HUMBOLDT AND THE HABITABILITY OF CANADA'S GREAT NORTHWEST*     

SUZANNE ZELLER 《Geographical review》2006,96(3):382-398

ABSTRACT. Alexander von Humboldt's influence in British North America during the nineteenth century was filtered mainly through British imperial applications of “Humboldtian” sciences, including geomagnetism and biogeography. The best‐known examples include Edward Sabine and John Henry Lefroy, Royal Artillery officers who, during the 1830s and 1840s, transformed British North American outposts and territories, including Rupert's Land, into Humboldtian sites and regions in Great Britain's imperial “magnetic crusade.” Important groundwork had already been laid by John Richardson, who applied data accrued during John Franklin's overland Arctic expeditions during the 1820s to systematize Humboldtian inquiries into the habitability of Canada's Great Northwest. Despite both the relative decline of Humboldtian sciences by midcentury and Humboldt's own reservations about the political ramifications of his science, his “cosmic” outlook circulated in Canada to refine territorial expansionists' scientistic arguments justifying annexation of Rupert's Land after the monopoly of the Hudson's Bay Company expired in 1869.  相似文献   

Study on the Fragility of Building Structures in Taiwan     

Wen-I Liao  Chin-Hsiung Loh  Keh-Chyuan Tsai 《Natural Hazards》2006,37(1-2):55-69

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Potential of High-Resolution Satellite Data in the Context of Vulnerability of Buildings   总被引：1，自引：2，他引：1  

Marina Mueller  Karl Segl  Uta Heiden  Hermann Kaufmann 《Natural Hazards》2006,38(1-2):247-258

High-resolution space-borne remote sensing data are investigated for their potential to extract relevant parameters for a vulnerability analysis of buildings in European countries. For an evaluation of large earthquake scenarios, the number of parameters in models for vulnerability is reduced to a minimum of relevant information such as the type of building (age, material, number of storeys) and the geological and spatial context. Building-related parameters can be derived from remote sensing data either directly (e.g. height) or indirectly based on the recognition of the urban structure type in which the buildings are located. With the potential of a fully- or semi-automatic inventory of the buildings and their parameters, high-resolution satellite data and techniques for their processing are a useful supporting tool for the assessment of vulnerability.  相似文献   

On global forces of nature driving the Earth’s climate. Are humans involved?     

L. F. Khilyuk  G. V. Chilingar 《Environmental Geology》2006,50(6):899-910

The authors identify and describe the following global forces of nature driving the Earth’s climate: (1) solar radiation as a dominant external energy supplier to the Earth, (2) outgassing as a major supplier of gases to the World Ocean and the atmosphere, and, possibly, (3) microbial activities generating and consuming atmospheric gases at the interface of lithosphere and atmosphere. The writers provide quantitative estimates of the scope and extent of their corresponding effects on the Earth’s climate. Quantitative comparison of the scope and extent of the forces of nature and anthropogenic influences on the Earth’s climate is especially important at the time of broad-scale public debates on current global warming. The writers show that the human-induced climatic changes are negligible.  相似文献   

重庆市开-利公路学堂湾滑坡成因与稳定性分析     

吴汉辉  杨转运 《中国地质灾害与防治学报》2006,17(2):33-36

滑坡是现代公路、铁路等交通基建工程面临的一个难题。尤其是在重丘、山地等地段修筑公路工程极易出现滑坡地质灾害。这些滑坡的成因以及相关的边坡稳定性分析目前处于半理论、半经验状态。文章基于学堂湾滑坡的地理位置及地质环境条件,从滑坡区地质环境条件、滑坡周界、滑坡体与滑带的物质结构特征、滑床、滑坡变形破坏迹象等,深入分析了学堂湾滑坡的变形特征。在此基础上探讨了滑坡成因,指出大量的雨水和不合理的施工扰动是滑坡发育的外因;坡体本身的地质条件如岩石的裂隙、岩土体的透水性以及水的疏导条件等是其内因。文章将宏观定性分析与定量计算相结合,对滑坡稳定性进行了分析和评价。结合工程实际对滑坡治理措施进行了初步研究,取得了一些满意的效果。  相似文献   

Reliability Based Assessment of Shallow Foundations Using Mathcad     

Ahmad Shlash Alawneh  Osama K. Nusier  Ahmed Abdul-Ezel Al-Mufty 《Geotechnical and Geological Engineering》2006,24(3):637-660

A reliability based method was used to design and analyse shallow foundations using first-order Taylor series approximation. The computer program Mathcad was used to facilitate all mathematical and computional efforts. This method is an effective tool to assist the foundation designers and analyists to investigate how reliable their designs or analyses are in relation to the ultimate bearing capacity of the foundations. The approach presented in this paper provides a reliable alternative for design and analysis of shallow foundations, rather than the conventional design methods, which employs the assumptions of a specified saftey factor. Several examples were presented for design and analysis of strip footings embedded in sandy soil, and rectangular and square footings analysis embedded in clayey soils. The program input and output of each example are also presented and discussed.  相似文献   

Groundwater and highways interaction: past and present experiences of highway construction in Slovenia     

Mihael Brencic 《Environmental Geology》2006,49(6):804-813

During the planning, designing, construction, operation and maintenance of highways, groundwater can be of important environmental and constructional constraint that can significantly influence the safety operation of traffic and of big influence on the operational costs of highways. To classify and conceptualize the relation between groundwater and highways, three important groups of problems can be determined: groundwater protection from highway influences, protection of highway from groundwater and economic use of groundwater for highway operation. In the present study, groundwater management strategies are represented during all life cycles of highways. Greater emphasis is given to groundwater protection and field hydrogeological investigations for proper groundwater management related to the highway. The approach adopted in Slovenia and the role of hydrogeology is given as an illustration.  相似文献   

矿业开发与环境保护关系综述   总被引：4，自引：0，他引：4  

郭路  李云峰  姬亚东 《西北地质》2005,38(2):94-98

笔者介绍了我国矿业发展经历的3个阶段，归纳出我国矿业开发带来的矿山环境问题主要有：地面塌陷、占压破坏土地、改变地质构造、破坏水资源、污染水、污染土壤、污染大气、瓦斯爆炸及河床抬高等。分析了环境恶化的原因主要与区域地质环境条件、历史、经济技术、矿山企业和地方保护主义等因素有关。最后提出了防治矿山环境恶化的对策，对难以治理的地区以预防、避让为主，历史问题由政府和企业共同解决，落实“谁开发、谁保护；谁受益、谁治理；谁破坏、谁恢复”的生态环境保护新机制，加强监管，加强防治对策研究，走综合勘探、综合评价、综合开发、综合利用的发展道路。  相似文献   

基于车载序列影像的建筑立面纹理的快速重建   总被引：5，自引：0，他引：5  

康志忠  张祖勋  张剑清 《武汉大学学报(信息科学版)》2005,30(11):960-964

提出了一种基于车载序列影像的建筑立面纹理快速重建的方法。首先进行影像预处理,包括畸变差改正、树木遮挡去除等,然后对影像进行自动纠正,在此基础上,自动选择拼接点对影像进行拼接。实验证明了本文方法的有效性。  相似文献   

成都粘土路堑边坡防护研究     

徐汉斌 《地质灾害与环境保护》2002,13(1):26-28

成都外环路高速公路东半环超过有20km的路段处在成都粘土分布区，针对成都粘土的易滑性，本文提出了全封闭的浆砌片石护坡，土钉墙，非全封闭的锚杆框架护坡，钢纤维混凝土喷锚全封闭护坡，重力式挡土墙等五种方法处理成都粘土路堑边坡工程，施工实践表明，这些方法行之有效，在该类土的边坡防护中值得推广。  相似文献