This monograph offers an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of geological systems which become spatially organized through the mediation of chemical processes. The treatment is based on a mathematical approach. The intended readership includes researchers and advanced undergraduate and graduate students in all branches of geology as well as scientists and mathematicians concerned with nonlinear dynamics, numerical analysis, self-organization, nonlinear waves and dynamics, and phase transition phenomena. The work could also serve as a basis for a special topics course in mathematics, chemistry or physics.
If theoretical physicists can seriously entertain canonical “standard models” even for the big-bang generation of the entire universe, why cannot life scientists reach a consensus on how life has emerged and settled on this planet? Scientists are hindered by conceptual gaps between bottom-up inferences (from early Earth geological conditions) and top-down extrapolations (from modern life forms to common ancestral states). This book challenges several widely held assumptions and argues for alternative approaches instead. Primal syntheses (literally or figuratively speaking) are called for in at least five major areas. (1) The first RNA-like molecules may have been selected by solar light as being exceptionally photostable. (2) Photosynthetically active minerals and reduced phosphorus compounds could have efficiently coupled the persistent natural energy flows to the primordial metabolism. (3) Stochastic, uncoded peptides may have kick-started an ever-tightening co-evolution of proteins and nucleic acids. (4) The living fossils from the primeval RNA World thrive within modern cells. (5) From the inherently complex protocellular associations preceding the consolidation of integral genomes, eukaryotic cell organization may have evolved more naturally than simple prokaryote-like life forms. – If this book can motivate dedicated researchers to further explore the alternative mechanisms presented, it will have served its purpose well.
This book presents the general concepts of self-organized spatio-temporal ordering processes. These concepts are demonstrated via prototypical examples of recent advances in materials science. Particular emphasis is on nano scale soft matter in physics, chemistry, biology and biomedicine. The questions addressed embrace a broad spectrum of complex nonlinear phenomena, ranging from self-assembling near the thermodynamical equilibrium to dissipative structure formation far from equilibrium. Their mutual interplay gives rise to increasing degrees of hierarchical order. Analogues are pointed out, differences characterized and efforts are made to reveal common features in the mechanistic description of those phenomena.
The present volume continues the philosophy of gathering contributions on diagenesis on behalf of those requiring such periodic literary surveys, namely, academics and practitioners (teachers, researchers, and oil and ore explorationists).
This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications RESOURCE RECOVERY, CONFINEMENT, AND REMEDIATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS contains papers presented at two successful one-week workshops: Confine ment and Remediation of Environmental Hazards held on January 15-19, 2000 and Resource Recovery, February 9-13, 2000. Both workshops were integral parts of the IMA annual program on Mathematics in Reactive Flow and Transport Phenomena, 1999-2000. We would like to thank John Chadam (University of Pittsburgh), Al Cunningham (Montana State Uni versity), Richard E. Ewing (Texas A&M University), Peter Ortoleva (In diana University), and Mary Fanett Wheeler (TICAM, The University of Texas at Austin) for their excellent work as organizers of the meetings and for editing the proceedings. We take this opportunity to thank the National Science Foundation for their support of the IMA. Series Editors Douglas N. Arnold, Director of the IMA Fadil Santosa, Deputy Director of the IMA v PREFACE Advances in resource recovery, and confinement/remediation of envi ronmental hazards requires a coordinated, interdisciplinary effort involving mathematicians, scientists and engineers. The intent of this collection of papers is to summarize recent theoretical, computational, and experimen tal advances in the theory of phenomena in porous media, with the intent to identify similarities and differences concerning applications related to both resource recovery and confinement and remediation of environmental hazards.
Volume 77 of Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry focuses on important aspects of the geochemistry of geological CO2 sequestration. It is in large part an outgrowth of research conducted by members of the U.S. Department of Energy funded Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) known as the Center for Nanoscale Control of Geologic CO2 (NCGC). Eight out of the 15 chapters have been led by team members from the NCGC representing six of the eight partner institutions making up this center - Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (lead institution, D. DePaolo - PI), Oak Ridge National Laboratory, The Ohio State University, the University of California Davis, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Washington University, St. Louis.
