Environmental history

The goal of this chapter is twofold first, to present some of the most important aspects of Earth s environmental history, and second, to communicate the power, complexity, and incompleteness of paleoclimatology through a presentation of one of its most important tools. 

Fig. 18-21 The last 250 000 years of environmental history, recorded in the central Antarctic ice sheet. Bottom three panels are data from the Vostok ice core (Lorius et al., 1990 Jouzel et at., 1993). Top panel is marine data representing global ice volume (Shackle-ton el al., 1990).

Fig. 18-22 The last 50 000 years of environmental history, recorded in central Greenland (GISP2 and GRIP ice cores), plus the CO2 record from Vostok, Antarctica, and global ice volume measured as sea level depression. (From top to bottom, references are Shackleton, 1987 Cuffey et ai, 1995 and Grootes et al, 1993 Cuffey and Clow, 1997 Chapellaz et al, 1990 Brook et al., 1996 Mayewski et al., 1997 Saltzman et al., 1997.)...

Francalacci, P. and Borgognini Tarli, S. 1988 Multielementary analysis of trace elements and preliminary results on stable isotopes in two Italian prehistoric sites. Methodological aspects. In Grupe, G. and Hermann, B., eds.. Trace Elements in Environmental History. Berlin, Springer-Verlag 41-52. 

F.-J. Brueggemeier. The Ruhr Basin 1850-1980 A Case of Large-Scale Environmental Pollution. In The Silent Countdown Essays in European Environmental History. Peter Brimblecombe and Christian Pfister, eds. Berlin Springer-Verlag, 19 (1990) 210-227. 

Other potential monitors of historical trace elements are core samples of ice, peat, and lacustrine deposits. Each individual stratus reflects the environment in which it formed. Analyses of these core samples could reconstruct the past local and regional environmental history. 

A complete occupational/environmental history for the determination of exposure to noxious, irritating gases, as well as cigarette smoking, must be assessed. Exposure to bronchial irritants should be reduced. 

Butzer, K.W. 2005. Environmental history in the Mediterranean world Cross-disciplinary investigation of cause-and-effect for degradation and soil erosion. Journal of Archaeological Science, 32, 1773-1800. 

Sellers, C., 1994, Factory as Environment Industrial Hygiene, Professional Collaboration and the Modern Sciences of Pollution Environmental History Review, Spring, Vol. 18, pp. 55-83. 

Minerals formed in natural waters and in sediments provide a record of the physical chemical processes operating during the period of their formation they also give us information on the environmental factors that regulate the composition of natural waters and on the processes by which elements are removed from the water. The memory record of the sediments allows us to reconstruct the environmental history of the processes that led to the deposition of minerals, in the past. 

But this habit of thinking is just that, a habit. As Matthew Gandy reminds us in Concrete and Clay, his environmental history of New York City,... 

After DDT Better Knowledge Means. . . More Chemicals The decline and fall of DDT is a piece of environmental history well documented elsewhere. Concerns about the chemical had in fact been pronounced by military scientists who had animal tested the compound during the Second World War. This was followed by a far greater concern about the impact of the... 

The most recent (2006) and accessible work, Ted Steinberg s American Green, provides exhaustive evidence of the lengths Americans will go to achieve the perfect lawn. Laid out in the form of an environmental history, the work... 

Maddox G.H. (1999). Africa and Environmental History. Environmental History, 4, 162-167. 

The ensuing suite of minerals that theoretically precipitate are, however, different for these two scenarios. For example, drying by evaporation leads to precipitation of predominantly halite (NaCl), while freezing leads to predominantly hydrohalite (NaCl-2H20) (Fig. 5.14a-b). If states of mineral hydration are preserved in ocean or lacustrine deposits on Mars, then these records could provide valuable clues to the environmental history of Mars during the drying process. 

Environmental History. The complexity of their makeup might seem adequate deterrent to their systematic analysis of minerals, but, in addition to their makeup, crustal minerals bear an experience. In anthropomorphic terms, their behavior (properties) derives from both a heredity (composition and structure) and an... 

Since the environmental history of the book would influence the results obtained from physical property measurements made on the paper, each book was preconditioned in a standard atmosphere (4) before any paper samples were removed. The following physical property measurements were made on the same pages throughout each of the control and dried books tensile breaking strength (5) tensile energy of absorption (6, 7) internal tear resistance (8) thickness (9) and hot-water extract-able acidity or alkalinity (10). 

Engstrom D. R. and Wright H. E., Jr. (1984) Chemical stratigraphy of lake sediments as a record of environmental change. In Lake Sediments and Environmental History (eds. E. Y. Haworth and J. W. G. Lund). University of Minnesota Press, Minneapohs Minn., pp. 11—67. 

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