bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Introduction
Authors: Vertovec Steven
Published: November 2020

Scientists, politicians, businesspeople and the wider public today have an increasing awareness of global environmental issues. This public awareness, and a certain amount of knowledge accompanying it, has been growing in depth and breadth. Such an awareness has been developing over decades, spurred by prominent publications such as Rachel Carson’s (1963) Silent Spring, the Club of Rome’s (1972) The Limits of Growth, and the Brundtland Commission’s (1987) Our Common Future. Major public events have also drawn world-wide attention to environmental matters, especially the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment organized in Stockholm, the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED, often known as the Earth Summit) in Rio de Janeiro, and most recently the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg. Global environmental problems were regarded as minor issues marginal to national interests until the 1980s. It was in the middle of the 1980s that the mass media began to pay increased attention to global environmental issues, prompted by events such as the Bhopal and Chernobyl disasters and the discovery of a hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic. Since then, there has been a rising interest in such problems, particularly in the light of issues of global warming, along with unease over the emission of toxic chemicals, threats to biodiversity, desertification, the depletion of the world’s fisheries and the elimination of forest cover. There has emerged especially since that decade a world-wide attentiveness to common risks posed by radioactivity, pollutants and depletion of resources (cf. Beck 1992). Over the past twenty years, not least urged by public concern, scientific understanding of the global environment has developed considerably, occasionally feeding into public awareness. William C. Clark (2000: 87) describes the development of scientific awareness of global connections among environmental ‘stuff’: ‘As understanding of the earth system has emerged during the last two decades, it has revealed the planet’s environment to be shaped by complex linkages among atmosphere, ocean, soil and biota.’
Adapting to Life Without the Legions
Authors: Hinton David A.
Published: November 2020

If gold and silver are a measure of wealth, late Roman Britain was very rich. Hoards of coins, jewellery, and plate buried in the late fourth and early fifth centuries show that their owners’ lifestyle was coming to an end as central imperial authority broke down, troops were withdrawn from the island, villas fell into disuse, and towns lost their markets and trade. Raiders threatened by land and sea: Irish from the west, Pictish from the north, Frisian, Saxon, and others from the east; and as civic order broke down, the likelihood of robbery by people living south of Hadrian’s Wall grew worse. The hoards’ owners were right to worry, and their subsequent failure to retrieve their valuables must testify to many personal catastrophes. Hoards containing dishes, bowls, and spoons as well as coins and jewellery have been found on the east side of Roman Britain from Canterbury, Kent, in the south to Whorlton, Yorkshire, in the north. Further west, coin-hoards are quite plentiful, although none has any plate. Some contain jewellery, like one found in 1843 at Amesbury, Wiltshire, that included three silver finger-rings; in the same area, another hoard with eight gold coins and one of silver was found in 1990, apparently concealed in a pot around the year 405, to judge from the date of the latest coin. But as with plate so with jewellery, the contrast with the east is still considerable; Thetford, Norfolk, has gold finger-rings as well as ornamental chains, bracelets, and a buckle; Hoxne, Suffolk, has gold bracelets, and again chains, these with elaborate mounts. Some of the craftsmanship shown in these pieces is of a high order, that only well-off patrons could have afforded. The plate suggests displays of tableware by a society that set great store on being able to offer lavish feasts and entertainment. These late Roman treasures may be giving a slightly false impression of Britain’s prosperity. Silver was probably extracted from the same native deposits that yielded lead, so would have been more available than in most parts of the Empire. Some may also have entered Britain from Ireland, where evidence of Roman intervention is accumulating.
Kings and Christianity
Authors: Hinton David A.
Published: November 2020

New discoveries play a major part in archaeological research, but coincidence can also have a role. When four copper-alloy scabbard-studs with Style II ornament were excavated in the smith’s grave at Tattershall Thorpe in 1981 (Fig. 2.18), they were the first of their kind to have been found in England, despite being well known on the continent, where they are dated to between 640 and 670. Within a couple of years, however, another set turned up, on a scabbard in a cemetery in Buttermarket, Ipswich, Suffolk. Then, in 1999, yet another set was found, in a grave at the new football stadium in Southampton, Hampshire (Fig. 3.1). These studs adorned scabbards that were not for double-edged swords, but for the single-edged long seax, not a very practical weapon, but one that was probably used in hunting and was therefore redolent of aristocratic practice. At Tattershall Thorpe the studs were not attached to anything, and were presumably going to be shown to a prospective patron with a view to reuse. At Ipswich and Southampton both sets were in cemeteries at what were about to become major trading-places, Gippeswic and Hamwic. These wic sites had continental counterparts and suggest new ways of organizing and systematizing exchanges of goods; others in England were London, Lundenwic, and York, Eoforwic, both former Roman towns, with the wics outside the walls but episcopal churches inside. Neither Ipswich nor Southampton had a major church, so there was no reason for important burials at either unless they were of people involved in the places’ emergence as commercial centres. One explanation is that some of the graves were for kings’ ‘reeves’ and their families, royal agents placed to oversee merchants and to ensure that tolls were paid, who were buried slightly away from where the commerce was to take place. The Southampton cemetery had other signs of an elite presence, such as a woman’s grave that contained a gold pendant with garnets and Style II animals in filigree gold wire on it (Col. pl. C.2), which seems likely to be mid- to later seventh-century.
Material Culture and Social Display
Authors: Hinton David A.
Published: November 2020

The trend towards increasing secular interest in jewellery was probably maintained throughout the thirteenth century, though precise dating of individual pieces remains difficult. With only small amounts of gold to be found in the south of France and Hungary, western Europeans continued to depend upon both gold and gems coming by overland routes from or through the Arab world, with Italian merchants acting as intermediaries. In 1257 Henry III was able to attempt to imitate continental kings by issuing gold coins, not to facilitate trade but to attract gold into the mint to back up his loans and pledges, and to use as alms. The care that went into the coins’ design shows that they were thought of as having prestige value, and the decision to represent the king carrying the orb and sceptre was most probably made in homage to one of the issues of his revered predecessor Edward the Confessor; the royal seal was also changed, to a design that adapted Edward’s image of an enthroned king ruling as a judge like Solomon rather than as a military leader with a sword. Henry’s gold coins were only produced in small numbers and for a very short time, but they show that the importance of the symbolism of a currency was still understood, though no more effort was made with the designs of everyday silver coins than in previous reigns. The amount of coinage in circulation is shown both by single finds and hoards, not only in England but in Wales and Scotland as well. Excavation of the church at Capel Maelog, Powys, produced coins of Henry III, Edward I (1272–1307), and Richard II (1377–99), suggesting that the use of English money had spread into Welsh culture. The Welsh kings did not mint their own coins, however, unlike the kings of Scotland, whose coins were allowed to circulate in England just as English ones did north of the border. Presumably exclusion of a rival’s image was no longer a matter of pride. No hoard in Britain hidden during the middle part of the thirteenth century has objects in it to help to establish a chronology for jewellery.
The Wars and the Posies
Authors: Hinton David A.
Published: November 2020

The problems of the second half of the fourteenth century continued to affect the fifteenth. Sudden death remained a constant threat, and population levels probably did not begin to recover much, if at all, until the 1540s. Instability in England was briefly restrained by the century’s first two Henries, but thereafter losses in France soon began to prove expensive, the Wars of the Roses were resumed, and uprisings in Wales added to the uncertainty. Nor did the new Stewart dynasty bring internal peace to Scotland. Commercial profits could still be made, especially in the cloth trade, but exports rose and fell with alarming rapidity. Population reduction led to much restructuring, not least in widespread abandonment or shrinkage of rural sites and of urban back areas and suburbs. For archaeology there are some compensations; stone-lined rubbish-pits were one response to fears of smell-spread disease, and their final fills are less often mixed up with residual material than those left unlined. But in London the establishment of the stone waterfront means that the dump deposits peter out, so that the place of the capital in setting standards for the rest of the country becomes even more difficult to assess. Although there was enough bullion to sustain a silver currency in England and Scotland and to allow at least intermittent minting of gold coins, sometimes in quite large numbers, the site-find record is an indicator of decreased overall usage. Both silver and gold became available from new sources after 1460, some compensation for the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the consequent extra difficulty of trading with the Near East, but the maritime route that opened up for bringing gold from West Africa may not have increased the quantity coming into Europe as a whole, as trans-Sahara caravans were fewer. Use of the sea, however, put first Portugal and later England in the middle of commercial flow-lines, rather than at their ends. After the fifteenth century gems began to come round the Cape to enter Europe by the same western route, and emeralds even crossed the Atlantic, to be followed by new supplies of gold.
Editorial Introduction
Authors: Woodward Jamie
Published: November 2020

By examining both contemporary processes and long-term records of change, this volume explores the climates, landscapes, ecosystems, and hazards that comprise the Mediterranean world. This is the only region on Earth where three continents meet and their interaction has produced a very distinctive physical geography. This book examines the landscapes and processes at the margins of the three continents and the distinctive marine environment between them. In broad terms, the physical geography of the Mediterranean is a product of long-term interplay between tectonic forces, climate change, river basin and marine processes, and biosphere dynamics, as well as the action of humans during the course of the Holocene. From the outset, it is important to keep in mind that this physical geography is an integration of energy, materials, and processes within a much wider global system. The Mediterranean is a zone of convergence and interaction. It is a meeting place not only for tectonic plates, but also for air masses, energy, and river flows from both temperate and tropical latitudes. The region also interacts directly with the global ocean, receiving cool North Atlantic waters in exchange for the warmer and saltier waters produced in the basins of the Mediterranean Sea. It is also a biodiversity hotspot; the Mediterranean has been a meeting place for plants, animals, and humans from three continents throughout much of its history. The chapters in Part I set out the physical and biological framework for the rest of the book and examine key debates about the evolution of the Mediterranean environment. They explore fundamental interactions between the lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere across a range of spatial and temporal scales. The scene is set for later chapters that focus more closely on particular aspects of the Mediterranean environment such as ecosystem dynamics, river basin systems, karst environments, natural hazards, and land degradation. Chapter 1 examines the role of tectonic processes in the development of the Mediterranean landscape and its marine basins. Also highlighted are the dramatic environmental changes and the geomorphological legacy associated with the Messinian Salinity Crisis of the Late Miocene. Chapter 2 focuses on the marine environment, both ancient and modern.
The Climate System
Authors: Harding Andrew , Palutikof Jean
Published: November 2020

The Mediterranean region has a highly distinctive climate due to its position between 30 and 45°N to the west of the Euro-Asian landmass. With respect to the global atmospheric system, it lies between subtropical high pressure systems to the south, and westerly wind belts to the north. In winter, as these systems move equatorward, the Mediterranean basin lies under the influence of, and is exposed to, the westerly wind belt, and the weather is wet and mild. In the summer, as shown in Figure 3.1, the Mediterranean lies under subtropical high pressure systems, and conditions are hot and dry, with an absolute drought that may persist for more than two or three months in drier regions. Climates such as this are relatively rare, and the Mediterranean shares its winter wet/summer dry conditions with locations as distant as central Chile, the southern tip of Cape Province in South Africa, southwest Australia in the Southern Hemisphere, and central California in the Northern Hemisphere. All have in common their mid-latitude position, between subtropical high pressure systems and westerly wind belts. They all lie on the westerly side of continents so that, in winter, when the westerly wind belts dominate over their locations, they are exposed to rain-bearing winds. In the Köppen classification (Köppen 1936), these climates are known as Mediterranean (Type Cs, which is subdivided in turn into maritime Csb and continental Csa). The influence of the Mediterranean Sea means that the Mediterranean-type climate of the region extends much further into the continental landmass than elsewhere, and is not restricted to a narrow ocean-facing strip. Nevertheless, within the Mediterranean region climate is modified by position and topographic influences can be important. The proximity of the western Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean gives its climate a maritime flavour, with higher rainfall and milder temperatures throughout the year. The eastern Mediterranean lies closer to the truly continental influences of central Europe and Asia. Its climate is drier, and temperatures are hotter in summer and colder in winter than in the west. Annual rainfall is typically around 750 mm in Rome, but only around 400 mm in Athens.
Editorial Introduction
Authors: Woodward Jamie
Published: November 2020

Catastrophic earthquakes, explosive volcanic eruptions, and devastating storms and floods are intimately bound up within the history and mythology of the Mediterranean world. It is a key region for the study of natural hazards because it offers unrivalled access to long records of hazard occurrence and impact through documentary, archaeological and geological archives. Early texts and archaeological data have provided unique insights into the nature and impact of past eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, and other hazards. Notable events were carefully documented in Antiquity and the archaeological record provides insights into the impact of catastrophic events on past human societies. The eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, for example, was famously documented by Pliny the Younger, and the excavations at Pompeii have provided extraordinarily rich insights into the dynamics and impacts of tephra falls and pyroclastic flows. The significance of environmental hazards in the demise of civilizations such as Minoan Crete (tsunami) and the Early Bronze Age in the Near East (drought) has been vigorously debated for decades. While such events have undoubtedly threatened people in the region since prehistoric times, the actual threat to human society has increased dramatically in the historical and modern periods as urban environments and their populations have rapidly expanded. This part of the volume analyses hazards associated with both endogenic and exogenic Earth processes and the interactions between them. It includes volcanic processes, crustal instability, tsunamis, fluvial floods, extreme weather phenomena, and wildfires. Each chapter explores the basic controls and the geography of a particular hazard and related processes, and, over a range of timescales, magnitude and frequency relationships and the nature of the threat to human society. High-magnitude events are a fundamental part of the physical geography of the Mediterranean and play a key role in long-term landscape evolution and ecosystem change. Even though the processes associated with each hazard typically take place over very short timescales, they can set in motion long-term adjustments to geomorphological and ecosystem processes. Tephra falls can change soil properties and vegetation communities, for example, and earthquakes may trigger base-level change and landslips in river basins that enhance fluvial sediment yields for many centuries.
Land Degradation
Authors: Thornes John
Published: November 2020

‘Land degradation’ means the reduction and loss of the biological or economic productivity caused by land use change or by a physical process or a combination of the two. ‘Land’ means the terrestrial bio-productive system that comprises soil, vegetation, and other biota and the ecological and hydrological processes that operate within the system (UNEP 1992). The main components of land degradation are ecological degradation, soil loss, and reduction in the amount and quality of the available water resources for human survival and economic sustainability. Conacher and Sala (1998) have edited a major volume on land degradation in Mediterranean environments of the world and soil erosion mechanisms and water resources are considered in other chapters of this book (Chapters 6 and 21). This chapter will focus on the ecological aspects of land degradation by exploring some of the interactions between land use change, vegetation dynamics, grazing patterns, and wildfires. This chapter will also try to identify and avoid repeating the myths that abound in the more popular and/or politically motivated accounts of Mediterranean land degradation. Because of the complex spatial mosaic of environmental and cultural conditions across the Mediterranean (see Blondel 2006), it is not simple to identify the causes or main controls of land degradation or the management strategies required to combat degradation (Lesschen et al. 2007; Märker et al. 2008). As discussed in the context of lake sediment records in Chapter 9, it is certain that the origins of land degradation extend far back into prehistory. Indeed, Naveh and Dan (1973) have proposed a seven-phase history of land degradation for the Mediterranean basin, paraphrased thus: Phase 1 was the Lower Palaeolithic (around 1,000,000 to 100,000 years BP), when the Levant was the main route of biotic and hominid dispersal from Africa to Eurasia and later westwards through the Mediterranean basin. Hunting and gathering were the main activities and the populations were probably very low. Human impact on the environment is not known—but land degradation is assumed to have been negligible. After this, in Phase 2, it is argued that the use of fire as a tool for the opening up of dense forest spread westwards from Greece, possibly reaching France as early as 400,000 BP.
East Asia’s Sustainability Challenge
Authors: Rock Michael T. , Angel David P.
Published: November 2020

Since the 1960s, developing Asia has been going through a historically unprecedented process of urbanization and industrialization. This process, which began in East Asia with Japan after World War II (Johnson 1982), then spread first to Korea (Amsden 1989; Rock 1992; Westphal 1978), Taiwan Province of China (Wade 1990), Hong Kong, China (Haggard 1990), and Singapore (Huff 1999) and subsequently to Indonesia (Hill 1996), Malaysia (Jomo 2001), Thailand (Pongpaichit 1980; Rock 1994), and China has spawned enormous interest. While most of the debate surrounding the East Asian development experience has centered on the proximate causes of its development trajectory and the economic and political consequences of this trajectory for the East Asian newly industrializing economies (NIEs), because Asia looms so large in the global economy and ecology, interest has belatedly turned to the environmental consequences of East Asia’s development path and to the political economy of governmental responses to deteriorating environmental conditions in the region (Brandon and Ramankutty 1993; Rock 2002a). The focus on the environment came none too soon. Rapid urbanization, industrialization, and globalization in the East Asian NIEs, when combined with ‘grow first, clean up later’ environmental policies, have resulted in average levels of air particulates approximately five times higher than in OECD countries and twice the world average (Asian Development Bank 1997). Not surprisingly, of the 60 developing country cities on which the World Bank (2004: 164–5) reports urban air quality, 62% (10 of 16) are in developing East Asia, all but one of the rest are in South Asia. Measures of water pollution in East Asia, such as biological oxygen demand (BOD) and levels of suspended solids are also substantially above world averages (Lohani 1998). With the prospect for further rapid urban-industrial growth rooted in the attraction of foreign direct investment and the export of manufactures in East Asia, the rest of Asia, and the rest of the developing world as the East Asian ‘model of development’ spreads, local, regional, and global environmental conditions may well get worse before they get better (Rock et al. 2000). At the core of this environmental challenge in East Asia is rapid urban industrial growth.
Networks, Conventions, and Regions: Theorizing ‘Worlds of Food’
Authors: Morgan Kevin , Marsden Terry , Murdoch Jonathan
Published: November 2020

Food is a long-standing productive activity which carries a number of different production and consumption attributes. However, much of the recent literature focuses on a limited number of such attributes—namely, the transformation of the food chain and, more in general, of production sites. In particular, much attention has been paid to globalization, the growing power of transnational corporations and their relentless exploitation of nature. In this chapter we argue that this kind of focus is not alone sufficient to account for the growing complexity of contemporary agri-food geography. Growing concerns about food safety and nutrition are leading many consumers in advanced capitalist countries to demand quality products that are embedded in regional ecologies and cultures. This is creating an alternative geography of food, based on ecological food chains and on a new attention to places and natures, that, as we will see in Ch. 3, reveals a very different mosaic of productivity—one that contrasts in important respects with the dominant distribution of productive activities so apparent in the global food sector (Gilg and Battershill, 1998; Ilbery and Kneafsey, 1998). Our aim is to develop an analytical approach that can aid our understanding of this new agri-food geography and can introduce a greater appreciation of the complexity of the contemporary food sector. To this end, we begin by considering work on the globalization of the food sector and by showing that recent analyses have usefully uncovered some of the key motive forces driving this process—most notably the desire by industrial capitals both to ‘outflank’ the biological systems and to disembed food from a traditional regional cultural context of production and consumption. After considering the recent assertion of regionalized quality (which can be seen as a response to the outflanking manoeuvres inherent in industrialization), we examine approaches such as political economy, actor–network theory, and conventions theory that have made significant in-roads into agri-food studies and have revealed differing aspects of the modern food system.
Geology of Granite
Authors: Migon Piotr
Published: November 2020

The unifying theme for granite landscapes of the world is the granite itself, hence it is logical to start with a brief account of granite geology. For obvious reasons of space and relevance, this chapter cannot provide a comprehensive and extensive treatment of granite as a rock. Rather, its aim is to provide background information on those aspects of granite geology which are relevant to geomorphology and may help to explain the variety of landforms and landscapes supported by granite. The survey of literature about the geomorphology of granite areas reveals that in too many studies the lithology of granite and the structure of their intrusive bodies have not received adequate attention, especially if a ruling paradigm was one of climatic, or climato-genetic geomorphology. Granites were usually described in terms of their average grain size, but much less often of their geochemistry, fabric, or physical properties. Even the usage of the very term ‘granite’ may have lacked accuracy, and many landforms described as supported by granite may in fact have developed in granodiorite. On the other hand, it is true that granite may give way to granodiorites without an accompanying change in scenery. In the Yosemite National Park, Sierra Nevada, California, these two variants occur side by side and both support deeply incised valleys, precipitous slopes and the famous Sierran domes. Likewise, wider structural relationships within plutons and batholiths, and with respect to the country rock, have been considered in detail rather seldom. In analyses of discontinuities, long demonstrated to be highly significant for geomorphology, terms such as ‘joints’, ‘faults’, and ‘fractures’ have not been used with sufficient rigour. But it has to be noted in defence of many such geologically poorly based studies that adequate geological data were either hardly available or restricted to a few specific localities within extensive areas, therefore of limited use for any spatial analysis of granite landforms. Notwithstanding the above, there exist a number of studies in which landforms have been carefully analysed in their relationships to various aspects of the lithology, structure, and tectonics of granite intrusions.
Slope Development in Granite Terrains
Authors: Migon Piotr
Published: November 2020

Rock slopes developed in granite may take different forms, as reflected in their longitudinal profiles. Field observations and a literature survey (e.g. Dumanowski, 1964; Young, 1972) allow us to distinguish at least five major categories of slopes: straight, convex-upward, concave, stepped, and vertical rock walls. In addition, overhang slopes may occur, but their height is seldom more than 10 m high and their occurrence is very localized. These basic categories may combine to form compound slopes, for example convex-upward in the upper part and vertical towards the footslope. Somewhat different is Young’s (1972) attempt to identify most common morphologies of granite slopes. He lists six major categories: (1) bare rock domes, smoothly rounded or faceted; (2) steep and irregular bare rock slopes of castellated residual hills, tending towards rectangular forms; (3) concave slopes crowned by a free face; (4) downslope succession of free face, boulder-covered section and pediment; (5) roughly straight or concave slopes, but having irregular, stepped microrelief; (6) smooth convex-concave profile with a continuous regolith cover. The latter, lacking any outcrops of sound bedrock, are not considered as rock slopes for the purposes of this section. Young (1972) appears to seek explanation of this variety in climatic differences between regions, claiming that ‘Variations of slope form associated with climatic differences are as great as or greater, on both granite and limestone, than the similarity of form arising from lithology’ (Young, 1972: 219). This is a debatable statement and apparently contradicted by numerous field examples of co-existence of different forms in relatively small areas. Slope forms do not appear specifically subordinate to larger landforms but occur in different local and regional geomorphic settings. For example, the slopes of the Tenaya Creek valley in the Yosemite National Park include, in different sections of the valley, straight, vertical, convex-upward, and concave variants (Plate 5.1). Apparently, multiple glaciation was unable to give the valley a uniform cross-sectional shape.
Cold-Climate Granite Landscapes
Authors: Migon Piotr
Published: November 2020

Inselbergs, tors, boulder fields, and pediments are repetitive landforms of many low- to mid-latitude granite landscapes, whether in humid or in arid environments. Although there have been attempts to link these landforms to certain specific climatic environments, their actual distribution, as shown in the preceding chapters, speaks clearly for minor climatic control in their development. Therefore, identification of a ‘typical’ granite rainforest, or savanna, or desert landscape does not seem possible. Each of these environments is known to host a variety of distinctive landscapes supported by granite, which will be explored in the next chapter. Likewise, cold environments in high latitudes have long been considered as having a very distinctive geomorphology, in which the factor of rock control matters little, but repeated freezing and thawing is critical. This view is difficult to maintain any longer, especially in the light of recent progress in periglacial geomorphology. The effects of glaciation are more evident, but even there the role of bedrock must not be neglected and formerly glaciated granite terrains do show certain specific features. Many granite terrains are located in cold environments, or have experienced cold-climate conditions in the relatively recent past of the Pleistocene. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that their geomorphic evolution has been influenced by a suite of surface processes characteristic of such settings, collectively termed as ‘periglacial’. Present-day periglacial conditions typify such granite areas as the uplands of Alaska, Yukon, and the northern Rocky Mountains, much of the Canadian Shield, coastal strips of Greenland, northern Scandinavia, extensive tracts of Siberia, and the Tibetan Plateau. Granite areas located further south, in the British Isles, the Iberian Peninsula, the Massif Central, the Harz Mountains, and the Bohemian Massif, were affected by periglacial conditions for most of the Pleistocene. In fact, the most elevated parts of these mountains and uplands experience a mild periglacial environment even today and winter temperatures may remain below 0°C for weeks. The efficacy of present-day frost action is however limited by the insulating snow cover. Some of the granite areas of the southern hemisphere are, or were, within the periglacial realm too.
Tectonic Evolution, Geology, and Geomorphology
Authors: Demoulin Alain
Published: November 2020

The present-day major relief features of western Europe are to a great extent determined by the underlying geological structures, either passively or actively. To get a comprehensive picture of their morphological evolution and interrelations, this chapter provides an overview of the spatial and temporal characteristics of the larg-escale tectonic framework of the continent. After having described the west European landscape at the end of the Palaeozoic, to which time the oldest preserved landforms date back, an outline of the Mesozoic and Cenozoic history of the major tectonic domains follows. Finally, some denudation estimates highlighting the relationship between tectonics, erosion, and the resulting relief, will be discussed. The three main influences on the present-day topographic patterns are those of the Alpine orogeny, the Cenozoic West European rifting, and the imprint of Variscan structures. They combine within a regional stress field determined by the Africa–Eurasia collision and the Alpine push as well as the mid-Atlantic ridge push. Since the end of the Miocene, this stress field is characterized by a fan-shaped distribution of SHmax along the northern border of the Alpine arc. This gives way to a more consistent NW–SE to NNW–SSE direction of compression further from the chain (Bergerat 1987; Müller et al. 1992). Topographically, western Europe may be roughly divided into a series of belts parallel to the Alpine chain. The Alpine chain culminates in a number of peaks exceeding 4,000 m in elevation (4,810 m at Mont Blanc) but the average altitude is in the order of 2,000 m. To the north, the mountainous Alps are bordered by the Molasse foredeep basin whose surface makes an inclined plane descending northwards from c.1,000 m to c.300 m near the Donau River in the Regensburg-Passau area. To the north-west, the Molasse basin narrows between the Alps and the Jura Mountains and is occupied by several extended lakes inherited from Quaternary glacial activity. Next to the Molasse basin in the north and west is a wide belt of recently more or less uplifted areas between 200 and 1,000 m in elevation (and locally in excess of 1,000 m in the French Massif Central and the Bohemian massif).
Neotectonics
Authors: Dramis Francesco , Tondi Emanuele
Published: November 2020

Debate in neotectonics mainly hinges on how far back in time the prefix ‘neo’ should be taken. The term ‘neotectonics’ means, in a first approximation, geologically young, recent or living (active) crustal structures and processes. Some of the many definitions (Angelier 1976; Mercier 1976; Beloussov 1978; Hancock and Williams 1986; Vita-Finzi 1986; Winslow 1986) focus neotectonic studies only on active deformation (late Quaternary–Present) and accept neotectonics as more or less synonymous to active tectonics, while others trace the neotectonic period mainly from the Middle Miocene. It is very difficult to identify a standard time period for defining the beginning of neotectonics, but the present-day opinion is that it depends on the individual characteristics of each geological environment. According to Fourniguet (1987), no time limit is fixed and the field of investigation extends from the present as far back into the past as necessary to understand present or active deformation. The INQUA (International Union for Quaternary Research) Tectonic Commission has accepted the definition of Mörner (1978): ‘Neotectonics is defined as any earth movements or deformations of the geodetic reference level, their mechanisms, their geological origin, their implications for various practical purposes and their future extrapolations.’ Pavlides (1989) proposed a definition along the following lines: ‘Neotectonics is the study of young tectonic events (deformation of upper crust), which have occurred or are still occurring in a given region after its final orogeny (at least for recent orogenies) or more precisely after its last significant reorganization.’ When western Europe is considered, a major change in boundary conditions occurred in the Upper Miocene (7 Ma) when the motion of Africa became directed to the north-west (Dewey et al. 1989). Geological, seismological, and geodetic data in the Mediterranean region and in continental Europe show that the relative motion of Africa and Europe is still in this direction. For this reason we think that for the neotectonics of western Europe one cannot go far back in time beyond the Upper Miocene. The study of the state of stress of the lithosphere around the world has recently been attempted within the World Stress Map Project of the International Lithosphere Programme (Zoback 1992).
River Environments, Climate Change, and Human Impact
Authors: Koster Eduard
Published: November 2020

In this chapter a short overview of the evolution, geomorphological expression, sedimentary records, and discharge and sediment regimes of the major rivers in western Europe is presented. The rivers Elbe, Weser, Rhine, Meuse, Scheldt, Seine, Loire, Garonne, Rhône, and Danube will be separately reviewed but not necessarily in this order and not with equal attention. Emphasis is placed on the Quaternary record and most issues are exemplified by a discussion on phenomena and processes in the Rhine–Meuse delta. As almost all these rivers are strongly influenced by man’s activities, attention is also focused on river management practices, both in a historic context and at present. Finally, modern concepts and plans concerning river conservation and rehabilitation are briefly examined. The foundations of the modern drainage system in north-western Europe were laid in the Miocene when earth movements associated with Alpine orogenesis and the opening of the North Atlantic were at their height (Gibbard 1988). During the Late Tertiary–Early Quaternary the North Sea basin was dominated by an extensive fluvial system that drained the Fennoscandian and Baltic shield through the present Baltic Sea (Overeem et al. 2001; Fig. 6.2). The dimensions of this (former) drainage system were enormous; through empirical relationships based on recent fluvio-deltaic systems the drainage area is estimated to have been in the order of 1.1 × 106 km2. Cenozoic marine and fluvial sediments reach a thickness of more than 3,500 m in the North Sea basin. Quaternary sediments with a thickness of over 1,000 m imply a tenfold increase in sedimentation during this period in comparison to the Tertiary infilling. The fluvial system of Miocene to Middle Pleistocene age has been referred to as the Baltic River system (Bijlsma 1981). It is also designated as the Eridanos delta system by Overeem et al. (2001) named after the legendary Eridanos river in northern Europe mentioned in Greek records (7th century BC). In a seismo-stratigraphic study Overeem et al. (2001) have documented the large-scale basin-fill architecture in terms of external forcing by tectonics, sea-level variations, and climate. The development of this drainage system is attributed to the simultaneous Neogene uplift of the Fennoscandian Shield and the accelerated subsidence of the North Sea basin.
Danish–German–Dutch Wadden Environments
Authors: Hofstede Jacobus
Published: November 2020

The Wadden Sea environment is a coastal tidal environment situated between the North Sea and the northwestern European Lowlands. It stretches over a distance of about 450 km from Den Helder in The Netherlands to the peninsula of Skallingen in Denmark. The approximately 10,000 km2 large Wadden Sea is a coastal sediment sink that developed in the course of the Holocene transgression. It resulted from a specific combination of sediment availability (mainly from the North Sea) and a hydrodynamic regime of tides and waves. In its present state, the Wadden Sea environment consists of extensive tidal flats (the wadden), tidal gullies and inlets, salt marshes, and about twenty-four sandy barrier islands. Further, four estuaries exist that discharge into the Wadden Sea. The Wadden Sea may best be characterized by the words ‘dynamic’ and ‘extreme’; dynamic from a geo-morphological point of view, extreme in its biology. According to Spiegel (1997), with each flood phase a tidal energy input in the order of 2.2 thousand MW occurs in the Wadden Sea of Schleswig-Holstein (Germany). This energy input, combined with the energy impact of wind, waves, and storm surges, results in strong morphological processes. Flora and fauna in the Wadden Sea have to adapt to these intense morphodynamics. Further, they have to endure the permanent change of flood and ebb and fluctuations in salinity, as well as high water temperatures during summer and occasional ice cover during winter. As a result of these extreme environmental conditions, a highly specialized biosystem with about 4,800 species has developed (Heydemann 1998). In its present state the Wadden Sea is one of the last remaining near-natural large-scale ecosystems in central Europe. Its ecological significance is underlined by the fact that 250 animal species live exclusively here (Heydemann 1998). Furthermore, nowhere else in Europe is an ecosystem of this size visited by more birds per surface area for the purpose of feeding. However, the Wadden Sea is subjected to considerable human influences, e.g. the input of nutrients and pollutants, fisheries, dredging, boat traffic, and tourism (de Jong et al. 1999).
Weathering and (Holocene) Soil Formation
Authors: Sevink Jan , Spaargaren Otto
Published: November 2020

The soils of western Europe are marked by superficial accumulation of organic matter as a result of its climate being temperate, rather wet, and leading to leaching and soil acidification. Soils are largely of Holocene age, many properties still being determined by their highly varied parent material. Even more prominent are the impacts of man in this densely populated and highly industrialized part of Europe, causing many soils to be partly or completely of anthropogenic origin. In this chapter, these main soil traits, their origin and distribution will be discussed, attention also being paid to the terminology used and its backgrounds. In the temperate, humid climate of western Europe, organic matter tends to decompose slowly, giving rise to accumulation of above-ground litter and to dark-coloured, humus-rich mineral topsoils. The retarded decomposition is associated with a low activity of soil biota and rather massive production of soluble organic acids, and particularly brought about by the prevailing site conditions such as relatively poor drainage, high precipitation, low temperature, and acid parent material. These site conditions are found over large tracts of western Europe, which therefore have acid, nutrient-poor soils with prominent accumulation of organic matter, such as Podzols and Histosols of the North European Lowlands, and Umbrisols of the middle and high altitude mountains. Bioturbation in these soils is generally weak and therefore soils have distinct horizons and a sharp boundary between the organic surface and mineral subsurface horizons, and thus exhibit large contrasts in soil properties with depth. Where parent materials are more basic and capable of neutralizing acids (e.g. limestone and marl) or climatic conditions are more favourable (e.g. in southern France), litter decomposition proceeds faster and soil biota are more active. In such soils, finely divided organic matter is intimately mixed with mineral material, litter layers are thin or absent and soil reaction tends to be neutral to slightly acid. Moreover, soil horizon differentiation is less prominent as a result of bioturbation, particularly by earthworms. The variation in topsoil properties is so prominent that it was immediately recognized in the early days of soil science and led to a still existing terminology for the description of topsoil organic matter.
Air, Water, and Soil Pollution
Authors: Farmer Andrew
Published: November 2020

The physical environment of western Europe (its air, water, and soil) has been affected by a wide range of pollutants for centuries. Localized pollution of water from anthropogenic sources has been observed since the time of the Roman Empire and by the medieval period cities already experienced air pollution problems. As will be seen, proposals to tackle pollution in the Rhine stretch back to the fifteenth century. However, extensive pollution of the environment was a characteristic of the industrial revolution and major and widespread impacts have been observed throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Only in the last few decades have the emissions (and, therefore, impacts) of many of these pollutants declined due to measures taken by the countries of the region, both collectively and individually (Farmer 1997). This chapter presents an overview of trends in air, water, and soil pollution. In each case the pollutants of most concern will be discussed, indicating their sources and impacts; locations are indicated in Fig. 19.1. In each case the measures that have been adopted to reduce these pollutants will be described, not least to suggest trends for the future. The monitoring of pollutant emissions, concentrations in the environment, and their specific impacts have generated enormous quantities of data over many years. Basic ‘state of environment’ information is produced at the municipal, regional, national, and international level. The latter includes reports produced by EU institutions, especially the European Commission and the European Environment Agency, as well as other multilateral co-operative institutions such as the Rhine Commission. Severe air pollution sources are concentrated, among other regions, in the traditional heavy industry complexes in north-eastern France, Luxembourg, the Meuse valley in Belgium, and in the huge Ruhr industrial complex in western Germany. The range of air pollutants produced by human activity, as well as the impacts that they cause, are extensive. This section will focus on the following pollutants: ammonia, nitrogen oxides, ozone, particulates, and sulphur dioxide. These result in a range of impacts from direct effects on human health and on vegetation to damage to buildings and materials and acidification and eutrophication of soils and water.