Geologica Belgica

W. CAVAZZA, F.M. ROURE, W. SPAKMAN, G.M. STAMPFLI, P.A. ZIEGLER (Editors) 2004. The TRANSMED Atlas. The Mediterranean region from crust to mantle. Geological and geophysical framework. Springer, Berlin. 141 p. Hardcover. ISBN 3-54022181-6. Net price EUR 79,95

This Atlas consist of a book and a CD-ROM. It provides the current state-of-the-art on the geodynamic architecture and history of the Mediterranean region, established around sixteen lithospheric transects across the entire Mediterranean region. This work is the result of the TRANSMED project and forms an integration of new and existing data on surface geology, seismic profiles and mantle tomography, both on land and at sea.

The book consists of three chapters. The first chapter gives an overview of the geodynamic architecture of the Mediterranean region. The Mediterranean fold-and-thrust belts and marine basins are discussed. The geophysical constraints, such as heat flow, stress field, seismicity, …, are summarized. An overview is given of examples of active and ancient geodynamic processes from the Mediterranean region. The second chapter discusses the Mediterranean geodynamics from a tomographic perspective. The final chapter gives an overview on the constraints on the paleotectonic evolution of the Mediterranean region since the break-up of Gondwana. The book is finally completed with an extensive reference list.

The CD-ROM offers an unique opportunity to explore interactively the different lithospheric transects across the Mediterranean. For each transect a general discussion on the lithospheric architecture is given. The data base, on which the transects are based, is outlined. The different litho- and tectonostratigraphic units are described. Finally, the geodynamic evolution along each transect is presented. The CD-ROM is completed with additional material on the tomographic sections and models, and on the paleogeographic reconstructions.

The TRANSMED Atlas is a very interesting work for those who are working in the Mediterranean and are in need of a concise overview of the current ideas on the geodynamic evolution of this particular region. It is definitively not intended for a general public. A great asset of this atlas is the extensive, up-to-date reference list. The atlas is very well illustrated. The CD-ROM is, moreover, very user friendly.

Manuel SINTUBIN

Geodynamics & Geofluids Research Group

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

Olivier ATTEIA, 2005. Chimie et pollutions des eaux souterraines. Editions TEC & DOC Lavoisier (www.lavoisier.fr) 15,5x24 cm, 398 p. ISBN 2-7430-0761-3. Price 60 EUR.

The author presents an overview of nearly all factors affecting subsurface water chemistry.

The first part of this book deals with the natural chemistry of aquifers, giving firstly a brief introduction on the water cycle (chapter1), geology and soils (chapter 2), and hydrogeology with special emphasis on karst hydrogeology (chapter 3). The natural processes affecting groundwater chemistry are divided in processes mainly affecting superficial aquifers on short time scales, like soil exchange and redox processes (chapter 4), and processes affecting deep aquifers on geologic time scales, i.e. groundwater mixing, water-rock equilibrium and ion exchange (chapter 5). The use of isotopes in hydrogeology is also explained in this chapter.

The second and third parts are devoted to pollution of groundwater, respectively through diffuse sources and through point sources.

After an introduction on transfer of pollutants through soils (chapter 6), in the second part nitrates and pesticides (chapter 7 & 8) are treated as the most important diffuse sources of pollution to groundwater.

The discussion on pollution through point sources in the third part, namely heavy metals and trace elements (chapter 10) and organic pollutants (chapter 11), is preceded by a chapter about  toxicity and risk assessment of polluted sites (chapter 9).

The last part of the book gives general background information on (groundwater) chemistry and geochemical modelling (chapters 14 & 15), but also provides the reader with information about French groundwater related legislation, sampling procedures and remediation of polluted sites (chapters 12 & 13).

Given the wide range of topics treated in his book, it is not surprising that the author has chosen to illustrate most of the topics with examples from the recent literature, with emphasis on research carried out in Europe, especially in France. The book thus gives a good introduction to groundwater chemistry for people with a background in hydrogeology and geochemistry, providing an extensive literature overview for the interested reader.

It can be mentioned however that the quality (readability) of some of the figures is uncertain.

Luk PEETERS¹ and Alain DASSARGUES^1,2

¹Hydrogeology & Engineering Geology Group, Department of Geology-Geography, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

²Hydrogeology & Environmental Geology, Department of Georesources, Geotechnologies and Building Materials, Université de Liège

Camille DELARRAS, 2003. Surveillance sanitaire et microbiologique des eaux. Réglementation – Prélèvements – Analyses. Editions TEC & DOC Lavoisier (www.lavoisier.fr) 15,5x24 cm, 268 p. ISBN 2-7430-0633-1. Prix 60 EUR.

Le sous-titre de l’ouvrage résume bien le contenu réel de ce livre. Au chapitre 1, les réglementations françaises et européennes sont abordées en distinguant bien les problématiques différentes des eaux destinées à la consommation humaine et non minérales, des eaux minérales, des eaux thermales, des eaux récréatives, des eaux utilisées pour l’élevage de crustacés (conchylicoles) et des eaux résiduaires. Ensuite au chapitre 2, un descriptif précis est donné sur les contrôles sanitaires organisés pour les différents types d’eau. Dans chaque cas, l’organisation des contrôles, les procédures suivies, la logistique nécessaire, l’interprétation des résultats et la gestion de l’information et de l’éventuel risque sont décrits avec rigueur.

Au chapitre 3, l’auteur aborde plus en profondeur les techniques générales de recherche et de dénombrement des bactéries dans les eaux. Cet inventaire des techniques actuellement utilisées semble très complet. Le chapitre 4 aborde la problématique des recherches et dénombrements microbiologiques spécifiques dans les eaux en passant en revue les principaux aspects relatifs aux salmonelles, staphylocoques, pseudomonas aeruginosa, légionelles, vibrio, listeria monocytogenes.

Le chapitre 5 de cet ouvrage rassemble énormément d’informations relatives à la ‘Base technique microbiologique des eaux’ : les examens microscopiques, les tests biochimiques utiles et les milieux de culture.

L’auteur termine l’ouvrage avec un chapitre sur des informations complémentaires microbiologiques, environnementales et sanitaires (chap. 6) et sur des compléments sur la réglementation et informations diverses (chap. 7).

Cet ouvrage présente un très bon tableau général et détaillé (à la limite de l’encyclopédique) sur les aspects microbiologiques expérimentaux. Néanmoins, l’insertion de ces aspects dans les systèmes d’évaluation de la qualité des eaux (plus généraux) reste relativement lapidaire (chap. 7). Par exemple, l’évocation (en quelques lignes) du Système d’Evaluation de la Qualité des eaux (SEQ) mériterait un paragraphe voire un chapitre.

Il s’agit d’un ouvrage de référence très utile pour toute personne, désirant obtenir de l’information sur les techniques d’analyses nécessaires à la surveillance microbiologique. Il pourrait également être très utile aussi à tous les non-spécialistes du domaine, qui doivent utiliser ou interpréter des résultats de ces analyses.

La table des matières est très détaillée permettant au lecteur désireux de vérifier une information précise de vite trouver ce qu’il désire. Une table des abréviations et un index sont fournis et sont d’ailleurs fort utiles.

A. DASSARGUES

Hydrogeology & Environmental Geology, Department of Georesources, Geotechnologies and Building Materials, Université de Liège

R. SCHAETZL & S. ANDERSON, 2005. Soils: Genesis and Geomorphology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 817 pp., ISBN 0-512-81201-1, Price 45 £

“Soils: Genesis and Geomorphology� is a textbook which addresses the different aspects of soils.  The audience for this book is intended to be undergraduate and graduate students, but it is also a valuable reference work for researchers in the area soil science.

The book starts with an introductory part (chapters 1-7) on soil morphology, soil mineralogy, soil physics, soil organisms and soil classification. In less than 160 pages, a very clear and complete overview concerning the building blocks of soils is given. Moreover, the basic concepts are very well illustriated with photographs, charts and diagrams. This makes the book also suitable for readers without a strong background in soil science. The detailed discussion addressing soil horizonation and the schematic outline of different systems of soil taxonomy is also of great value for more advanced readers.

Part 2 includes 5 chapters (chapters 8-12) that cover different aspects of soil genesis. Much emphasis is placed on the importance of soil parent material (chapter 8), its effect on soil and its classification. The effect of weathering and pedoturbation on soil genesis is assessed in chapters 9-10. Although the discussion is rather detailed, numerous schematic illustrations and the presentation of parameters and processes in relation to soil genesis in tables improve the readability of the text. After elucidating the different processes that affect soil formation, the major conceptual models are presented in chapter 11. Much attention is paid to these conceptual models as an important tool to understand the soil system. The detailed presentation and evaluation of the conceptual models for soil formation, which are considered an important tool to understand the soil system, is a unique topic of this book. Much emphasis is also placed on pedogenic processes (chapter 12) because of their implications towards soil classification and soil management and because of the necessity to predict and explain soil changes over time.

Part 3 deals with soil geomorphology, including dating and paleoenvironmental techniques. In chapter 13, the main components of soil geomorphology are addressed, with special attention to the influence of biological processes on landscape evolution, which is an aspect that has often been neglected by soil geomorphologists. The catena concept is explained and illustrated with several case studies that also give an example of applications of soil geomorphology.

With regard to soil development and surface exposure, the determination of the age of surfaces is of primary importance. Therefore, stratigraphic principles and relative and absolute dating techniques are discussed in chapter 14. Finally, chapter 15 focusses on soils, paleosoils and paleoenvironmental reconstructions. The discussion puts emphasis on how soil properties can give information about the evolution of soil and how the composition of paleosols reflects environmental conditions at the time when their surface was exposed to the air.

The authors make use of an extensive literature listing, citing almost all the major works. Additionally, an extensive glossary is given at the end of the book, explaining more than 1500 terms in relation to soil science. This book is of great value to both scientists and students and therefore will be recommended to students and researchers in the field of geology, geomorphology, soil science and environmental science.

Valérie CAPPUYNS

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

Constantin ROMAN, 2000. Continental Drift: colliding continents, converging cultures. Institute of Physics Publishing, Bristol and Philadelphia, ISBN 0 7503 0686 6, 210 p., Price EUR 18.

This is an extraordinary book. Despite its title it is not a treatise on plate tectonics, although its author is a well-known geophysicist, who has made fundamental contributions to the study of the collision of continental plates, by means of seismology. His PhD thesis, “Seismotectonics of the Carpathians and Central Asia�, (submitted in 1974, at Cambridge University, where he was the last PhD student of Sir Edward Bullard), sent shock-waves through the scientific community. He put forward solutions and models on the sub-crustal earthquakes of the Carpathian arc of Romania and presented the first focal mechanism solutions to the Himalayan earthquakes (delineating the newly-defined Sinkiang and Tibetan plates). He invented as early as 1972 the notion of “non-rigid plates�, or “buffer plates�, before the notion of continuums was adopted in geology. After graduating from Cambridge he worked as a Consultant for Shell, BP, Exxon, Petrofina, Total and all other oil majors, to become a world expert in basin analysis, and to contribute to the discovery of many oil fields in the North Sea, Barents Seas and elsewhere. So much for his scientific career.

As a refugee from Ceaucescu’s dictatorship, he metaphorically performed, in a sense, a “continental drift�, from his native Romania to England and Western scientific and human society, because one must not forget that on the British Isles, all Europeans are referred to as “continentals�, hence the title in his book being fully justified, in the best tradition of British pun of double-entendre.

Constantin Roman was born in 1941, in Bucharest, into an intellectual family, who never kow-towed to the communist régime: this was for him a source of difficulties both to get out of his country to study abroad, as much as during his stay in England, as a student on a Romanian passport, but without his country’s blessing.

The first chapter, “The DNA Signature�, explores the author’s Romanian roots on the paternal side, and Moldavian Czech and Transylvanian ancestry on the maternal side. He got a Master’s degree in Geophysics from the Bucharest University, in 1966, with a dissertation on Palaeomagnetism. His story of the curriculum and teaching methods of University studies in Romania and the relationships between students and professors is truly superb.

Chapter 2, “NATO Secret�, tells us about his escape from Romania and his arrival at the University of Newcastle, in England, in April 1968. This visit was made possible through a NATO travel grant, which he kept secret from the Romanian authorities, which otherwise might have found a convenient excuse to deny him a passport to travel to the West. In this way he applied for and got a passport with a one-month visa to travel to England. He left Romania with five guineas in his pocket (£5.05) and two icons he hoped to sell, on the last day of the meeting on Palaeomagnetism, where he was scheduled to present the results of his Romanian research. The Head of the School of Physics, who had organised the meeting was Prof. Keith Runcorn, F.R.S., famous in the fifties for his pioneering work on the geophysical interpretation of palaeomagnetic data, proving the polar wandering paths, which remains to date a corner stone of the continental drift theory. In search of a thesis subject, Constantin visited also the Oxford Laboratory of Archaeometry, where palaeomagnetism was used to dating archaeological clay artefacts.

Chapter 3, “Paris Students Riots�, relates the story of his transit through Paris, on his way back to Romania, during the fateful May 1968. Here he witnessed and describes the extraordinary events which, incidentally, made him figure out the hitherto unbeknown to him practice of  “Vivre à droite et penser à gauche�.  But the general strike in France causes Roman’s French transit visa and the Romanian re-entry visa to expire and he fears being sent back to Ceausescu’s Romania, as an “illegal�, and thus jeopardise any future chance of travel to the West. Thanks to the Governor of the Banque de France his French visa is extended to three months, whilst the Romanians refuse the extension of his re-entry visa. Selling his icons allows him to pay his return ticket to Newcastle, where he is invited for the summer by Prof. Ken Creer.

Chapter 4, “Pet on One Pound a Day�, relates his stay at the Laboratory of Palaeomagnetism, in Newcastle, where he comes as a Visiting Research student, but also tells us about the people and the academic atmosphere, in England of the late 1960’s.  Unable to find a scholarship at Newcastle to pursue his PhD, beyond the summer, he is encouraged to apply to other universities, in the UK, Canada, the US and Australia, as all along he is haunted by the deadline of his visas, but he has no alternative option, as returning to Romania would jeopardize any future plans in academia. He learns by accident that a research scholarship is available from Peterhouse, the oldest Cambridge College (founded in 1284). From an unexpected quarter, Tuzo Wilson, the inventor of the “hot spots� offers him the position of  a teaching scholarship at Toronto. But as he is short-listed and interviewed at Cambridge by Sir Edward Bullard, a geophysicist of world repute, Roman finally chooses Cambridge.  Sir Edward Bullard, FRS distinguished himself during WWII in using magnetic methods for demagnetising the ships of the Royal navy, detecting the mines at sea, as well as the German submarines. In peace time, Bullard is also remembered as the inventor of the dynamo theory at the origin of the terrestrial magnetic field, through convection in the Earth’s core and also for his contribution to continental drift by proposing a mathematical algorithm to model the reconstruction of the Atlantic, known today as the “Bullard’s best fit�.  Bullard was at the time Head of the Department of Geodesy and Geophysics at Cambridge. Constantin is welcome to the Common Room, around a table where staff and researchers of the department mingle informally and where conversation is vibrant and inspiring, whether on scientific or non-scientific topics. Here he meets Dan McKenzie, who is interested in Romanian earthquakes and wants to see him work on the subject. A little before the 1969 summer vacation Roman is granted the Research scholarship from Peterhouse, which enables him to start in earnest his PhD. His status is now settled for 3 years and this marks provisionally the end of his struggle with the Romanian, French and British bureaucrats. At Cambridge he has an active life outside the subject of his research, due to his joie de vivre and his efforts to make his country better known to his colleagues and friends, some of whom thinking that Hungarian was the national language of Romania!

Chapter 5, “the Rat Race�, relates about the huge academic competition and pressure in producing quick and meaningful results and especially securing their paternity through publication. Prompted by McKenzie, his supervisor in the first year of study, he embarks on his research on the Seismo-tectonics of the continental crust and in particular the sub-crustal earthquakes. By the end of the second  term he gets his first results on the Carpathians: “one could find, for the first time, the shape of the sinking lithosphere under the Carpathian arc, in the form of a vertical parallelipiped�.  The results are a world’s first and considered significant enough to be accepted for publication in Nature (December 1970). For a first-year Romanian student, who just arrived, this is an auspicious start. Soon McKenzie is replaced as a supervisor by Edward Bullard (who insists on being addressed as “Teddy� by his students). This switch allows Roman to continue his work on Central Asia. The pages on Teddy Bullard’s career are enchanting. They show the Cavendish Laboratory founded by Maxwell and animated by his successors, one of whom was Rutherford, whose pupil was Bullard. They were familiarly known as the “Rutherford boys�, eminent specialists in atomic physics. It was the golden age of the Cavendish Laboratory, which produced the most Nobel prize winners per square foot in Cambridge… It was in this tradition of freedom of research that Bullard founded his own department of Geodesy and Geophysics, especially seminal in the 60’s and early ‘70s, when Roman was there. How different from Romania! “More often than not researchers would reach the age of wisdom without, as such, reaching the wisdom of age, like an endemic perpetuation of mediocrity�.

Roman goes on to gather his seismic data from Central Asia, through the world-wide seismic Station Network (WWSSN), intended for monitoring nuclear explosions and earthquakes as a by-product. This information is collated from the microfiche library of Professor Hans Berckhemmer’s, at the University of Frankfurt/Main and is processed at Edinburgh International Seismological Centre and at Aldermaston Atomic Physics Laboratory. This entire saga might be rather dull should it not be related with such great gusto about people, places and situations he encountered as well as how he was able to relocate more accurately the Central Asia epicentres and come out with “iconoclastic� models of the “non-rigid plates�. In order to test his new ideas against his rather conservative geologist contemporaries, Roman goes on a lecture tour through England (Oxford, Norwich, Newcastle, Imperial College) and on the continent (Luxemburg, Liège and Frankfurt). At Luxemburg’s European Symposium of Seismology he meets his former Bucharest professors, who are jealous and tell him he is  “too young to deal with plate tectonics�. At Liège, invited by J.C. Duchesne, who knew him from a stay in Cambridge, he presented his novel ideas, in impeccable French, during a lecture entitled “Sur la limite des plaques lithosphériques dans la croûte continentale�, which was the centre piece of his thesis.

Back in Cambridge Bullard tells him, to his amazement, that a group at the MIT (Peter Molnar) is working on the same subject and that an article had already been submitted to an international journal and accepted for publication, which was to be printed imminently: exactly the same region of Central Asia, the same earthquakes, the same focal mechanism solutions! Bullard advises him to limit himself to the Carpathians, for a Master’s degree, as a consolation prize, as all his research efforts would have been in vain if Molnar’s paper was published before Roman’s Cambridge thesis was submitted as an original piece of work. This  to Constantin is simply unacceptable! In such tight corner as he suddenly finds himself, his resourcefulness comes to the fore, as he contacts the editor of the “New Scientist�, a well-known weekly journal in London. The Editor accepts a paper of 6,000 words with two diagrams summarizing Roman’s three years of research. It is published several weeks before the American paper appears: the miracle is performed just in time to save Roman’s hard work. Such is the academic rat race which Constantin describes so vividly.  Bullard is very pleased indeed and finds him funds for a 4^th year at Peterhouse. He must now finish his thesis and try to find a job in England and permission for permanent residency in the UK, as his future wife is refusing to leave the country and settle elsewhere. He files hundreds of job applications with the recommendation of his supervisor. An interview at the Hague with Shell, is recounted with great humour. Shell has no job offer for him, but true to his fighting spirit he soldiers on. He marries in 1973, in Cambridge, in the absence of his parents, who are systematically denied a visa by the Romanian authorities and eventually died before Ceaucescu’s demise. In his desperate search for jobs Constantin is offered a research position as journalist for the Daily Telegraph, but finally, as the 1974 oil crisis develops, geologists and geophysicists are again in demand, the oil exploration in the North Sea and elsewhere takes off and Constantin gets his real positive answer from a Midwest American company, the Continental Oil Company, which has exploration licences in the North Sea. He has now the status of permanent resident in the UK and passes his PhD in the Spring of 1974. By this time his Romanian passport had expired, on April 5 1974, exactly five years after he left Romania behind. At long last Constantin is now out of the tunnel!

In the last chapter, “Lotus Eater�, the story is meant to counterbalance the trials and tribulations of the previous chapters, when Roman grappled with the horns of the bureaucracy and was confronted by unseeming hardships. This end chapter shows the “lighter� side of the memoir, as he meets illustrious contemporaries of the world of Art, Science and Politics, indulging his extra-geophysical passions: Architecture (his first vocation), Art and Poetry. He translates many Romanian poems into English, a sample of which is given in the book. His innumerable walks through Cambridge colleges and gardens are a boon to the reader: “Cambridge was almost like a mythical mistress, whose eroticism would excite my resolve against obstacles put in the way by sundry bureaucratic tormentors and moral dwarfs�.

This is an exhilarating book and I can fully subscribe to Professor J. F. Dewey’s view (Oxford), who wrote the Foreword of the book: “Continental Drift offered me a relaxing excellent read full of humour, wisdom and good science, way beyond the History of Science�.

The book ends with the return to Romania, where he is asked to come, after 25 years, as Visiting Professor to give the “The Roman Lectures�. During Ceausescu’s dictatorship all scientific publications of Romanian exiles were banned, even from bibliography and finally, in 1998, Roman’s Cambridge thesis is published by the Geological Survey of Romania, to prove his claim to being the first Romanian scientist, in 1970, to present a Plate Tectonics model for the evolution of the Carpathian arc. His work is recognised, as he is made Professor Honoris Causa of the University of Bucharest. Also, after the election, in 1996, of Professor Emil Constantinescu, geologist and mineralogist, as President of Romania, Constantin Roman is appointed Personal Adviser to the President of Romania (Energy and Natural Resources) and also Honorary Consul of Romania in Cambridge.

Jean VERKAEREN

Université Catholique de Louvain et Université de Liège.