By No Means Pleasant

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Dauvergne
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Political History ◽  
Phosphate Fertilizer ◽  
High Grade ◽  
Pacific Island ◽  
Phosphate Mining ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of The South

This chapter surveys the ecological and political history of the South Pacific island of Nauru after 1798 – a microcosm of the globalization of unsustainability. In the 1900s Nauru became a major source of high-grade phosphate fertilizer, especially for Australia and New Zealand. The history of phosphate mining in Nauru illustrates how deeply colonial and postcolonial forces can disrupt sustainability even in places far from the centers of power, and how over generations these disruptions can build into an ever-greater crisis. At the height of Nauru’s phosphate boom in the mid-1970s average income of the Nauruan people was the second highest in the world. But this wealth was an illusion, as Nauru was being strip-mined with little planning for a future without phosphate. Today, Nauru’s economy is in tatters, and with hardly any phosphate left it is now serving its former colonizer Australia as a detention camp for asylum seekers who had been hoping to reach Australia.

The Pikwitonei Granulite Domain, Manitoba: a giant Neoarchean high-grade terrane in the northwest Superior ProvinceThis article is one of a series of papers published in this Special Issue on the theme of Geochronology in honour of Tom Krogh.N. Machado, T.E. Krogh, and W. Weber are deceased.

2011 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. M. Heaman ◽  
Ch. O. Böhm ◽  
N. Machado ◽  
T. E. Krogh ◽  
W. Weber ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Granulite Facies ◽  
Superior Province ◽  
High Grade ◽  
Metamorphic Zircon ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Metamorphic History ◽  
Zircon Growth ◽  
The World ◽  
Northwestern Margin ◽  
History Of

The Pikwitonei Granulite Domain located at the northwestern margin of the Superior Province is one of the largest Neoarchean high-grade terranes in the world, with well-preserved granulite metamorphic assemblages preserved in a variety of lithologies, including enderbite, opdalite, charnockite, and mafic granulite. U–Pb geochronology has been attempted to unravel the protolith ages and metamorphic history of numerous lithologies at three main localities; Natawahunan Lake, Sipiwesk Lake, and Cauchon Lake. The U–Pb age results indicate that some of the layered enderbite gneisses are Mesoarchean (3.4–3.0 Ga) and the more massive enderbites are Neoarchean. The high-grade metamorphic history of the Pikwitonei Granulite Domain is complex and multistage with at least four episodes of metamorphic zircon growth identified: (1) 2716.1 ± 3.8 Ma, (2) 2694.6 ± 0.6 Ma, (3) 2679.6 ± 0.9 Ma, and (4) 2642.5 ± 0.9 Ma. Metamorphic zircon growth during episodes 2 and 3 are interpreted to be regional in extent, corresponding to M1 amphibolite- and M2 granulite-facies events, respectively, consistent with previous field observations. The youngest metamorphic episode at 2642.5 Ma is only recognized at southern Cauchon Lake, where it coincides with granite melt production and possible development of a major northeast-trending deformation zone. The timing and multistage metamorphic history recorded in the Pikwitonei Granulite Domain is similar to most Superior Province high-grade terranes and marks a fundamental break in Archean crustal evolution worldwide at the termination of prolific global Neoarchean greenstone belt formation.

Sailing into the Anthropocene

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Dauvergne
Keyword(s):  
South Pacific ◽  
The Political ◽  
Pacific Island ◽  
The South ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Pacific Ocean ◽  
Starting Date ◽  
History Of The South

Chapters 2–6 survey the political and socioeconomic forces underlying the global sustainability crisis. Understanding the scale and depth of contemporary forces of capitalism and consumerism requires a close look at the consequences of imperialism and colonialism on patterns of violence and exploitation. This chapter begins this process of understanding by sketching the history of ecological imperialism after 1600, seeing this as a reasonable starting date for the beginning of what many scholars are now calling the Anthropocene Epoch (or the age of humans, replacing the geologic epoch of the Holocene beginning 12,000 years ago). It opens with Captain Pedro Fernandes de Queirós’s voyage across the Pacific Ocean in 1605–06 to “discover” modern-day Vanuatu, before turning to look more globally at the devastation of imperialism – and later colonialism – for the South Pacific, the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Over this time conquerors enslaved and murdered large numbers of indigenous people; cataclysmic change came as well, however, from the introduction of European diseases, plants, and animals. This chapter’s survey of imperialism, colonialism, and globalization sets the stage for Chapter 3, which explores the devastating history of the South Pacific island of Nauru after 1798.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document