of The Geology of the Carolinas. The only comprehensive, modern treatment of the subject, the volume has been prepared for a diverse readership ranging from undergraduate students to specialists in the fields of geology and related earth sciences. Following the editors' general introduction are chapters on Precambrian and Paleozoic metamorphic and igneous rocks of the Appalachian Blue Ridge and Piedmont; rocks of early Mesozoic (...) rift basins, formed just before the opening of the Atlantic Ocean; Cretaceous and Tertiary sedimentary deposits of the Atlantic Coastal Plain; Quaternary geology and geomorphology; Cenozoic tectonism, including evidence for the recurrence of large earthquakes near Charleston; and an overview of mineral resources in the Carolinas. The book includes an index of field guides produced by the society and a thorough bibliography. By introducing exciting new concepts and focusing on challenging problems on the frontiers of research, this authoritative book will stimulate research in the years to come. The Editors: J. Wright Horton, Jr., is a research geologist for the United States Geological Survey in Reston, Virginia. Victor A. Zullo is a professor of geology at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. (shrink)

An account is given of the work on glacial phenomena in the English Lake District from the time of Adam Sedgwick until the mid-twentieth century, with emphasis on the nineteenth century. In the early years, the following theories were envisaged: 'diluvialism'; the theory of 'waves of translation'; the theory of 'ice rafting'; the 'glacial-submergence' hypothesis ; and the 'land-ice' theory. While it was quite easy to recognize ice action and the former existence of glaciers, it was difficult to work out (...) a persuasive sequence of events that would account satisfactorily for the great variety and quantity of evidence available, considering land-forms, and the distribution of moraines, tills, gravels, and glacial erratics. When the first systematic geological survey was being undertaken in the Lake District both local amateurs and the surveyors favoured the glacial-submergence theory, but there were problems about explaining the distribution of glacial erratics, and controversy developed as to whether this distribution was best explained in terms of floating icebergs or landice. The problem was difficult in that there was uncertainty as to how many glaciations there had been, though the preferred number was two, following the early observations in Wales by Andrew Ramsay, in Lancashire by Edward Hull and others, and by some Continental geologists, of two different tills, and one intermediate water-deposited unit. These seemed to have equivalents in the Lake District. However, the Scottish surveyors, under the influence of their theorist colleague, James Croll, with his astronomical explanation of ice ages, favoured multiple glaciations. Croll himself sought to apply the land-ice theory to explain the distribution of glacial erratics in the regions round the Lake District. James Geikie read widely in the Continental literature, and thought that the theory of several glaciations, developed by Albrecht Penck in the 1880s, on the basis of observations of the valleys and rivers terraces running north from the Alps, fitted well with Croll's theory. Thus the idea of a sequence of glaciations was applied to Britain with some success, partly as a result of Geikie's advocacy. But the evidence of such a sequence in the Lake District itself was by no means clear, and it was not developed for the region until the work of Frederick Trotter and Sidney Hollingworth . In the meantime, much geomorphological work on the form and formation of lakes and tarns had been done by the chief aficionado of Lakeland geology, Cambridge professor, John Marr. But he thought there might have been only one major glaciation. The paradox is that, for England, the glacial sequence has had to be worked out more by examination of deposits in the flatter southern regions, as much as in the mountains where the glaciers were formed and most active. In the Lakeland mountains, as in other parts of the world, the last glaciation has tended to remove or obscure the products of earlier glaciations. (shrink)

_In Comes I_ explores performance and land, biography and locality, memory and place. The book reflects on performances past and present, taking the form of a series of excursions into the agricultural landscape of eastern England, and drawing from archaeology, geomorphology, folklore, and local and family history. Mike Pearson, a leading theatre artist and solo-performer, returns to the landscape of his childhood – off the beaten track in Lincolnshire – and uses it as a mnemonic to reflect widely upon (...) performance theory and practice. Rather than focusing on author, period and genre as is conventional in the study of drama, the book takes region as its optic, acknowledging the affective ties between people and place. Offering new approaches to the study of performance, Pearson integrates intensely personal narrative with analytical reflection, juxtaposing anecdote with theoretical insight, dramatic text with interdisciplinary perception. The performances, ranging from folk drama to contemporary site-specific work, are seen in the light of their relationship to their cultural and physical environment. (shrink)

We explain the general significance of integer-based descriptors for natural shapes and show that the evolution of two such descriptors, called mechanical descriptors (the number N(t) of static balance points and the Morse–Smale graph associated with the scalar distance function measured from the center of mass) appear to capture (unlike classical geophysical shape descriptors) one of our most fundamental intuitions about natural abrasion: shapes get monotonically simplified in this process. Thus mechanical descriptors help to establish a correlation between subjective and (...) objective descriptors of perceived objects. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Greek Countryside: The Southern Argolid from Prehistory to the Present Day, with a Register of Sites by Curtis N. Runnels and Mark H. MunnDonald C. HaggisMichael H. Jameson, Curtis N. Runnels and Tjeed H. Van Andel. A Greek Countryside: The Southern Argolid from Prehistory to the Present Day, with a Register of Sites by Curtis N. Runnels and Mark H. Munn. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994. xx (...) + 658 pp. 224 figs. 36 tables. 8 back-pocket maps. Cloth, $125.The methodological divide between Greek history and archaeology is bridged in areas of epigraphy, topography, and political geography, or in instances where the data (sites, inscriptions, or destruction levels) manifestly complement or corroborate the text. This "handmaiden" role of archaeology has been challenged in the past two decades, and links between history and archaeology have been strengthened by changes in both disciplines, especially in the range of data utilized if not in method and approach. The archaeologist's reconstruction of long-term history is only enriched by textual documentation; and the historian has found in new approaches to ancient landscapes a wider scope of data, a realm of problems, and a multi-dimensional context for writing history.A new vision of documenting the Greek past is as yet nowhere more effectively illustrated than in A Greek Countrysidey. This book, which is the final publication of the Argolid Exploration Project (and Stanford University Archaeological and Environmental Survey), was conceived in an era of vastly changing approaches to the past and inspired by the first regional and diachronic survey in Greece, the Minnesota Messenia Expedition. The exploration of the southern Argolid also emerged in the context of two vastly different yet complementary excavations at the Paleolithic-Neolithic Franchthi Cave and Classical Halieis. The chronological, methodological, and environmental scope and problem orientation of these projects were important in setting the stage for the examination of human history in the broader region, emphasizing human-environment interaction as important to understanding culture change through time.A Greek Countryside presents the results of the survey (conducted in 1972 and 1979-1983) in the southern Argolid (225 km2) that recovered some 328 sites from an intensive sample of 44 km2. The first three chapters, "Topography," "History," and "Land and Sea in the Southern Argolid," provide an introduction to the study area. They present the synchronous dimensions of observable terrain, environment, and communication routes, and the diachronic perspectives of history (1000 B.C.-modern times), geomorphology, and environmental studies. Chapter 4, "The Archaeological Survey," describes the process and methods of fieldwork, the basis for the identification and functional designations of sites, and the classificatory nomenclature of the observable settlement patterns. Chapter [End Page 333] 5, "Using the Resources of the Land and Sea," is a discussion of agricultural, pastoral, and maritime activities derived from archaeological evidence from Franchthi Cave, Halieis, and wider afield, and from ethnography, studies of ancient and modern agriculture, and Medieval and Venetian records and travelers' accounts. This chapter injects the human element into the natural environment, setting the stage for the patterns of interaction between cultural and natural landscapes. The authors' synthesis and conclusions are presented in the final chapter 6, unambiguously titled, "Fifty Thousand Years of Coevolution of Landscape and Human Settlement."This concluding chapter is wonderfully detailed, referring back to the data presented in previous chapters and forward to the numerous appendices. The appendices are focused treatments of the sites recovered (A); population estimates (B); pseudo-Scylax's periplus (C); Pausanias' account of the south Argolid (D); the town of Hermion (E); the border dispute between Hermion and Epidauros in the first half of the second century B.C. (F); and an account of the Turkish traveler, Evliya Chelebi, in 1669 (G). Chapter 6 is somewhat of an achievement in itself, providing a lucid and fascinating chronological and historical narrative, un-encumbered by tendentious footnotes or cross-references, while making the reader constantly aware of both the data and the interpretive basis for conclusions. Although the diachronic survey maps, showing settlement patterns, are presented earlier in chapter 4, more detailed maps illustrate chapter 6 and are essential and effective complements to the text.The effects of... (shrink)

While the predominant focus of the philosophical literature on scientific modeling has been on single-scale models, most systems in nature exhibit complex multiscale behavior, requiring new modeling methods. This challenge of modeling phenomena across a vast range of spatial and temporal scales has been called the tyranny of scales problem. Drawing on research in the geosciences, I synthesize and analyze a number of strategies for taming this tyranny in the context of conceptual, physical, and mathematical modeling. This includes several strategies (...) that can be deployed in physical modeling, even when strict dynamical scaling fails. In all cases, I argue that having an adequate conceptual model—given both the nature of the system and the particular purpose of the model—is essential. I draw a distinction between depiction and representation, and use this research in the geosciences to advance a number of debates in the philosophy of modeling. (shrink)

Do mountains exist? The answer to this question is surely: yes. In fact, ‘mountain’ is the example of a kind of geographic feature or thing most commonly cited by English speakers (Mark, et al., 1999; Smith and Mark 2001), and this result may hold across many languages and cultures. But whether they are considered as individuals (tokens) or as kinds (types), mountains do not exist in quite the same unequivocal sense as do such prototypical everyday objects as chairs or people.

This essay looks at early‐modern Venice hydroculture as a case of episteme from below. The forms of water knowledge it developed were multilayered and collective in their essence and solidly rested on a social experiential basis that was rooted in labour (especially fishing) and practices (especially water surveying and engineering). In accordance with the city's republican esprit (and correspondent political values), its episteme emerged as the encounter and negotiation between various institutions and groups: the fishermen of San Niccolò in Venice, (...) the practitioners of the water magistrature and political authorities. This essay explores the institutional settings of this water culture, seen as an instance of bottom‐up epistemic construction. It especially addresses three historical instances: firstly, a seventeenth century program to map public waters in order to block their alienation for private fish farming; secondly, water officers’ interviews with fishermen aimed to assess the state of the lagoon hydromorphology and, thirdly, fishing regulations. Venice communitarian and circular forms of knowledge production are here contrasted to an opposite paradigm, which was embodied by the Galileian mathematician and Rome courtier, Benedetto Castelli. His interactions with the Republic of Venice on water management and his approach to hydraulic problems are revealing of an elitist and abstract understanding of scientific knowledge that guided political decisions from above without taking in any consideration the opinions of the ‘vulgar’. While his science was the expression of a top‐down political epistemology, Venetian water knowledge was more egalitarian. It left room for exchange, inclusiveness and bottom‐up codification; it valued the gathering of different experiences (including the fishermen's practical knowledge of their waters) and rested on a concrete and systemic (organicist) understanding of natural‐anthropic processes. (shrink)

Symbiosis, livelihood, and bioregion are ways of living and being with nature in the Anthropobscene and countering sublimation with desublimation in the Symbiocene, the hoped-for epoch superseding the Anthropobscene. A bioregion is a geomorphological and biological region, the watershed, the valley, the plain, the wetland, the aquifer, etc. where or on which humans live and work, and which sustains human and more-than-human life. This relationship is situated on a continuum between the mutually beneficial and ‘normal’ biological and psychological desire for, (...) and pleasures of, symbiosis and mutuality at one end, and the parasitical, psychotic, and failed drive for mastery at the other. Raymond Williams’s concept of livelihood implies both our work and our physical surrounds, their environmental supports and effects. Symbiosis is both a biological and a psychological term, what could be called bio-symbiosis and psycho-symbiosis. After drawing on Lynn Margulis’s work on bio-symbiosis, Margaret Mahler’s work on psycho-symbiosis, Jessica Benjamin’s work on bonding, Michel Serres’s work on parasitism and the natural contract, and Raymond Williams’s late ecocultural work on livelihood and socialist ecology to make these cases, this chapter and the book then concludes by advocating for psychopolitical symbiosis and mutuality with the living earth in the Symbiocene. (shrink)

The shape of the Earth's surface, its topography, is a fundamental dimension of the environment, shaping or mediating many other environmental flows or functions. But there is a major divergence in the way that topography is conceptualized in different domains. Topographic cartographers, information scientists, geomorphologists and environmental modelers typically conceptualize topographic variability as a continuous field of elevations or as some discrete approximation to such a field. Pilots, explorers, anthropologists, ecologists, hikers, and archeologists, on the other hand, typically conceptualize this (...) same variability in terms of hills and valleys, mountains and plains, barrows and trenches, that is, as (special sorts of) objects, with locations, shapes, and often names of their own. In this chapter, we sketch an approach to bridging this fundamental gap in geographic information infrastructure. (shrink)