In this article we investigate whether long-term radioactive waste management by means of geological disposal can be understood as a social experiment. Geological disposal is a rather particular technology in the way it deals with the analytical and ethical complexities implied by the idea of technological innovation as social experimentation, because it is presented as a technology that ultimately functions without human involvement. We argue that, even when the long term function of the ‘social’ is foreseen to be restricted to (...) safeguarding the functioning of the ‘technical’, geological disposal is still a social experiment. In order to better understand this argument and explore how it could be addressed, we elaborate the idea of social experimentation with the notion of co-production and the analytical tools of delegation, prescription and network as developed by actor-network theory. In doing so we emphasize that geological disposal inherently involves relations between surface and subsurface, between humans and nonhumans, between the social, material and natural realm, and that these relations require recognition and further elaboration. In other words, we argue that geological disposal concurrently is a social and a technical experiment, or better, a long-term socio-technical experiment. We end with proposing the idea of ‘actor-networking’ as a sensitizing concept for future research into what geological disposal as a socio-technical experiment could look like. (shrink)

The view that religious orthodoxy stifled geological progress has had many distinguished exponents, one of the earliest being Georges Cuvier. To Cuvier, however, efforts to combine Genesis with geology ended before the middle of the eighteenth century, and opened the way not for progress but for wild speculation. We may admire the genius of Leibniz and Buffon, he declared, but this should not lead us to confuse system-building with geology as ‘une science positive’. While Cuvier's younger contemporary, Charles Lyell, agreed (...) that ‘extravagant systems’ had retarded progress, he insisted that ‘scriptural authority’ had had a similar effect until late in the eighteenth century. (shrink)

Many millions of geological specimens are contained in geological museums throughout the world. These collections, some of which date back to the sixteenth century, constitute a rich resource for historians of the geological sciences. The utilization of this resource has been uneven, due to a number of factors, including the background of the researcher, and the state of the collections. In the past two decades major strides have been made in the documentation of collections held in British museums, and compendia, (...) including those for collections in other countries, are now available. Geological collections provide quality primary source material, and can shed light on a range of interesting topics including the nature and scope of geological travels, the often complex relationships between geologists and collectors, and the rationale behind the formulation of geological theories by earlier geologists. (shrink)

Many millions of geological specimens are contained in geological museums throughout the world. These collections, some of which date back to the sixteenth century, constitute a rich resource for historians of the geological sciences. The utilization of this resource has been uneven, due to a number of factors, including the background of the researcher, and the state of the collections. In the past two decades major strides have been made in the documentation of collections held in British museums, and compendia, (...) including those for collections in other countries, are now available. Geological collections provide quality primary source material, and can shed light on a range of interesting topics including the nature and scope of geological travels, the often complex relationships between geologists and collectors, and the rationale behind the formulation of geological theories by earlier geologists. (shrink)

My aim in this essay is to lead the reader through the complexity of Hegel’s philosophical understanding of organic nature by highlighting its distinctive theoretical features and by examining these historically, both against the background of the approaches, achievements and trends of the empirical sciences of his time and in light of their scholarly reception.1 First, I focuss on Hegel’s definition of the ‘universal form’ of life, pointing to what the connection is, in his philosophy of nature, between the structure (...) of conceptual and living processes in the path to the individualization of matter. Second, since Hegel calls animal life “the truth of organics,” 2 I shall try to explain how in the philosophy of nature the Idea of life comes to differentiate itself into certain essential characteristics of immediate, finite and individual animals, passing through the stages of geological nature and vegetable organisms. (shrink)

Hutton made a geological collection to illustrate his theory of the Earth, and frequently cited phenomena displayed by specimens in it to support his arguments. His followers also considered that the evidence provided by the collection would help to establish his views. After Hutton's death it was given to the Royal Society of Edinburgh which, however, under the terms of its charter, was obliged to lodge it in the Natural History Museum of the University. The Museum's curator, the Wernerian, Robert (...) Jameson, thought the collection of little account, and neither displayed it nor kept it together. By the mid-1830s most of it had been dispersed or thrown away, and nothing is known of it since. The list of specimens compiled by its first trustees has also disappeared. By piecing together information in Hutton's writings and letters, and in those of his friends, we learn something about the contents of the collection and how it was formed, and also add to our knowledge of his acquaintance. The final section of the article brings together all Hutton's descriptions of his rocks and minerals and, in doing so, demonstrates the weight of proof that he rested on careful visual analysis of hand specimens. (shrink)

The author details his experience in using geology field trips to provide hands-on learning for his students and opportunities to assess student learning of key course concepts. -/- .

Abstract:This essay argues for lyric as an anthropomorphic pattern of thought which shapes our readings of poetry and Earth. Theorizing what I call "lyric geology," the essay foregrounds two critical conjunctions: (1) the historical co-emergence of the normative lyric subject and the human species as geologic agent; and (2) the anthropomorphic genealogy of literary criticism called "lyricization" as it dovetails with Sylvia Wynter's account of the "over-representation" of colonial man as "the human itself." Reading across a seemingly eclectic archive—Charles Lyell, (...) Robert Knox, Richard Owen, and a maroon known in the Mauritian imperial archive as Simon—I show how the colonial anthropos as self-consciously theorized in and across the nineteenth century materially effectuates on a planetary scale the very racialized anthropomorphosis fallaciously naturalized as lyric. So understood, man's generic "over-representation" and lyric are co-constitutive projects. Together, they proliferate a human fantasy whose flat speciesism at once reproduces and effaces white supremacist violence and colonial dispossession. (shrink)

This paper proposes a ‘geology’ of the new mediascape as an alternative way of studying today’s digital convergence. By geology, I mean a particular physical condition of media platforms, consisting of the lower stratum of fluid atomic particles or binary signals and the upper stratum of cultural sediments as the solidified patterns of these atoms, both of which are circulating through ceaseless re-sedimentation and re-atomization. The discourses of digital convergence that overwhelmed media studies for the first decade of the twenty-first (...) century could be reinterpreted from this geological perspective in relation to such questions; how the old cultural forms that have hitherto solidified into specific physical structures of ‘old media’ are re-atomized into a series of zeros and ones; and how they are re-sedimented into specific algorithms simulating these old forms. Tracing geological metaphors in the cultural historiography of the early twentieth century’s cultural critics, as in works by Siegfried Kracauer, Herbert Marcuse, and Walter Benjamin, this article extends the origin of the convergence culture even to this so-called ‘age of technological reproduction’ in terms of how the human and technological modes of cultural production have converged upon a geological infrastructure of mediascape. The convergence was in this sense an event that happened between different agents of cultural production, namely humans and non-humans, as much as between different media forms. (shrink)

Vertebrate paleontology was not readily incorporated into interdisciplinary activities at the University of Chicago. During the university’s first forty years serious disputes arose over the subject’s parameters and departmental affiliation. Only after World War II did a cooperative, interdisciplinary program emerge. Changes in biology and geology influenced that development, but even more important were local research and educational initiatives that provided the impetus and resources to create an innovative program.

The development of geology during the first half of the nineteenth century is now considered to be more complicated than was once thought. The positivistic picture of two conflicting schools, one of them allegedly modern and progressive, the other supposedly conservative and scriptural, is too simplistic and misleading. First, the influence of the Bible has been exaggerated. It is true that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Flood had been given an important role as a geological agent, but in (...) the early nineteenth century there were hardly any professional geologists who defended this view. At least, it is not correct to associate either neptunism, catastrophism, or diluvialism with the Mosaic tradition. Secondly, the use of such terms as ‘catastrophism’ and ‘diluvialism’ has been unfortunate in so far as they have led to biblical associations; these terms must be given a more precise meaning. Thirdly, in the evaluation of the geology of the period, not enough weight has been given to the historical context. From our knowledge of modern geology alone it is not possible to judge what was loose speculation or empirical science at that time. Lyell's contributions to geology, as well as those of his opponents, should be considered and examined in more detail. (shrink)

In 2012, the Geological Time Scale, which sets the temporal framework for studying the timing and tempo of all major geological, biological, and climatic events in Earth’s history, had one-quarter of its boundaries moved in a widespread revision of radiometric dates. The philosophy of metrology helps us understand this episode, and it, in turn, elucidates the notions of calibration, coherence, and consilience. I argue that coherence testing is a distinct activity preceding calibration and consilience, and I highlight the value of (...) discordant evidence and trade-offs scientists face in calibration. The iterative nature of calibration, moreover, raises the problem of legacy data. (shrink)

Abstract:This article examines how two American theorists, Gayle Rubin and Judith Butler, deploy geologic language during the 1990s moment when their feminist careers morphed into queer careers. I argue that the precise composition of this institutional shift – methodological, material, and epistemological – is both reflected and refracted in the figure of the rock. A symbol that connotes fixity in short time spans, but dynamism in long ones, the rock oscillates between facticity and dissolution, mirroring shifting notions of sex and (...) gender in the 1990s. In her retrospective account of the emergence of queer theory, Rubin’s use of a fossil metaphor ushers the field toward a non-reproductive and non-procreative genealogy, illuminating a different temporal texture to such seemingly fixed structures as sex, gender, and sexuality. Butler’s inherited geologic language conceives of gender as the process of sedimentation that resists the biological determinism of identity-based feminist politics. Examining the rock provides crucial readings of Butler’s materiality, one that oscillates between fixed being and dynamic becoming, stability and change, surface signification and depth excavation. (shrink)

This article argues for the relevance of mythical signification in our geological epoch. More than this, it contends that we need to revise our assumptions about media and communication systems in order to grasp the importance of myth in an era where the future of human and nonhuman life on the Earth is entirely uncertain. To make this case, I focus on the growing consensus in the sciences and theoretical humanities that mythical stories about geological and planetary processes cannot simply (...) be disqualified or disregarded because they do not conform to the norms of modern scientific epistemology. Whether these stories come to us from pre-modern civilizations and attempt to give... (shrink)

The Geological Society of London was the first learned society to be devoted solely to geology, and its members were responsible for much of the spectacular progress of the science in the nineteenth century. Its distinctive character as a centre of geological discussion and research was established within the first five years from its foundation in 1807. During this period its activities were directed, and its policies largely shaped, by its President, George Bellas Greenough, on whose unpublished papers this account (...) is chiefly based.The Society began as a small scientific dining club in London, but it developed rapidly into a learned society with a nation-wide membership. It became so independent in outlook and so active in research that it was felt to threaten the esteem of the Royal Society; and little more than a year after its foundation it clashed with the Royal Society so violently that its continued existence was for a time uncertain.Its development into a large independent society was the outcome of its ‘Baconian’ view of the importance of collecting geological facts as a surer basis for geological theories. For this purpose it initiated an ambitious scheme for co-operative research, which would unite the efforts of ‘philosophers’ with those of ‘practical men’. Only personal reasons seem to have kept the most prominent of the practical men—William Smith—from co-operating with the Society. (shrink)

In this age of interdisciplinary interaction, we probably owe one another disclosures of our qualifications for commenting on each other’s profession. And you might well wonder why a philosopher would be asked to address this distinguished society of professiona l geologists. So, let me give what information I can about my qualifications to talk this evening about, of all things, the ethics of water geology.

ArgumentDarwin's narrative of the earthquake at Concepción, set within the frameworks of Lyellian uniformitarianism, romantic aesthetics, and the emergence of geology as a popular science, is suggestive of the role of the sublime in geological enquiry and theory in the early nineteenth century. Darwin'sBeaglediary and later notebooks and publications show that the aesthetic of the sublime was both a form of representing geology to a popular audience, and a crucial structure for the observation and recording of the event from the (...) beginning. The awesome spectacle of the earthquake proved in turn the magnitude of the forces at stake in earth history, and helped to make geology an epic conjoining the history of civilization with the history of the earth. (shrink)

Geología de un planeta desierto (2013) es una novela que se desarrolla en Antofagasta; una ciudad del norte de Chile cuyas tierras acogieron a Patricio Jara –el autor de este libro– y su familia durante gran parte de su vida. En Geología, Jara cuenta la relación de un hijo (Rodrigo) con su padre –quien aparece en la novela como un fantasma; el progenitor de Rodrigo–, aquel hombre trabajador, que por razones externas a el, tuvo que jubilar prematuramente a los cincuenta (...) años. Aquel hombre no pudo reponerse a aquel golpe, por lo que se vuelve un hombre alcohólico como forma de olvidar su desdicha. (shrink)

Conceiving of nuclear energy as a social experiment gives rise to the question of what to do when the experiment is no longer responsible or desirable. To be able to appropriately respond to such a situation, the nuclear energy technology in question should be reversible, i.e. it must be possible to stop its further development and implementation in society, and it must be possible to undo its undesirable consequences. This paper explores these two conditions by applying them to geological disposal (...) of high-level radioactive waste. Despite the fact that considerations of reversibility and retrievability have received increased attention in GD, the analysis in this paper concludes that GD cannot be considered reversible. Firstly, it would be difficult to stop its further development and implementation, since its historical development has led to a point where GD is significantly locked-in. Secondly, the strategy it employs for undoing undesirable consequences is less-than-ideal: it relies on containment of severely radiotoxic waste rather than attempting to eliminate this waste or its radioactivity. And while it may currently be technologically impossible to turn high-level waste into benign substances, GD’s containment strategy makes it difficult to eliminate this waste’s radioactivity when the possibility would arise. In all, GD should be critically reconsidered if the inclusion of reversibility considerations in radioactive waste management has indeed become as important as is sometimes claimed. (shrink)

This paper works with the modern concept of the geological hotspot track – the building processes and movements of volcanic island chains – applied strategically to one of its illustrative formations, the Madeira Archipelago. By analogy, however, the concept works equally well to describe the important early 19th-century scientific knowledge-building activity that produced Charles Lyell's On the Geology of Some Parts of Madeira (1854). A central section of the paper uncovers the contributions to knowledge of this geology before Lyell's, and (...) in particular, Excursions of Madeira and Porto Santo (1825) by Mr [sic] T. Edward Bowdich. A thorough examination of this text then constitutes an important case study for literal and figurative investigation of geological hotspot tracks. The main argument proposed is that current specialist research forgets its submerged and longer histories to its detriment. Insights contained in older information often supply reminders of the key questions and contributions from the past that provide checks and balances for further developments of a field. By promoting multi-level, multi-stranded and multi-lingual investigation of the history of 19th-century geology in Madeira before Lyell (1854) as central to hotspot track research, this paper marks nodal conditions that constitute advancement in critical knowledge-building within and outside the discipline of geology. (shrink)

Although the history of the word ‘ geology ’ has often been referred to by those interested in the development of the science, that history has never been fully traced. An endeavor is made to do so here, taking the story at least as far as 1813, by which time the basic word had unquestionably been established in its modern form and meaning. Various claims as to who first gave the science its present name are also briefly examined.

The period between 1780 and 1840 has long been regarded as a crucial one in the development of geology. In 1780, relatively little was known about the structures and processes of the earth in spite of the efforts of individual mining engineers and bureaucrats, mineralogists, fossil collectors and cosmogonists. By 1840, the sequence of the European rocks was well on the way to being sorted out. This laid the groundwork for the reconstruction of the history of the earth and also (...) of life on the earth. Sophisticated theories of geological causes, consistent with contemporary physics, were in hand. The appropriate methodologies for both historical and causal investigation had been much debated, and a coherent and self-conscious body of men devoted themselves almost exclusively to geology. (shrink)

The first professors at the newly-established London University were appointed in 1827, but a chair in geology was not created there until 1841. In the intervening years, teaching in geology and palaeontology was included in other natural science courses. Early in 1831, John Phillips, keeper of the Yorkshire Museum at York, was prompted to give a formal course of geological lectures and subsequently he was informally offered the professorship, which he declined.

The 1960s witnessed a striking change in geology. Since at least the seventeenth century, one of the central problems of the subject had been the origin of the major irregularities of the surface of the globe—continents and oceans, mountain chains and ocean islands—irregularities that were not anticipated by most physical theories. Traditionally these features had usually been explained either as residual traces of events occurring during the very early history of the globe, or as the result of vertical movements of (...) the earth’s crust, caused, for example, by changes in the heat budget. The last two decades have seen an end to all this. The vast majority of geologists now believe that these irregularities largely result from the lateral movement of thin rigid plates covering the earth, a theory now known as “plate tectonics”, but a theory which also has obvious parallels with the hypothesis of continental drift, in which it was postulated that continents can move laterally. (shrink)

Central to the development of geology has been the growth of systematic empirical observation as a programme of scientific practice. Fieldwork has focused on many objects—strata, fossils, and landforms—and has issued in a variety of products, such as maps, sections, and monographs on regional geology, particular rock formations and fossils. Early in the nineteenth century, above all, many influential geologists sought to define their science as one exclusively of field observation, description, and the accumulation of data. The rise of fieldwork, (...) in Britain as elsewhere, is an important phenomenon in the making of geology. It must be explained. (shrink)

This paper offers a close reading of “The Geology of Morals,” the third and possibly most important chapter, or plateau, of Deleuze and Guattari’s magnum opus A Thousand Plateaus. I analyse some of...

The Anthropocene has been observed as an opportunity to generate new legal imaginaries capable of revising incumbent assumptions of legal and political thought. What opportunities do such ambitions afford for communication between geological and legal thought? Responding to Birrell & Matthews attempt to ‘re-story a law for, rather than of, the Anthropocene,’ I wish to describe some ways in which the Anthropocene Working Group, who are pursuing formalisation of the Anthropocene as an official geological unit, are involved in a similar (...) exercise of re-storying geology. The Anthropocene theme is brought to bear as a geological reality through material practices of measurement and correlation, as well as through the invocation of previous judgements of the evaluative committees associated with the formalisation of new geological unit. This effort amounts to a redefinition of the practices of geological observation, i.e. what counts as geologically relevant and why. In keeping with the theme of an ‘ethics of encounter’, as encouraged by Birrell and Matthews, this article suggests that the AWG’s effort provides a model with which the elaboration of ‘laws for the Anthropocene’ might correspond. (shrink)