ALBERT

Description / Table of Contents: The 3D geological model is still regarded as one of the newest and most innovative tools for reservoir management purposes. The computer modelling of structures, rock properties and fluid flow in hydrocarbon reservoirs has evolved from a specialist activity to part of the standard desktop toolkit. The application of these techniques has allowed all disciplines of the subsurface team to collaborate in a common workspace. In today's asset teams, the role of the geological model in hydrocarbon development planning is key and will be for some time ahead. The challenges that face the geologists and engineers will be to provide more seamless interaction between static and dynamic models. This interaction requires the development of conventional and unconventional modelling algorithms and methodologies in order to provide more risk-assessed scenarios, thus enabling geologists and engineers to better understand and capture inherent uncertainties at each aspect of the geological model's life.

Description / Table of Contents: Periglacial and paraglacial environments, located outside ice sheet margins but responding to similar climate forcings, are key to identifying climate change effects upon the Earth system. These environments are relicts of cold Earth processes and so are most sensitive to global warming. Changes in the distribution and thickness of permafrost in continental interiors have implications for ecosystem and landscape stability. Periglacial Alpine environments are experiencing increased rockfall and mass movement, leading to rock glacier instability and sediment release to downstream rivers. In turn, these landscape effects impact on natural hazards and human activities in these sensitive and geologically transient environments. Papers in this volume explore some of these interrelated issues in field studies from Europe, North America and Asia. The volume will be of interest to geomorphologists, modellers, environmental managers, planners and engineers working on landscape, climate and environmental change in periglacial and paraglacial areas.

Description / Table of Contents: Underground gas storage: An introduction and UK perspective / D. J. Evans and R. A. Chadwick / Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 313, 1-11, 26 May 2009, https://doi.org/10.1144/SP313.1 --- The importance of gas storage to the UK: The DECC perspective / J. Havard and R. French / Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 313, 13-15, 26 May 2009, https://doi.org/10.1144/SP313.2 --- Gas storage: An onshore operator's perspective / A. Fernando and A. Raman / Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 313, 17-24, 26 May 2009, https://doi.org/10.1144/SP313.3 --- Underground gas storage: Why and how / Hans Plaat / Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 313, 25-37, 26 May 2009, https://doi.org/10.1144/SP313.4 --- A review of onshore UK salt deposits and their potential for underground gas storage / D. J. Evans and S. Holloway / Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 313, 39-80, 26 May 2009, https://doi.org/10.1144/SP313.5 --- Environmental and safety monitoring of the natural gas underground storage at Stenlille, Denmark / T. Laier and H. Øbro / Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 313, 81-92, 26 May 2009, https://doi.org/10.1144/SP313.6 --- Design of salt caverns for the storage of natural gas, crude oil and compressed air: Geomechanical aspects of construction, operation and abandonment / K.-H. Lux / Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 313, 93-128, 26 May 2009, https://doi.org/10.1144/SP313.7 --- New procedure for tightness tests (MIT) of salt cavern storage wells: Continuous high accuracy determination of relevant parameters, without the need to use radioactive tools / Hartmut Von Tryller, Andreas Reitze and Fritz Crotogino / Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 313, 129-137, 26 May 2009, https://doi.org/10.1144/SP313.8 --- Environmental issues in permitting gas storage: The Wild Goose case history / Laurie McClenahan Hietter / Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 313, 139-148, 26 May 2009, https://doi.org/10.1144/SP313.9 --- Underground gas storage project at Welton oilfield, Lincolnshire: Local perspectives and responses to planning, environmental and community safety issues / Meg Davidson / Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 313, 149-161, 26 May 2009, https://doi.org/10.1144/SP313.10 --- Well integrity: An overlooked source of risk and liability for underground natural gas storage. Lessons learned from incidents in the USA / Brent Miyazaki / Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 313, 163-172, 26 May 2009, https://doi.org/10.1144/SP313.11 --- A review of underground fuel storage events and putting risk into perspective with other areas of the energy supply chain / D. J. Evans / Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 313, 173-216, 26 May 2009, https://doi.org/10.1144/SP313.12 --- Underground hydrogen storage in the UK / Howard B. J. Stone, Ivo Veldhuis and R. Neil Richardson / Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 313, 217-226, 26 May 2009, https://doi.org/10.1144/SP313.13 --- Subsurface characterization and geological monitoring of the CO2 injection operation at Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Canada / James B. Riding and Christopher A. Rochelle / Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 313, 227-256, 26 May 2009, https://doi.org/10.1144/SP313.14 --- Review of monitoring issues and technologies associated with the long-term underground storage of carbon dioxide / R. A. Chadwick, R. Arts, M. Bentham, O. Eiken, S. Holloway, G. A. Kirby, J. M. Pearce, J. P. Williamson and P. Zweigel / Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 313, 257-275, 26 May 2009, https://doi.org/10.1144/SP313.15

Description / Table of Contents: This book deals with various interesting aspects of the histories of geomorphology and Quaternary geology in different parts of the world. The papers cover a range of topics: the origin of the term ‘Quaternary’, histories of ideas and debates relating to aspects of fluvial geomorphology (USA and Australia), glacial geomorphology and glaciation (Northern Europe, the Baltic countries, Russia, Iceland, and New Zealand), desert dunes and the geology of Australia, peneplains in China, a palaeo-Tokyo Bay in Japan, together with biographies of Charles Cotton (New Zealand), Valerija Cepulyte (Lithuania) and Ceslovas Pakuckas (Lithuania and Poland) that highlight their respective contributions to the disciplines of geomorphology and Quaternary geology. There is an autobiographical contribution from E. E. Milanovsky (Russia) on his work in Siberia, the Caucasus and Iceland, illustrated by his sketches made in the field.

Description / Table of Contents: This book is the first to describe the history of geoconservation. It draws on experience from the UK, Europe and further afield, to explore topics including: what is geoconservation; where, when and how did it start; who was responsible; and how has it differed across the world? Geological and geomorphological features, processes, sites and specimens, provide a resource of immense scientific and educational importance. They also form the foundation for the varied and spectacular landscapes that help define national and local identity as well as many of the great tourism destinations. Mankind's activities, including contributing to enhanced climate change, pose many threats to this resource: the importance of safeguarding and managing it for future generations is now widely accepted as part of sustainable development. Geoconservation is an established and growing activity across the world, with more participants and a greater profile than ever before. This volume highlights a history of challenges, set-backs, successes and visionary individuals and provides a sound basis for taking geoconservation into the future.

Description / Table of Contents: Faults are primary focuses of both fluid migration and deformation in the upper crust. The recognition that faults are typically heterogeneous zones of deformed material, not simple discrete fractures, has fundamental implications for the way geoscientists predict fluid migration in fault zones, as well as leading to new concepts in understanding seismic/aseismic strain accommodation. This book captures current research into understanding the complexities of fault-zone internal structure, and their control on mechanical and fluid-flow properties of the upper crust. A wide variety of approaches are presented, from geological field studies and laboratory analyses of fault-zone and fault-rock properties to numerical fluid-flow modelling, and from seismological data analyses to coupled hydraulic and rheological modelling. The publication aims to illustrate the importance of understanding fault-zone complexity by integrating such diverse approaches, and its impact on the rheological and fluid-flow behaviour of fault zones in different contexts.

Description / Table of Contents: The boundaries of rigid cratons can be affected by subsequent orogenic events, leading to ‘metacratonic’ characteristics not often properly recognized and still poorly understood. Major lithospheric thickening is absent and early events such as ophiolites are preserved; however, metacratonic boundaries are affected by major shear zones, abundant magmatism and mineralizations, and local high-pressure metamorphism. West Africa, marked by the large Eburnian (c. 2 Ga) West African craton, the absence of Mesoproterozoic events, the major Pan-African (0.9–0.55 Ga) mobile belts that generated the Peri-Gondawanan terranes, and the weaker but enlightening Variscan and Alpine orogenies, is an excellent place for tackling this promising concept of metacratonization. The papers in this book consider most of the West African craton boundaries, from the reworking of the Palaeoproterozoic terranes, through the Pan-African encircling terranes, the late Neoproterozoic-early Palaeozoic extension period and the Peri-Gondwanan terranes, the Variscan imprint to the current situation.

Description / Table of Contents: Twenty years have passed since Menzies & Hawkesworth extended the concept of metasomatism to mantle processes. The aim of this book is to gather together progress made on this topic since then. Most of the 14 papers reported in the volume rely on in situ major and trace element analyses of minerals and glasses in mantle xenoliths, and deal with different kinds of metasomatic agents at variable fluid/rock ratios in tectonic settings as different as intra-plate, mid-ocean ridge (ophiolites) and supra-subduction. The book contributes to the wide debate on the nature of the fluids migrating into the mantle wedge, as well as on the different residential times of the subduction signature. In addition papers on intra-plate settings deal with the problem of relating various metasomatic signatures to one single metasomatic event through an infiltration-reaction process.

Description / Table of Contents: The Devonian was a critical period with respect to the diversification of early terrestrial ecosystems. The geotectonic setting was characterized by the switch from the post-Caledonian to the pre-Variscan situation. Plant life on land evolved from tiny tracheophytes to trees of considerable size in combination with a global increase in terrestrial biomass, and vertebrates started to conquer the land. Extensive shallow-marine areas and continental lowlands with a wide range of different habitats existed. These are preserved in a large number of basins all around the world. Climate change finally led from greenhouse to icehouse conditions towards the end of the Devonian. Rapid evolution of terrestrial ecosystems and climate change had a pronounced influence on sedimentation and biodiversity, not only in the terrestrial, but also in the marine realm. This volume contains case studies from Australia, China, Europe, South America and North America, and individual palaeoecosystems and their components have been investigated in different palaeogeographic settings that contribute to a much better understanding of the Devonian Period. This is a contribution to the IGCP 499 project on "Devonian land-sea interaction: evolution of ecosystems and climate".

Description / Table of Contents: The many kinds of porous geomaterials (rocks, soils, concrete, etc.) exhibit a range of responses when undergoing inelastic deformation. In doing so they commonly develop well-ordered fabric elements, forming fractures, shear bands and compaction bands, so creating the planar fabrics that are regarded as localization. Because these induced localization fabrics alter the bulk material properties (such as permeability, acoustic characteristics and strength), it is important to understand how and why localization occurs, and how it relates to its setting. The concept of damage (in several uses) describes both the precursor to localization and the context within which it occurs. A key theme is that geomaterials display a strong material evolution during deformation, revealing a close linkage between the damage and localization processes. This volume assembles perspectives from a number of disciplines, including soil mechanics, rock mechanics, structural geology, seismic anisotropy and reservoir engineering. The papers range from theoretical to observational, and include contributions showing how the deformed geomaterials emergent bulk characteristics, like permeability and seismic anisotropy, can be predicted. This book will be of interest to a wide range of geoscientists and engineers who deal with characterization of deformed materials.