The "Table of mineral classification" by Oscar Nerval de Gouvêa: mineralogy and medicine in Brazil.

Oscar Nerval de Gouvêa was a scientist and teacher in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, whose work spanned engineering, medicine, the social sciences, and law. This paper presents and discusses a manuscript entitled "Table of mineral classification," which he appended to his dissertation Da receptividade mórbida , presented to the Faculty of Medicine in 1889. The foundations and features of the table provide a focus for understanding nineteenth-century mineralogy and its connections in Brazil at that time through this scientist. This text was Gouvêa's contribution to the various mineral classification systems which have emerged from different parts of the world.

The "Table of mineral classification" by Oscar Nerval de Gouvêa: mineralogy and medicine in Brazil / A "Tabela de classificação mineral", de Oscar Nerval de Gouvêa: mineralogia e medicina no Brasil

Abstract Oscar Nerval de Gouvêa was a scientist and teacher in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, whose work spanned engineering, medicine, the social sciences, and law. This paper presents and discusses a manuscript entitled "Table of mineral classification," which he appended to his dissertation Da receptividade mórbida , presented to the Faculty of Medicine in 1889. The foundations and features of the table provide a focus for understanding nineteenth-century mineralogy and its connections in Brazil at that time through this scientist. This text was Gouvêa's contribution to the various mineral classification systems which have emerged from different parts of the world.

Resumo Oscar Nerval de Gouvêa foi um cientista e professor no Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, cuja obra abrange engenharia, medicina, ciências sociais e direito. Este artigo apresenta e discute o texto intitulado "Tabela de classificação mineral", que ele anexou a sua tese Da receptividade mórbida, apresentada na Escola Superior de Medicina, em 1889. Os fundamentos e características da tabela propiciam a compreensão da mineralogia do século XIX e suas conexões no Brasil à época por intermédio desse cientista. O texto foi a contribuição de Gouvêa aos diversos sistemas de classificação de minerais originados de diferentes partes do mundo.

Holocene evolution of Portus Pisanus, the lost harbour of Pisa.

The ancient harbour of Pisa, Portus Pisanus, was one of Italy's most influential seaports for many centuries. Nonetheless, very little is known about its oldest harbour and the relationships between environmental evolution and the main stages of harbour history. The port complex that ensured Pisa's position as an economic and maritime power progressively shifted westwards by coastal progradation, before the maritime port of Livorno was built in the late 16th century AD. The lost port is, however, described in the early 5th century AD as being "a large, naturally sheltered embayment" that hosted merchant vessels, suggesting an important maritime structure with significant artificial infrastructure to reach the city. Despite its importance, the geographical location of the harbour complex remains controversial and its environmental evolution is unclear. To fill this knowledge gap and furnish accurate palaeoenvironmental information on Portus Pisanus, we used bio- and geosciences. Based on stratigraphic data, the area's relative sea-level history, and long-term environmental dynamics, we established that at ~200 BC, a naturally protected lagoon developed and hosted Portus Pisanus until the 5th century AD. The decline of the protected lagoon started at ~1350 AD and culminated ~1500 AD, after which time the basin was a coastal lake.

Albert Heim (1849-1937): The Multifaceted Geologist Who Influenced Research Into Near-death Experiences and Suggestion Therapy.

Swiss geologist Albert Heim is well known for his pioneering contributions to several aspects of geology, and for his role in establishing the breeding of different kinds of Swiss mountain dogs. In the field of near-death research, it is also recognized that he performed a pioneering study into near-death states of falling mountaineers. It seems hardly known, however, that Heim also influenced suggestion therapy significantly-in particular, the treatment of warts by suggestion. This article provides an overview of Heim's contribution in the latter field of study.

[Inventories of the Earth. Mineral resource appraisals and the rise of resource economics]. / Inventuren der Erde. Vorratsschätzungen für mineralische Rohstoffe und die Etablierung der Ressourcenökonomie.

How do the earth sciences mediate between the natural and social world? This paper explores the question by focusing on the history of nonfuel mineral resource appraisal from the late nineteenth to the mid twentieth century. It argues that earth sciences early on embraced social scientific knowledge, i.e. economic knowledge, in particular, when it came to determining or deposits and estimating the magnitude of mineral reserves. After 1900, assessing national and global mineral reserves and their "life span" or years of supply became ever more important, scaling up and complementing traditional appraisal practices on the level of individual mines or mining and trading companies. As a consequence, economic methods gained new weight for mineral resource estimation. Natural resource economics as an own field of research grew out of these efforts. By way of example, the mineral resource appraisal assigned to the U.S. Materials Policy Commission by President Harry S. Truman in 1951 is analyzed in more detail. Natural resource economics and environmental economics might be interpreted as a strategy to bring down the vast and holistically conceived object of geological and ecological research, the earth, to human scale, and assimilate it into social matters.

Phylogeographic structure of Terminalia franchetii (combretaceae) in southwest China and its implications for drainage geological history.

Following the rapid uplift of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, the reorganization of the major river drainages in southwest China was primarily caused by river capture events. However, the impact of these past changes in drainage patterns on the current distribution and genetic structure of the endemic flora of this region remains largely unknown. Here we report a survey of amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) in Terminalia franchetii, an endemic shrub or small tree of the deep and dry-hot river valleys of this region. We surveyed AFLP variation within and among 21 populations (251 individuals) of T. franchetii, distributed disjunctively between northern and southern drainage systems. Using STRUCTURE, principal coordinates analysis, and genetic distance methods, we identified two main population genetic groups (I and II) and four subgroups within the species, as follows: (I) the Upper Jinshajiang Valley (subgroup I((north))) and the Honghe drainage area (subgroup I((south))); (II) the Middle and Lower Jinshajiang and Yalongjiang Valleys (subgroup II((north))) and the Nanpanjiang drainage area (subgroup II((south))). Genetic diversity was lower in group I than in group II. According to the genetic diversity and genetic structure results, we suggest that the modern disjunctive distribution and associated patterns of genetic structure of T. franchetii result from vicariance caused by several historical drainage capture events, involving the separation of the Upper Jinshajiang, Yalongjiang and Daduhe from the Honghe or Nanpanjiang in southwest China.

Geotechnical research on Jiangnan Tu-Dun tomb historical remains in China.

Geotechnical research on historical remains can provide new data and distinctive viewpoint for research on soil mechanics. Two Jiangnan Tu-Dun tombs historical remains were investigated by means of in situ and laboratory geotechnical tests. In the present paper the geotechnical properties of these man-made earthworks, especially ageing effect on consolidation and direct shear, and compaction properties of earth fill are discussed.