The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Oral History Project: A Preliminary Report

2000 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanya Levin ◽  
Ronald Doel
Keyword(s):  
Earth Sciences ◽  
Technological Change ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Preliminary Report ◽  
Earth Science ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Institutional History ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of

The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 1999. As part of" the effort to preserve the history of this important earth science research institute, senior Lamont administrators conceived an ambitious oral history project. Now complete, these oral histories present a useful resource for those studying the history of the earth sciences, environmental history, social and institutional history, disciplinary development, technological change, internationalism in the sciences, and patronage. This article summarizes certain preliminary conclusions reached during the course of this project.

History of the Earth Sciences at Southeast Missouri State University

1985 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-71
Author(s):  
Louis Unfer
Keyword(s):  
Earth Sciences ◽  
Earth Science ◽  
Science Department ◽  
State University ◽  
Mining Geology ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Southeast Missouri ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Science Major

The history of Southeast Missouri State University parallels that of other teacher education institutions. It started as Southeast Missouri Normal School in 1873 and reached university status in 1972. A department of Geology and Geography was established in 1909, becoming the Geography Department in 1915. In 1924, the sciences were combined into the Science Department. In 1960, this became the Division of Science and Mathematics and the Department of Earth Sciences was formed. An earth science major began in 1937, with separate geology and geography majors established in 1958. Recently the Department has developed more specialized, job-oriented programs in mining geology and in cartography. Since 1983 the Department has also operated a field camp, headquartered on the campus of Dixie College, St. George, Utah.

Ours Is the Earth: Science and Human History in the Anthropocene

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-358
Author(s):  
Sheila Jasanoff
Keyword(s):  
Earth Sciences ◽  
Earth Science ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Human History ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of ◽  
Temporal Horizon ◽  
Ethical Project

Abstract History at one time drew unproblematically on records produced by human societies about themselves and their doings. Advances in biology and the earth sciences introduced new narrative resources that repositioned the human story in relation to the evolution of all else on the planet, thereby decentering earlier conceptions of time, life, and human agency. This essay reflects on what it means for our understanding of the human that the history of our species has become so intimately entangled with the material processes that make up the biosphere, while concurrently the temporal horizon of our imagination has been stretched forward and back, underscoring the brevity of human existence in relation to earthly time. I suggest that, despite significant changes in the resources with which we can rethink the human condition, drawing upon the sciences, history’s fundamental purposes have not been rendered irrelevant. These center, as before, on the normative project of connecting past and future in ways that make sense of human experience and give meaning to it. In particular, the question of how humans should imagine the stewardship of the Earth in the Anthropocene remains an ethical project for history and not primarily the domain of the natural sciences.

scholarly journals In-Situ Cosmogenic 14C: Production and Examples of its Unique Applications in Studies of Terrestrial and Extraterrestrial Processes

Radiocarbon ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 43 (2B) ◽  
pp. 731-742 ◽  
Author(s):  
D Lal ◽  
A J T Jull
Keyword(s):  
Half Life ◽  
Earth Science ◽  
Chemical Properties ◽  
Radioactive Isotopes ◽  
Earth’S Atmosphere ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of ◽  
Earth's Atmosphere

Nuclear interactions of cosmic rays produce a number of stable and radioactive isotopes on the earth (Lai and Peters 1967). Two of these, 14C and 10Be, find applications as tracers in a wide variety of earth science problems by virtue of their special combination of attributes: 1) their source functions, 2) their half-lives, and 3) their chemical properties. The radioisotope, 14C (half-life = 5730 yr) produced in the earth's atmosphere was the first to be discovered (Anderson et al. 1947; Libby 1952). The next longer-lived isotope, also produced in the earth's atmosphere, 10Be (half-life = 1.5 myr) was discovered independently by two groups within a decade (Arnold 1956; Goel et al. 1957; Lal 1991a). Both the isotopes are produced efficiently in the earth's atmosphere, and also in solids on the earth's surface. Independently and jointly they serve as useful tracers for characterizing the evolutionary history of a wide range of materials and artifacts. Here, we specifically focus on the production of 14C in terrestrial solids, designated as in-situ-produced 14C (to differentiate it from atmospheric 14C, initially produced in the atmosphere). We also illustrate the application to several earth science problems. This is a relatively new area of investigations, using 14C as a tracer, which was made possible by the development of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS). The availability of the in-situ 14C variety has enormously enhanced the overall scope of 14C as a tracer (singly or together with in-situ-produced 10Be), which eminently qualifies it as a unique tracer for studying earth sciences.

Theories of the Earth and Universe: A History of Dogma in the Earth Sciences.

1988 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 311
Author(s):  
Gareth Nelson ◽  
S. Warren Carey ◽  
K. G. McKenzie
Keyword(s):  
Earth Sciences ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of

Theories of the Earth and Universe—A History of Dogma in the Earth Sciences

Eos ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 69 (34) ◽  
pp. 804 ◽  
Author(s):  
George W. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Earth Sciences ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of

scholarly journals Thirteen ways of looking at institutional history: a model for digital exhibitions from science archives

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Venkat Srinivasan ◽  
TB Dinesh ◽  
Bhanu Prakash ◽  
A Shalini
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Public History ◽  
Wallace Stevens ◽  
Institutional History ◽  
The Past ◽  
National Centre ◽  
History Of ◽  
Oral History Interviews ◽  
Official Records

Over the past decade, there have been many efforts to streamline the accessibility of archival material on the web. This includes easy display of oral history interviews and archival records, and making their content more amenable to searches. Science archives wrestle with new challenges, of not just putting out the data, but of building spaces where historians, journalists, the scientific community and the general public can see stories emerging from the linking of seemingly disparate records. We offer a design architecture for an online public history exhibit that takes material from existing archives. Such a digital exhibit allows us to explore the middle space between raw archival data and a finished piece of work (like a book or documentary). The National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) digital exhibit is built around thirteen ways to reflect upon and assemble the history of the institution, which is based in Bangalore, India. (A nod to Wallace Stevens' poem, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”). The exhibit tries to bring to light multiple interpretations of NCBS, weaved by the voices of over 70 story tellers. The material for the exhibit is curated from records collected to build the Centre's archive. The oral history excerpts, along with over 600 photographs, official records, letters, and the occasional lab note, give a glimpse into the Centre's multifaceted history and show connections with the present.

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