An Atlas of Past and Present Pollen Maps for Europe: 0-13000 Years Ago, and The Overlay Maps.

https://eprints.ucm.es/25254/1/A-Z-1-s0106X-main_01.pdf

Palaeoenvironmental significance of palustrine carbonates and calcretes in the geological record

This paper updates and builds on 'Modelling with Stakeholders' Voinov and Bousquet, 2010 which demonstrated the importance of, and demand for, stakeholder participation in resource and environmental modelling. This position paper returns to the concepts of that publication and reviews the progress made since 2010. A new development is the wide introduction and acceptance of social media and web applications, which dramatically changes the context and scale of stakeholder interactions and participation. Technology advances make it easier to incorporate information in interactive formats via visualization and games to augment participatory experiences. Citizens as stakeholders are increasingly demanding to be engaged in planning decisions that affect them and their communities, at scales from local to global. How people interact with and access models and data is rapidly evolving. In turn, this requires changes in how models are built, packaged, and disseminated: citizens are less in awe of experts and external authorities, and they are increasingly aware of their own capabilities to provide inputs to planning processes, including models. The continued acceleration of environmental degradation and natural resource depletion accompanies these societal changes, even as there is a growing acceptance of the need to transition to alternative, possibly very different, life styles. Substantive transitions cannot occur without significant changes in human behaviour and perceptions. The important and diverse roles that models can play in guiding human behaviour, and in disseminating and increasing societal knowledge, are a feature of stakeholder processes today. Display Omitted Participatory modelling has become mainstream in resource and environmental management.We review recent contributions to participatory environmental modelling to identify the tools, methods and processes applied.Global internet connectivity, social media and crowdsourcing create opportunities for participatory modelling.We suggest structured mechanisms to examine and account for human biases and beliefs in participatory modelling.Advanced visualization tools, gaming, and virtual environments improve communication with stakeholders.

Modelling with stakeholders - Next generation

Paleosols in shallow marine carbonate sequences

In recent years, engineering geology has been trying to redefine itself in terms of a set of ‘core values’ or ‘special scientific principles.’ John Knill (2003) illustrated the essence of engineering geology in the engineering geological triangle. One way of trying to understand the relationships between some of the ‘core values’ is through the engineering geological ground model, which seeks to combine understanding of the spatial distribution of engineering boundaries with knowledge of rock and soil material, and mass, properties and the geological processes that alter these through time. The rapid development in information technology over the last twenty years and the digitization of increasing amounts of geological data has brought engineering geology to a situation in which the production of meaningful 3D spatial models of the shallow subsurface is feasible. The paper describes how this can be done and points the way to the next stage that involves the attribution of these spatial models with physical, mechanical and chemical property data. Some new developments in the provision of geohazard susceptibility information at the national scale are also discussed. A future is proposed in which site investigation sets out to test a pre-existing spatial model based on real data, rather than trying to create such a model based on concepts alone.

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From concept towards reality: developing the attributed 3D geological model of the shallow subsurface

Glacial gravels of Late Devensian Dimlington Stadial age (26 000–13 000 years BP) at West Tanfield, North Yorkshire, England, have been cemented by carbonate-rich solutions to produce a strongly indurated calcrete horizon The low-Mg cements occur as drusy spar, needle fibres, alveolar septal structures, micrite and micropinnacles, indicative of vadose-zone cementation Some complex pore partition structures attributed to precipitation along meniscus films also occur These partitions separate air-dominated and water-dominated microenvironments of the vadose zone The abundance of vadose fabrics shows that the accumulation is not a groundwater calcrete In addition, much of the carbonate appears to have been precipitated by biological mediation



Carbon and oxygen isotopic data suggest that the carbonate did not form as a result of freezing, as has been suggested for some ‘arctic’soil carbonates The pollen history of the area since the Devensian suggests that this calcrete precipitated at low temperatures; this contrasts with widely reported occurrences of calcrete in soils of hot arid or semi-arid regions, and suggests that palaeo-calcretes should not be used as absolute palaeoclimatic indicators



The unusual occurrence, albeit localized, of a thick calcrete under a cool and wet climate probably reflects the well-drained nature of the gravels, the abundance of CaCO3 as limestone clasts in the gravel and a high degree of biological activity beneath a forest cover, which created a local environment favouring carbonate precipitation

A Holocene calcrete from North Yorkshire, England: implications for interpreting palaeoclimates using calcretes

Across the world, stakeholders are asking questions of their governments and decision makers to quantify the risks of environmental threats to their well-being. These questions manifest themselves as ‘deceptively simple questions’, which are easy to articulate but difficult to solve. An example of which is: ‘how much will the eruption of an Icelandic volcano cost the UK economy’. Answering these questions requires predictions of the interaction of multiple environmental processes, this requires the development and maintenance of systems that allow these processes to be simulated, and that is the nascent science of integrated environmental modelling (IEM). Such processes may be long-term (e.g. those that are impacted by climate change) or short-term threats, such as the impact of drought on UK agriculture or the impact of space weather on energy supply systems.

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Introduction to integrated environmental modelling to solve real world problems: methods, vision and challenges

Geological dictionaries—critical elements of every geological database

A standard model for storage of geological map data

Until recently most spatial geological information was in analogue (mainly paper) form, which made it expensive to store and often difficult to use because of its increasing fragility. However, with the rapid advances in information technology in the last 20 years, not only has it become relatively easy to digitise or digitally scan historical information but, increasingly, data suppliers are, themselves, producing the raw data in digital form. This brings with it a host of new problems for the acquisition, management and dissemination of the information. These issues include data collection (what, where, how and by whom), data management and security (metadata, validation, backup, access), data access (how, where and at what price) and the provision of value-added products based on the data tailored to the needs of specific users. For engineering geologists, the historical acquisition of geological data in various forms is on the verge of delivering a whole range of new products that should alter the way in which site investigation is carried out.

J. R. A. Giles

Papers

A Holocene calcrete from North Yorkshire, England: implications for interpreting palaeoclimates using calcretes

Introduction to integrated environmental modelling to solve real world problems: methods, vision and challenges

Geological dictionaries—critical elements of every geological database

A standard model for storage of geological map data

The provision of digital spatial data for engineering geologists