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McMenamin, Mark
Mark A. S. McMenamin is Professor of Geology and Chair of the Department of Earth and Environment at Mount Holyoke College where he has taught since 1984. Considered an authority on paleobiological events, he has served as a Sigma Xi National Lecturer and was awarded a Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1988. His other publications include The Emergence of Animals (with D.McMenamin; Columbia, 1990), Hypersea: Life on Land (with D.McMenamin; Columbia, 1994), and The Garden of Ediacara (Columbia, 1998). Dr. McMenamin has also edited the English-language translations of V.Vernadsky’s The Biosphere (Copernicus, 1998) and L.Khkhina’s Concepts of Symbiogenesis (with L.Margulis; Yale, 1992).
2012 0-7734-2604-3Franz Kossmat’s rare 1924 edition of Palaögeographie (Geologische Geschicte der Meere und Festländer) [Paleogeography (Geographic History of the Seas and Continents), to be published here in a bilingual edition] is a remarkable book that hosts an early encounter between classical geology and plate tectonic theory. Kossmat generates an interesting critique of Wegener’s continental drift model while providing some intriguing theories of his own regarding continental motion. More importantly, Kossmat documented the interplay between transgressive and regressive marine phases in a unique graphical format that deserves to be better known. Kossmat’s theories in this regard are virtually unknown in the Anglophone world, as none of Kossmat’s books (nor any of his articles that I am aware of) have been translated into English. Kossmat is often portrayed as a opponent of continental drift (this explains lack of attention to his work), but the story is not so simple, because he did, unlike G.G. Simpson and other Anglophone geologists, accept both mantle convection plus an interesting and unusual version of continental mobility that has been an intriguing and unrecognized link to modern inertial interchange true polar wander theory. A publication of this translation is now timely as we approach the centenary of Wegener’s 1912 publication of the continental drift theory.
2004 0-7734-6387-9
C.J. Koene’s 1856 book on the history of the atmosphere had nearly become a lost work when the author, with the help of a European colleague, located a rare surviving copy. This book, presented here in its original French with English translation, is a foundational document in the earth and environmental sciences and deserves to be more widely known. Koene was one of the first to suggest (correctly) that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels had decreased over geologic time, and was also among the first scientists to grapple with the environmental implications of the industrial revolution.
In this translated edition, the author (in the Foreword) and David Schwartzman (in the Preface) discuss the significance of Koene’s work and its importance for understanding both the history of early research into the development of Earth’s atmosphere and the history of environmental debates associated with industrialization.
Presented as a series of four public lectures, this book provides an engaging glimpse of the development of the science of atmospheric chemistry, and a unique view of the early progress of what would now be called earth science. The book is extensively annotated with footnotes relating Koene’s writings to both earlier and later work. Koene can now be recognized (along with other luminaries such as J.J.Ebelman and V.I.Vernadsky) as one of the founders of earth system science, a research field that is of great contemporary interest to geologists, geochemists, paleoclimatologists, environmental consultants and atmospheric chemists).
2007 0-7734-5319-9
This work reproduces C. J. Koene’s collection of seminal, but little known articles on analytical chemistry, published in book form in 1856. This book, presented here in its original French with a facing-page English translation, is a foundational document in experimental and environmental chemistry, and is extensively annotated with footnotes relating Koene’s writings to both earlier and later works. Koene can now be recognized as one of the founders of environmental chemistry and earth system science, a research field that is of great contemporary interest to geologists, geochemists, paleoclimatologists, environmental consultants and atmospheric chemists.
2015 0-7734-0905-X
An outstanding English translation of the seminal work of Russian scientist Vasilii Andreevich Sokolov’s 1966 book Gazy Zemli. Originally written for a popular audience, it provides considerable insight into the idiosyncratic and sophisticated Russian earth science research of the 1960’s.