It is 6000 miles as the crow flies from Kamchatka, Siberia to TEXAS. The Siberians who began the trip here, wound up 3000 years later in Texas. There is a continuous path of cave sites and rockshelters with Clovis and Folsom cultural artifacts along the way. All of us know by now that during the Pleistocene, ocean water was tied up in the Arctic ice to depths of a mile or more and the oceans of the world were lowered by possibly 300 feet. During this time there was a land bridge called Beringa open for travel, by foot, to North America. This is the story of how Asian people from Siberia were able to walk into Alaska, and colonize the Western Hemisphere. Kamchatka is a land filled with volcanoes and subterranian lava tubes, which sometimes have hot springs in them. In a land as cold as Siberia, these tube caves are a perfect environment for humans to live in comfort. Our trip began with Siberians in either caves or lava tubes along the Kamchatka peninsula, seeking the adventure of finding new worlds to the East. This is a tale of some fiction and fact and it is hoped that the reader will find the journey exciting.

Arc-continent collision has been one of the important tectonic processes in the formation of mountain belts throughout geological time, and it continues to be so today along tectonically active plate boundaries such as those in the SW Pacific or the Caribbean. Arc-continent collision is thought to have been one of the most important process involved in the growth of the continental crust over geological time, and may also play an important role in its recycling back into the mantle via subduction. Understanding the geological processes that take place during arc-continent collision is therefore of importance for our understanding of how collisional orogens evolve and how the continental crust grows or is destroyed. Furthermore, zones of arc-continent collision are producers of much of the worlds primary economic wealth in the form of minerals, so understanding the processes that take place during these tectonic events is of importance in modeling how this mineral wealth is formed and preserved. This book brings together seventeen papers that are dedicated to the investigation of the tectonic processes that take place during arc-continent collision. It is divided into four sections that deal firstly with the main players involved in any arc-continent collision; the continental margin, the subduction zone, and finally the volcanic arc and its mineral deposits. The second section presents eight examples of arc-continent collisions that range from being currently active through to Palaeoproterozoic in age. The third section contains two papers, one that deals with the obduction of large-slab ophiolites and a second that presents a wide range of physical models of arc-continent collision. The fourth section brings everything that comes before together into a discussion of the processes of arc-continent collision.

Like nearly every area of scholarly inquiry today, the biological sciences are broken into increasingly narrow fields and subfields, its practitioners divided into ecologists, evolutionary biologists, taxonomists, paleontologists, and much more. But all these splintered pieces have their origins in the larger field of natural history—and in this era where climate change and relentless population growth are irrevocably altering the world around us, perhaps it’s time to step back and take a new, fresh look at the larger picture. The Essential Naturalist offers exactly that: a wide-ranging, eclectic collection of writings from more than eight centuries of observations of the natural world, from Leeuwenhoek to E. O. Wilson, from von Humboldt to Rachel Carson. Featuring commentaries by practicing scientists that offer personal accounts of the importance of the long tradition of natural history writing to their current research, the volume serves simultaneously as an overview of the field’s long history and as an inspirational starting point for new explorations, for trained scientists and amateur enthusiasts alike.

The definitive full-color field guide to Arctic wildlife The Arctic Guide presents the traveler and naturalist with a portable, authoritative guide to the flora and fauna of earth's northernmost region. Featuring superb color illustrations, this one-of-a-kind book covers the complete spectrum of wildlife—more than 800 species of plants, fishes, butterflies, birds, and mammals—that inhabit the Arctic’s polar deserts, tundra, taiga, sea ice, and oceans. It can be used anywhere in the entire Holarctic region, including Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, Siberia, the Russian Far East, islands of the Bering Sea, Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, and Greenland. Detailed species accounts describe key identification features, size, habitat, range, scientific name, and the unique characteristics that enable these organisms to survive in the extreme conditions of the Far North. A color distribution map accompanies each species account, and alternative names in German, French, Norwegian, Russian, Inuit, and Inupiaq are also provided. Features superb color plates that allow for quick identification of more than 800 species of plants, fishes, butterflies, birds, and mammals Includes detailed species accounts and color distribution maps Covers the flora and fauna of the entire Arctic region