On the last paper of Warren B. Hamilton

ABSTRACT When Warren Hamilton passed away in October 2018, he left behind the manuscript for a synthesis paper that was published in Earth-Science Reviews in 2019: “Toward a myth-free geodynamic history of Earth and its neighbors.” Integrating hundreds of detailed studies across four worlds and billions of years, the paper’s outlook is heterodox, presenting alternatives to conventional wisdom in every paragraph for almost 50 pages. During the last years of his life, Hamilton had worked steadily on this paper, which he viewed as the culmination of his long career. This chapter tells the story of how Hamilton wrote his last paper, summarizes a few of the many ideas it contains, and describes how, with help from his colleagues, the paper was posthumously completed and published.

From crisis to normal science, and back again: Coming full “Kuhn cycle” in the career of Warren B. Hamilton

ABSTRACT In this paper, I use Thomas S. Kuhn’s model of scientific change to frame a brief, broad-brushed biographical sketch of the career of Warren B. Hamilton. I argue that Hamilton’s career can usefully be interpreted as encompassing a full “Kuhn cycle,” from a period of crisis in his early work, to one of normal science in midcareer, and back to something resembling crisis in his later research. Hamilton entered the field around mid-twentieth century when earth science can plausibly be described as being in a period of crisis. The then dominant fixist paradigm was facing an increasing number of difficulties, an alternative mobilist paradigm was being developed, and Hamilton played an important role in its development. The formulation of plate tectonics in the 1960s saw the overthrow of the fixist paradigm. This inaugurated a new phase of normal science as scientists worked within the new paradigm, refining it and applying it to different regions and various geological phenomena. Hamilton’s midcareer work fits largely into this category. Later, as the details of the plate-tectonic model became articulated more fully, and several of what Hamilton perceived as weakly supported conjectures became incorporated into the paradigm, problems began again to accumulate, and earth science, in Hamilton’s estimation, entered a new period of crisis. Radically new frameworks were now required, and Hamilton’s later work was dedicated principally to developing and articulating these frameworks and to criticizing mainstream views.

In-situ Lu – Hf geochronology of calcite

The ability to constrain the age of calcite formation is of great utility to the Earth Science community, due to the ubiquity of calcite across a wide spectrum of geological systems. Here, we present the first in-situ laser ablation inductively coupled tandem mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS/MS) Lu–Hf ages for calcite, demonstrating geologically meaningful ages for IOCG and skarn mineralisation, carbonatite intrusion and low grade metamorphism. The analysed samples range in age between ca. 0.9 Ga and ca. 2 Ga with uncertainties between 1.4 % and 0.5 % obtained from calcite with Lu concentrations as low as ca. 0.5 ppm. The Lu–Hf system in calcite appears to be able to preserve primary precipitation ages over a significant amount of geological time, although further research is required to constrain the closure temperature. The in-situ approach allows calcite to be rapidly dated while maintaining its petrogenetic context with mineralization and other associated mineral processes. Therefore, LA-ICP-MS/MS Lu–Hf dating of calcite can be used to resolve the timing of complex mineral paragenetic sequences that are a feature of many ancient rock systems.

Applications of ANN for Agriculture Using Remote Sensed Data

Ever since the advent of modern geo information systems, tracking environmental changes due to natural and/or manmade causes with the aid of remote sensing applications has been an indispensable tool in numerous fields of geography, most of the earth science disciplines, defense, intelligence, commerce, economics, and administrative planning. Remote sensing is used in science and technology, and through it, an object can be identified, measured, and analyzed without physical presence for interpretation. In India remote sensing has been using since 1970s. One among these applications is the crop classification and yield estimation. Using remote sensing in agriculture for crop mapping, and yield estimation provides efficient information, which is mainly used in many government organizations and the private sector. The pivotal sector for ensuring food security is a major concern of interest in these days. In time, availability of information on agricultural crops is vital for making well-versed decisions on food security issues.

The 3rd International Conference on Agriculture and Bioindustry (ICAGRI)

(The 3rd ICAGRI 2021) The 3rd ICAGRI-2021 theme is “Sustainable Technologies for Enhancing Agricultural Productivity: Challenges and Current Scenario” Banda Aceh, 13 October 2021 Organized by: Faculty of Agriculture, Universitas Syiah Kuala Supported by: Extended Preface The 3rd International Conference on Agriculture and Bioindustry (ICAGRI) is an international conference that brings leading international academia, researchers, policymakers, professionals and stakeholders in the domain of interest from around the world together. Various issues related to Environmental Studies, Soil and Earth Science, Sustainable Agriculture, Agricultural Biotechnology, Agricultural Engineering, Food Science, Animal Husbandry, Biodiversity, Biomaterial and Bioindustry and were discussed to accelerate innovation and technology of resource-based food security and local wisdom. The conference that organized by Agriculture Faculty, Universitas Syiah Kuala (USK) was held on October 13, 2021 in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. This year, due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, the conference was carried out in the form of virtual conference to avoid personnel gatherings. Nevertheless, we can see the enthusiasm of the participants from the number of papers we received. In total, we received 174 submitted papers through submission system, while 59 submission papers were rejected due to irrelevant topics and content concerns. A total of 115 papers were accepted for presentations on the 3rd ICAGRI 2021. Selected papers were compiled into the proceeding after being reviewed rigorously. The conference was not postponed since it has been scheduled and planned for last 6 months. It also related with tight schedule of keynote and invited speakers. Moreover, it is regularly requested by researchers from previous ICAGRI to perform the conference as planned. It was conducted using Zoom platform and lively broadcast through YouTube platform. The conference started by keynote speakers’ presentations, and followed by invited speakers and participant presentations. There was a discussion session after each presentation. We are greatly honored to have Prof. Dr. Ir. Dedi Nursyamsi, M.Agr (representative of minister of agriculture Republic Indonesia), Prof. Dr. Fátima Baptista (University of Évora and MED, Portugal), Dr. Natsumi Kanzaki (Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, Japan), Prof. Dr. Susanne Neugart (Georg-August-Universitát Gottingen, Germany). As the conference chair, we would like to thanks to the organizing committee, the international scientific committee, the reviewers, the editors, and the publisher for tremendous contribution on the 3rd ICAGRI 2021. We are expecting more experts and scholars from all over the world to join the next ICAGRI in 2022. Sincerely yours, Dr. rer. hort. Indera Sakti Nasution, M.Sc. Chairperson of the 3rd ICAGRI 2021 EDITORIAL BOARDS AND INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE, ADVISORY BOARD, ORGANIZING COMMITTEE are available in the pdf

PR21_Integrated_Photonic_Spectrometer_STTR_16

The goal of this project was to design silicon photonic components for a microchip-scale spectrometer. Future earth science and space missions may benefit from spectroscopic measurements made using compact, energy efficient and inexpensive instruments.

WaterBench: A Large-scale Benchmark Dataset for Data-Driven Streamflow Forecasting

This study proposes a comprehensive benchmark dataset for streamflow forecasting, WaterBench, that follows FAIR data principles that is prepared with a focus on convenience for utilizing in data-driven and machine learning studies, and provides benchmark performance for state-of-art deep learning architectures on the dataset for comparative analysis. By aggregating the datasets of streamflow, precipitation, watershed area, slope, soil types, and evapotranspiration from federal agencies and state organizations (i.e., NASA, NOAA, USGS, and Iowa Flood Center), we provided the WaterBench for hourly streamflow forecast studies. This dataset has a high temporal and spatial resolution with rich metadata and relational information, which can be used for varieties of deep learning and machine learning research. We defined a sample streamflow forecasting task for the next 120 hours and provided performance benchmarks on this task with sample linear regression and deep learning models, including Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), Gated Recurrent Units (GRU), and S2S (Sequence-to-sequence). To some extent, WaterBench makes up for the lack of a unified benchmark in earth science research. We highly encourage researchers to use the WaterBench for deep learning research in hydrology.