History of Geology

Origin of Permeability in Carbonate Rocks
Carbonate reservoirs, which are typically dual or triple porosity systems, produce a major portion of the world’s oil and gas and hold more than half of the world’s largest crude oil and natural gas reserves. The best known Jurassic carbonate reservoirs are the Arab-D and Arab-C systems, Hanifa and Hadriya. These reservoirs account for large quantities of crude oil production in Saudi Arabia. The Permo-Triassic Khuff formation holds the world’s largest known natural gas reserves in five Arabian Gulf countries. Some of the world’s best quality crude oil is located in two Cretaceous carbonate reservoirs: the Shuaiba and Tharmama reservoirs. Many of these carbonate reservoirs are naturally fractured and/or have an extensive and extremely complex secondary porosity system. Accurately predicting amounts and types of porosity, locally for field development and regionally for stratigraphic traps, is a major challenge. Three methods are used to estimate fracture porosity: well-test analysis, well logging, and core analysis.

A natural fracture is a planar discontinuity in reservoir rock due to deformation or physical diagenesis. Diagenesis—chemical and physical changes after deposition—strongly modifies the reservoir properties possessed at the time of deposition. The dominant diagenetic process consists of early cementation, selective dissolution of aragonite and reprecipitation as calcite, burial cementation, dolomitization, and compaction-driven microfracturing [2]. Cementation and compaction forces completely eradicate any porosity available at the time of deposition. However, chemical changes, usually dissolution, especially in carbonate rocks, modify the initial porosity and recover it partially. Depositional facies, their architecture, systems, and tracts are predominant driving factors in the distribution and quality of current reservoir properties, which are completely different from the properties at the time of deposition.

High-permeability vugs, molds, natural fractures, and caverns in carbonate rocks are the result of intense dissolution, which took place before burial as a result of nonreservoir or seal units. Dissolution is also caused by meteoric diagenesis, which is related to subaerial exposure of carbonate rocks and is explained by the general aggressiveness of meteoric water toward sedimentary carbonate minerals. Aragonite is metastable, which dissolves and precipitates into cement, whereas calcite is stable and less affected by dissolution. Such a type of dissolution causes significant variation in the distribution of porosity and permeability in the reservoirs, thereby defining reservoir quality.

Mediante el análisis de fuentes documentales, se evoca una controversia sobre la modelización genética de los yacimientos minerales según la expuso el Dr. Erwin Kittl en su libro póstumo Yacimientos Minerales y su Formación (1972). Este autor descreía de la relación genética de varios yacimientos minerales metalíferos con algún magma al cual supuestamente debían estar asociados, según Paul Niggli y otros renombrados geólogos de Europa occidental. Los pasos que sintetizaban su matriz de modelización de formación de yacimientos metalíferos son: 1) liberación de elementos: 2) colección y concentración de elementos; 3) movilización de preconcentrados o yacimientos y 4) transporte y depósito. Para comprender la escasa repercusión de esta obra, se examina el objeto de investigación desde dos perspectivas: la epistemológica, conforme a Juan Samaja, y la historia de la ciencia, según Martin Rudwick.  En el primer caso se apela a la tipificación de la misma como perteneciente a la fase de exposición sistemática en el proceso de investigación científica y se examinan cuestiones que pudieron perjudicar la aceptación de la teoría de Kittl por parte de la comunidad geológica. Desde la historia de la ciencia se inscribe el caso en el marco de una lenta transición que va desde concepciones prominentemente magmatistas a otras que abrieron paso a metalogénesis sedimentarias. Para concluir, se aportan razones para reconocer en Erwin Kittl un precursor de la modelización de formación de yacimientos en tanto aportó una matriz de donde se pueden derivar varios modelos vigentes, como los depósitos sedex.

Palabras clave: Historia de la geología - Controversia geológica – Matrices de Modelización de Depósitos Minerales - Epistemología

Paper and slides presented at the 25th International Congress of History of Science and Technology (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 23-29, 2017) - Symposium S28, "Multiple Spaces: Mapping Communication via Letters between Naturalists"
(International Commission on the History of Geological Sciences)

Since its first attempts to understand natural phenomena, early modern science devoted great attention to the problematic issue of the origin of springs. This essay examines the lively debate that emerged from the studies on fresh water during the years spanning from the mid-sixteenth century to the early eighteenth. By focusing on the interpretations advanced by several authors (including lesser known, but nonetheless important figures such as Mario Bettini, Edward Barlow, and Diacinto Cestoni), and by introducing Antonio Vallisneri’s Primi itineris specimen, an unpublished manuscript which reveals significant insights into the hydrogeological debate, a new analysis is provided of the heterogeneous factors which influenced the path of natural philosophy towards the comprehension of the water cycle. The conclusion suggests how a reconsideration of the intricate backgrounds underlying many scientific debates and concepts could play a critical role in solving a still controversial issue: science’s need for a history of science.

Ζητώ εκ προοιμίου συγνώμη από ασθενείς και τους δικούς τους ανθρώπους, που όταν βλέπουν το όνομα του Πάρκινσον περιμένουν πιθανώς να διαβάσουν κάτι νεώτερο για την ασθένεια. Στο άρθρο αυτό δεν υπάρχει κάτι παρόμοιο. Στο άρθρο αυτό, όπως αναγράφεται και στον τίτλο θα αναφερθούμε σε άλλες, άγνωστες στο ευρύ κοινό, πτυχές της ζωής αυτής της καταπληκτικής προσωπικότητας, όπως αυτή ξεδιπλώνεται σε πολλές δημοσιεύσεις σε επιστημονικά, ιατρικά κυρίως, περιοδικά.

In this paper I explore the metaphor of the strata of the earth as ‘great stone book of nature’, and the Anthropocene epoch as its latest chapter. Debates about the geological status of the Anthropocene focus on the identification of stratigraphic ‘signals’ that might be being laid down for the geologist-to-come, but I suggest that marking the base of the Anthropocene layer is not a merely technical task but one which is entangled with questions about the human — about the Anthropos of the Anthropocene. Who would be the ‘onomatophore’ of the Anthropocene, would carry the name of Anthropos? I consider a number of ways of characterising the geological force of the Anthropocene – Homo faber, Homo consumens and Homo gubernans. But I then situate this dispersal of the Anthropos into ‘syntypes’ against the background of a more general dispersal of ‘man’ that is occasioned when human meets geology. I do this by bringing into dialogue two works: Foucault’s Order of Things, and Derrida’s Of Grammatology, focusing on their passages about the end of ‘man’ and the end of ‘the book’ respectively. I suggest the becoming geological of the human in the Anthropocene is both the end of the great stone book of nature and the Aufhebung of ‘man’ —both his apotheosis and his eclipse.

Tra la fine dell’Ottocento e la prima metà del Novecento, l’archeologo Antonio Tara- melli mise a punto una metodologia di ricerca fondata sull’impiego sistematico dello scavo stra- tigrafico e sull’unione di scienze naturali e scienze umane. Ripercorrendo gli anni giovanili della sua formazione nei campi della paletnologia e dell’archeologia classica, il testo intende tracciare la mappa culturale dell’archeologia intesa come scienza storica e multidisciplinare.

Neste livro, buscou-se estabelecer os objetos e métodos da Epistemologia em dois sentidos: (i) preliminarmente, aquele situado em algumas das principais tradições epistemológicas do Ocidente, de modo a problematizar a natureza da própria Epistemologia e as diversas portas de acesso ao seu objeto, a Ciência; (ii) em seguida, no sentido da busca de respostas aos três problemas epistemológicos mais significativos coletados nas tradições apontadas, quais sejam: a) Como é possível a certeza do conhecimento? – ou o problema da indução (o problema de Hume); b) Como a ciência se distingue dos demais tipos de conhecimento? – ou o problema da demarcação (ou problema de Kant); c) Como avança a ciência? – ou o problema do progresso científico e a Nova Epistemologia.

(An Edition Open Access book. Here is the link to the official webpage:

http://www.edition-open-sources.org/sources/9/index.html)

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In the summer of 1704, Antonio Vallisneri (1661–1730), the preeminent Italian physician and natural philosopher of his time, traveled with a “daring soul” and “trembling feet” across the “silent horrors” of the northern Apennines: down the hills south of Reggio Emilia to northern Tuscany and the western edge of his native land, the Province of Garfagnana. He then wrote a report of this adventure, the Primi Itineris per Montes Specimen Physico-Medicum (“Physico-medical example of a first journey through the mountains), and sent it to the Royal Society of London, hoping for its publication in Philosophical Transactions. Unfortunately this did not happen and the manuscript disappeared from sight. The original draft, however, survived in the State Archive of the Italian city of Reggio Emilia where it was found in 2009.

With its exceptional array of geological, medical, geographical, technical, ethnographic, and historical data, the Primi Itineris Specimen is one of the earliest and most well-documented attempts to define a systematic approach to field research. Its frantically reworked pages and anxious marginal notes offer a new and precious opportunity to understand why and how experimental data and theories in the early modern period interacted and shaped the development of many crucial debates. These include the discovering of deep-time, the comprehension of geological phenomena (such as the hydrologic cycle and the origin of mountains and fossils), the perception of man’s place in nature, the constant search for new therapeutics, the tormented and charming relation between science and religion.

'Matthew D. Eddy succeeds in making a significant contribution to [the] recent and more nuanced approach to post-Kuhnian history of science… Students of eighteenth-century Scottish culture and medicine will find much of value here, as will students of eighteenth-century geology and chemistry.’  -- Arthur Donovan, American Historical Review

Summary
Classification is an important part of environmental science, yet the specific methods used to construct Enlightenment systems of natural history have proven to be the bête noir of studies of eighteenth-century culture. One reason that systematic classification has received so little attention is that natural history was an extremely diverse subject which appealed to a wide range of practitioners, including wealthy patrons, professionals, and educators. In order to show how the classification practices of a defined institutional setting enabled naturalists to create systems of natural history, this book focuses on developments at Edinburgh's medical school, one of Europe's leading medical programs. In particular, it uses the career of the influential naturalist Rev Dr John Walker, the school's professor of natural history, to reconstruct the cultural and scientific basis of early environmental science.

Walker was a traveller, cleric, author and advisor to extremely powerful aristocratic and government patrons, as well as teacher to hundreds of students, some of whom would go on to become influential industrialists, scientists, physicians and politicians. This book explains how Walker used his networks of patrons and early training in chemistry to become an eighteenth-century naturalist. Walker's mineralogy was based firmly in chemistry, an approach common in Edinburgh's medical school, but a connection that has been generally overlooked in the history of British geology. By explicitly connecting eighteenth-century geology to the chemistry being taught in medical settings, this book offers a dynamic new interpretation of the nascent earth sciences as they were practiced in Enlightenment Britain. Because of Walker's influence on his many students, the book also provides a unique insight into how many of Britain's leading Regency and Victorian intellectuals were taught to think about the composition and structure of the material world.

Hildegard of Bingen had numerous talents which she exercised in diverse domains; woman writer, naturalist, doctor, visionary, seer, musician, she would also deserve to be qualified as "geologist" before the term existed if we follow for example the definition of the geology given by Littré: "Science having for object the natural history of the earth, the knowledge of the outside shape of the globe, the study of the various grounds, that of their formation and their current position "? We have to remind however that Hildegard was above all a theologian, an exegete obsessed by a text to which she brought back all her vision of the world, all her representation of the created, including the functioning of the man’s body : the Genesis. In this narrative on which she returns indefatigably in all her writings, including her lyric compositions or her vast correspondence, the earth occupies a central place, and is a real leitmotiv. As a matter of fact, we could track her "science of the earth" in the whole of her work, but we restrict here the field of investigation to her medical and naturalistic work, which includes today two texts : on one hand, a Liber subtilitatum alias Liber simplicis medicine having the nature for object, and on the other hand, the treatise Cause and cure, also called Liber composite medicine, centred on the man.

Hildegarde de Bingen eut de nombreux talents qu’elle exerça dans des domaines divers ; femme de lettres, naturaliste, médecin, visionnaire, prophétesse, musicienne, mériterait-elle également d’être qualifiée de « géologue » avant la lettre si l’on suit par exemple la définition de la géologie donnée par Littré : « Science ayant pour objet l’histoire naturelle de la terre, la connaissance de la forme extérieure du globe, l’étude des différents terrains, celle de leur formation et de leur position actuelle » ?  On doit toutefois rappeler qu’elle fut avant tout une théologienne, une exégète habitée par un texte auquel elle rapportait toute sa vision du monde, toute sa représentation du créé, y compris du fonctionnement du corps de l’homme à savoir la Genèse. Dans ce récit sur lequel elle revient inlassablement dans tous ses écrits, y compris ses compositions lyriques ou sa vaste correspondance, la terre occupe une place centrale, constituant un véritable leitmotiv, et c’est somme toute dans l’ensemble de son œuvre que l’on pourrait traquer sa « science de la terre ». On restreindra toutefois le champ d’investigation à son oeuvre de médecine et de science naturelle, qui comprend aujourd’hui deux écrits désignés par divers titres, un Liber subtilitatum alias Liber simplicis medicine ayant la nature pour objet, et un Cause et cure, encore appelé Liber composite medicine, centré sur l'homme.

ПЕТРУСЕВИЧ Михаил Николаевич (1.4.1908, г. Каменец-Подольский – 26.2.2003, г. Москва), геолог, канд. геол.-мин. наук (1958), почетный акад. РАЕН. Обучался в МГУ и Ленинградском горном ин-те. Участник и рук. более 40 экспедиций – Тува, Зап. и Вост. Саяны, Алтай, Заб., Д. Вост., Якутия, Ср. Азия, Кавказ. Участвовал в Дарасунской (1928) и Каларской (1929) экспедициях по изучению золотоносных м-ний. Первым описал геол. строение Каларского и Калаканского хребтов, нанес на карту гольцы, названные им Скалистый, Пирамидальный и Снежный. В 1938–40 работал по трассе БАМа гл. геологом Олекминской аэроизыскательской экспедиции Бамтранспроекта НКВД. В 1938 вместе с женой – Л. И. Казик – открыл Чинейское титаномагнетитовое м-ние. В 1949 руководил Сковородинской экспедицией, в 1954 исследовал низовья Шилки. С 1954 на геол. ф-те МГУ. Один из основателей аэрокосмометодов в геологии.

El último tercio del siglo XIX se caracterizó por la apertura de numerosos espacios científicos y órganos de difusión, en un ambiente de relativa estabilidad que permitió a los hombres de ciencia estudiar la realidad mexicana y buscar su mejoramiento a través del cultivo de los conocimientos científicos de corte utilitario, en el interior de las instituciones y las sociedades científicas.
El desarrollo de una ciencia nacional puede ubicarse hasta la consolidación del Estado nacional, que se concibe como una entidad promotora del uso de la racionalidad y de una cultura científica. Para ese momento, la ciencia semejaba un gran edificio que iba creciendo con las luces vertidas por las generaciones de estudiosos.
Este libro se inscribe en la búsqueda de explicaciones sobre el desarrollo y evolución de las ciencias en México y pretende la recuperación de fuentes históricas para conocer y entender, en lo posible, el devenir institucional de la Geología en nuestro país durante el siglo XIX a través del estudio de Antonio del Castillo (1820-1895), Santiago Ramírez (1836-1922) y Mariano Barcena (1841-1899).

The book "focuses on one of the signal developments in natural history: the growth and transformation of collecting practices and museums from antiquity through the nineteenth century. The twelve essays in this volume offer a rich and diverse spectrum of examples culled from virtually every region in Europe. The result is a very useful snapshot of the role of collecting in natural history and allied fields such as anatomy and chemistry, not to mention emerging specialties such as geology.”

"""Abstract - Mima mounds in North America are primarily known from the western states of Washington, Oregon, and California; the Rocky Mountains; the mid-lower Mississippi Basin; and Louisiana-Texas Gulf Coast. By contrast, their former extent and abundance across the Upper Midwest prairie belt has never been systematically established due to their destruction by agriculture and historic confusion as to whether they were natural or anthropic mounds. Recent maps showing their distribution identify only two small moundfields, one centered on Waubun Prairie in western Minnesota, the other on Kalsow Prairie in north-central Iowa. But in fact, natural mounds were once a common feature of many Upper Midwest prairies, having extended from Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois north into Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, the Dakotas, and across the prairies and parklands of Canada. Several remnant tracts, intact and preserved, bear witness to their former much greater extent. This chapter documents the original distribution across the prairie belt, which has implications for their origin insofar as it falls more or less entirely within the range of the Geomyidae (pocket gopher) family of fossorial rodents. Natural prairie mounds in the Upper Midwest invariably are found where limitations to vertical burrowing occur, or did occur, which leaves lateral burrowing as the only option to these and other soil animals. Owing to extensive overlaps between natural mounds and morphologically similar prehistoric “Moundbuilder” mounds, the idea is advanced that prairie mounds were opportunistically used for prehistoric interments, and later as ideation templates for prehistoric burial, effigy, and other mounds and utilitarian structures.
Accepted 5 March 2012.
2012 Geological Society of America Special Papers 490:85-133.
doi: 10.1130/2012.2490(05)"""

When the Great War broke out in 1914, the field of academia in geography was divided into local and national schools, connected together through publications, scientific debates and international meetings.
This PhD in cultural and comparative history aims at showing that the three main “communities” in the field (namely Germany, France and the United States of America) were affected by the war violence, and that they took an active part in many aspects of “war cultures” in the fighting countries. Indeed, the youngest ones fought, some others did some research for the army (above all in German and American war geology), some others wrote committed books (about German and Russian atrocities, war goals, political and
military geography) and geographers of the Home fronts played an important role in cultural diplomacy – every specialist in Earth Sciences mobilized in various ways. They were even to be used as experts, specially during the 1919 peace negotiations. As teachers, scholars, intellectuals and citizens, these men and women went through a very brutal and intense period as far as the shaping of their professional identity is concerned, for they had to reconcile “modern geography” with applied geography. The results proved to be quite disappointing for them: political mobilization, at first enthusiastic, soon turned sour; and their expertise
could appear useless as it failed to help political leaders to frame a new map of the world based on scientific grounds.
Despite these frustrations and limits, the First World War seems to be a turning point in the shaping of the collective identity of academic geography: its demobilization took a long time, and remained unfinished as long as violence and alliances persisted.

Lorsque la Grande Guerre éclate en 1914, le champ mondial de la géographie universitaire est structuré en écoles locales et nationales, liées par des publications, des débats scientifiques et des rassemblements au niveau international.
Cette étude d’histoire comparée montre que les trois principales communautés de la discipline (Allemagne, France, Etats-Unis) sont ébranlées par la violence du conflit et participent aux multiples cultures de guerre des pays belligérants. Entre combats pour les plus jeunes, travail pour les armées, notamment dans la géologie de guerre allemande et états-unienne, engagement (autour des atrocités allemandes et russes, des buts de guerre, de la géographie militaire et politique) et diplomatie culturelle chez les géographes des fronts domestiques, les spécialistes des sciences de la terre se mobilisent de façons diverses et occupent un rôle inédit d’experts, en particulier dans les discussions autour des négociations de paix, entre 1917 et 1919. Enseignants, savants, intellectuels et citoyens, ils connaissent donc une phase brutale mais intense de leur identité professionnelle, devant concilier la « géographie moderne » avec une nouvelle géographie appliquée. Le résultat est décevant, tant dans la mobilisation politique et militaire, vécue avec enthousiasme, puis avec malaise, que dans l’expertise, insatisfaisante et peu
efficace auprès des autorités chargées de redessiner la carte de l’Europe et du monde. Malgré ces limites, la Première Guerre mondiale constitue un moment fort dans l’identité collective de la géographie universitaire, lente à se démobiliser et marquée par la persistance des alliances et de la violence de guerre.

The Grand Canyon has been explored and studied by geologists since
1858. Fossils from the Canyon comprise a remarkably diverse collection;
groups include late Precambrian microfossils and Paleozoic invertebrates,
vertebrates, and plants. Trace fossils occur throughout the Canyon's stratigraphic sequence, including vertebrate and invertebrate trackways. preserved in Pennsylvanian and Permian rocks. Late Cenozoic vertebrate and plant fossils are known from deposits near and within the Canyon. Interesting pseudofossils also are found throughout the strata, with some particularly problematical ones in the late Precambrian rocks. · Many of the Grand Canyon's fossils have contributed to the development of  geologic principles and to general interpretations of paleobiology. Today, the Grand Canyon may be an active agent in the evolution of some local species of land animals. But despite the tremendous amount of  information that has been collected and interpreted from the Grand Canyon's long paleontological story, some areas of study have been sadly neglected, not so much from disinterest or lack of questions as from academic perplexity about the uniqueness of some of the material.

THE METHODOLOGY OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION IN GEOLOGY: AN APPROACH THROUGH THE BLACK-BOX HEURISTIC EXAMPLE. The epistemological fragmentation of geology verified during this century as well as the more recent unity given by the epistemological mutation triggered by Plate Tectonics is discussed in this paper. This mutation could also be detected in terms of the methodology of science adopted: from a period characterized by the use of inductivist methods to another with predominance of deductivist methods. Changes between these methodological theories are illustrated with an heuristic example named Black-Box, which makes evident usual procedures of scientific research, shows the main characteristics of the New Epistemology and also demonstrate how the baconian science concepts in Geology can be refuted. Following concepts of the New Epistemology, it was possible to outline the main characteristics of a scientific problem in Geology in terms of the concept of Scientific Research Programmes, giving intersubjective criteria to develop critical thinking in Science. RESUMO A fragmentação epistemológica da Geologia verificada no presente século, bem como a recente unidade resultante da mutação epistemológica proporcionada pelo paradigma da Tectônica de Placas são discutidas na presente contribuição. Tal mutação foi igualmente acompanhada em termos da metodologia científica adotada na pesquisa, onde se verificou uma transição entre um período caracterizado pelo uso de métodos indutivistas para outro, no qual predominam os dedutivistas. Essas diferentes tipologias metodológicas foram ilustradas através de um exemplo heurístico denominado de Caixa-Preta, o qual revela os procedimentos usuais da pesquisa científica, mostra as principais características da Nova Epistemologia e, também, refuta os conceitos clássicos da ciência baconiana na Geologia. Utilizando-se os pressupostos da Nova Epistemologia, foi possível delinear as característi-cas de um problema científico na Geologia em termos do conceito de Programas de Pesquisa Científica, proporcionando, assim, que critérios intersubjetivos para uma praxiologia científica crítica sejam reconhecidos.

In this paper we explore Aboriginal oral traditions that relate to Australian meteorite craters. Using the literature, first-hand ethnographic records and fieldtrip data, we identify oral traditions and artworks associated with four impact sites: Gosses Bluff, Henbury, Liverpool and Wolfe Creek. Oral traditions describe impact origins for Gosses Bluff, Henbury and Wolfe Creek Craters, and non-impact origins for Liverpool Crater, with Henbury and Wolfe Creek stories having both impact and non-impact origins. Three impact sites that are believed to have been formed during human habitation of Australia. Dalgaranga, Veevers, and Boxhole do not have associated oral traditions that are reported in the literature.

Alongside the vestiges of the classical antiquity, in the course of the fifteenth century another kind of ruins made its appearance in drawings and paintings: those of an ancient Earth, as visible in eroded crags, decomposing mountains, and in the layered structure of its exposed bowels. In this essay I trace the sources of these representations to both the learned tradition of medieval “meteorology”, and to the empirical expertise of Renaissance artists/engineers. Finally, I place within this larger context some aspects of Leonardo da Vinci’s geological writings and drawings, with particular reference to his studies of layered rocks, his discussion of the Biblical flood, and his "Deluge drawings".