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Annual review of earth and planetary sciences
0016-7037/90/$3.00
Gecehimica d Cosmochimica Acre Vol.54, pp. 1859-1862 Copyright 0 1990PergamonRessplc.Printedin U.S.A.
+ .oO
BOOK REVIEWS
Chapter 5, by P. Brimblecombe, C. Hammer, H. Rohde, A. Ryaboshapko, and C. F. Boutron, assesses human influences on the sulfur cycle and sets these influences within the context of the ice core record changes during the past 10,ooOyears. The chapter provides a critical review and update of the SCOPE 19 data for the natural and anthropogenic inputs to the sulfur cycle. In the northern hemisphere current anthropogenic emissions of sulfur are estimated to be about 60-80 Tg a-‘; the rate of non-anthropogenic sulfur emission is 30-50 Tg a-‘. In Chapter 6, M. V. Ivanov, A. Yu. Lein, W. S. Reeburgh, and G. W. Skyring examine the interaction of the sulfur and carbon cycles in marine sediments. In the course of the chapter the authors point out that about 15%of the organic carbon that reaches the sea floor is mineralized under anaerobic conditions, and that the anaerobic oxidation of methane occurs in parallel with sulphate reduction. In Chapter 7, H. Jannasch gives an excellent account of sulfur emissions and transformations at deep sea hydrothermal vents. The final chapter, by Y. Cohen, V. M. Gorlenko, and E. A. Bench-Osmolovskaya, examines the interaction of the sulfur and carbon cycles in microbial mats, a subject that has burgeoned since the invention of microelect&es that can monitor the behavior of the microbiota in algal mats on sub-millimeter scales. The recent studies of modern algal mats will surely contribute to a better understanding of the biology and chemistry of their Precambrian antecedents. SCOPE 39 is a welcome addition to the literature dealing with the geochemistry of sulfur. I found the summaries of the Soviet contributions to the field particularly useful. However, like most conference volumes, SCOPE 39 has had a long gestation period. The book is an outgrowth of a workshop in Tallinn during the summer of 1984. At least one of the chapters was submitted before the end of that year. There are few references in any of the chapters to papers more recent than 1985. The book is, therefore, already slightly dated and this unfortunately detracts from its value as an up-to-date reference.
Evolution of the Global Biogeochemical
Sulphur Cycle, edited by Peter Brimblecombe and Alla Yu. Lein. Published on behalf of the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), John Wiley and Sons, 1989, 241p., US $104.00 (ISBN O-4719225 1-X).
SINCE I97 1, SCOPE HAS sponsored a series of volumes dealing with man-made environmental changes and the effects of these changes on man. The present volume, number 39 in this series, is a successor to SCOPE 19, the 1983 volume on “The Global Biogeochemical Sulphur Cycle.” The title of volume 39 is a slight misnomer, since only five of the eight chapters in the monograph deal with the history of the sulfur cycle. The final three chapters describe parts of the present day geochemistry of sulfur. All of the chapters are, however, useful, and the volume is considerably enriched by Chapters 6, 7, and 8. The first chapter, written by M. Schidlowski, reviews the record of the sulfur cycle as it operated during the Precambrian. This record is still rather spotty, and important questions, such as the onset of sulfate reduction as a major process in the marine sulfur cycle, are still hotly debated. Chapter 2 by W. T. Holser, J. B. Maynard, and K. M. Cruikshank deals with the sulfur cycle during the Phanerozoic. The record here is much more complete; even so, modeling the sulfur cycle during this Eon is still a difficult and uncertain undertaking. The rate constants for the erosion of sulfide and sulfate minerals are still poorly known, and the mean fractionation of sulfur isotopes during sulfate reduction may not be as nearly constant as has been assumed to date. Separating local from global aspects in constructing the sulfur isotope age curve of oceanic sulfur also continues to be a severe problem, as pointed out by H. Nielsen in Chapter 3. Past treatments of the sulfur cycle have tended to emphasize the influence of exogenic processes. In Chapter 4, A. Yu. Lein and M. V. Ivanov include an assessment of the effects of endogenous processes on the geochemical cycle of sulfur in the past and suggest that sharp maxima in the release rate of sulfur dioxide associated with global tectonism and rift formation may have been one of the causes of mass extinctions at the Permo-Carboniferous, the PermoTriassic, and the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundaries.
Department ofEarth and Planetary Sciences Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences edited by G. W.
Heinrich D. Holland
Tom Heaton and Steve Hartzell give an excellent account of modern seismic source theory. These are all excellent articles and show a high level of scholarship. The articles are between 20 and 30 pages long and therefore cannot be exhaustive. This is just the right length. however, to give the flavor of a field and to bring an interested reader up to the current thinking. This volume is particularly useful because it promises to expose terrestrial geolog%ts to things they should know about the solar system, including excellent articles on the solar nebula by John Wood and the geology of Venus by Alexander Basilevsky and James Head, III. Some years ago I wrote an article for this series and received a complimentary subscription for a few years after that. When the free subscription ran out, I found myself hooked. I am now a happy paid subscriber and look forward to what the editors are picking out for us next year. I highly recommend the series, including this volume, to all researchers and teachers except those that are interested only in a narrow specialty and even those would probably get hooked after receiving a complimentary volume or two. The volume contains a subject index, a cumulative author index, and a cumulative index of chapter titles. This adds enormously to the usefulness of the series and is a good place to start a literature search.
Wetherill, A. L. Albee, and F. G. Stehli. Annual Reviews, 1990,676p.. US $49.00 (ISBN o-8243-20 16-6). THE EDITORS,AUTHORSand publishers of Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Science have consistently provided a high quality product. They have made it virtually impossible for active researchers in Earth and planetary sciences to avoid subscribing to the series. This is the 16th volume and, as usual, the range is enormous, the quality is high, the timeliness is admirable, and the choice of topics exemplary. There is something here for everyone. The opening essay by Bob Sharp is on field geology. We then wander around the solar system picking up tidbits about granites, meteorites, landslides, earthquakes, comets, the Caribbean, and the United Plates of America. We are exposed to volcanic winters, ore deposits, nuclear waste disposal, magnetic fields, and seismic stratigraphy. It is clear that after subscribing to these volumes for 5 years or so one develops a fairly broad library. The articles are review articles but they are short and pithy. A decade of these reviews barely take up a foot of shelf space and is probably the best investment of such space for those who need to check on a range of topics outside their specialty, There are 19 review articles by 29 authors, most of whom are the leading experts on the subject. For example we have Kevin Burke discussing the Caribbean, John Wahr on the Earth’s rotation, Vincent Courtillot and Jean Louis Le Mou&lon time variations of the magnetic field, E-an Zen on peraluminous granites, Konrad Krauskopf on nuclear waste disposal, and Paul E. Hoffman on the birth of a craton.
Seismological Laboratory California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA 91125, USA 1859
Don L. Anderson
Gecehimica d Cosmochimica Acre Vol.54, pp. 1859-1862 Copyright 0 1990PergamonRessplc.Printedin U.S.A.
+ .oO
BOOK REVIEWS
Chapter 5, by P. Brimblecombe, C. Hammer, H. Rohde, A. Ryaboshapko, and C. F. Boutron, assesses human influences on the sulfur cycle and sets these influences within the context of the ice core record changes during the past 10,ooOyears. The chapter provides a critical review and update of the SCOPE 19 data for the natural and anthropogenic inputs to the sulfur cycle. In the northern hemisphere current anthropogenic emissions of sulfur are estimated to be about 60-80 Tg a-‘; the rate of non-anthropogenic sulfur emission is 30-50 Tg a-‘. In Chapter 6, M. V. Ivanov, A. Yu. Lein, W. S. Reeburgh, and G. W. Skyring examine the interaction of the sulfur and carbon cycles in marine sediments. In the course of the chapter the authors point out that about 15%of the organic carbon that reaches the sea floor is mineralized under anaerobic conditions, and that the anaerobic oxidation of methane occurs in parallel with sulphate reduction. In Chapter 7, H. Jannasch gives an excellent account of sulfur emissions and transformations at deep sea hydrothermal vents. The final chapter, by Y. Cohen, V. M. Gorlenko, and E. A. Bench-Osmolovskaya, examines the interaction of the sulfur and carbon cycles in microbial mats, a subject that has burgeoned since the invention of microelect&es that can monitor the behavior of the microbiota in algal mats on sub-millimeter scales. The recent studies of modern algal mats will surely contribute to a better understanding of the biology and chemistry of their Precambrian antecedents. SCOPE 39 is a welcome addition to the literature dealing with the geochemistry of sulfur. I found the summaries of the Soviet contributions to the field particularly useful. However, like most conference volumes, SCOPE 39 has had a long gestation period. The book is an outgrowth of a workshop in Tallinn during the summer of 1984. At least one of the chapters was submitted before the end of that year. There are few references in any of the chapters to papers more recent than 1985. The book is, therefore, already slightly dated and this unfortunately detracts from its value as an up-to-date reference.
Evolution of the Global Biogeochemical
Sulphur Cycle, edited by Peter Brimblecombe and Alla Yu. Lein. Published on behalf of the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), John Wiley and Sons, 1989, 241p., US $104.00 (ISBN O-4719225 1-X).
SINCE I97 1, SCOPE HAS sponsored a series of volumes dealing with man-made environmental changes and the effects of these changes on man. The present volume, number 39 in this series, is a successor to SCOPE 19, the 1983 volume on “The Global Biogeochemical Sulphur Cycle.” The title of volume 39 is a slight misnomer, since only five of the eight chapters in the monograph deal with the history of the sulfur cycle. The final three chapters describe parts of the present day geochemistry of sulfur. All of the chapters are, however, useful, and the volume is considerably enriched by Chapters 6, 7, and 8. The first chapter, written by M. Schidlowski, reviews the record of the sulfur cycle as it operated during the Precambrian. This record is still rather spotty, and important questions, such as the onset of sulfate reduction as a major process in the marine sulfur cycle, are still hotly debated. Chapter 2 by W. T. Holser, J. B. Maynard, and K. M. Cruikshank deals with the sulfur cycle during the Phanerozoic. The record here is much more complete; even so, modeling the sulfur cycle during this Eon is still a difficult and uncertain undertaking. The rate constants for the erosion of sulfide and sulfate minerals are still poorly known, and the mean fractionation of sulfur isotopes during sulfate reduction may not be as nearly constant as has been assumed to date. Separating local from global aspects in constructing the sulfur isotope age curve of oceanic sulfur also continues to be a severe problem, as pointed out by H. Nielsen in Chapter 3. Past treatments of the sulfur cycle have tended to emphasize the influence of exogenic processes. In Chapter 4, A. Yu. Lein and M. V. Ivanov include an assessment of the effects of endogenous processes on the geochemical cycle of sulfur in the past and suggest that sharp maxima in the release rate of sulfur dioxide associated with global tectonism and rift formation may have been one of the causes of mass extinctions at the Permo-Carboniferous, the PermoTriassic, and the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundaries.
Department ofEarth and Planetary Sciences Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences edited by G. W.
Heinrich D. Holland
Tom Heaton and Steve Hartzell give an excellent account of modern seismic source theory. These are all excellent articles and show a high level of scholarship. The articles are between 20 and 30 pages long and therefore cannot be exhaustive. This is just the right length. however, to give the flavor of a field and to bring an interested reader up to the current thinking. This volume is particularly useful because it promises to expose terrestrial geolog%ts to things they should know about the solar system, including excellent articles on the solar nebula by John Wood and the geology of Venus by Alexander Basilevsky and James Head, III. Some years ago I wrote an article for this series and received a complimentary subscription for a few years after that. When the free subscription ran out, I found myself hooked. I am now a happy paid subscriber and look forward to what the editors are picking out for us next year. I highly recommend the series, including this volume, to all researchers and teachers except those that are interested only in a narrow specialty and even those would probably get hooked after receiving a complimentary volume or two. The volume contains a subject index, a cumulative author index, and a cumulative index of chapter titles. This adds enormously to the usefulness of the series and is a good place to start a literature search.
Wetherill, A. L. Albee, and F. G. Stehli. Annual Reviews, 1990,676p.. US $49.00 (ISBN o-8243-20 16-6). THE EDITORS,AUTHORSand publishers of Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Science have consistently provided a high quality product. They have made it virtually impossible for active researchers in Earth and planetary sciences to avoid subscribing to the series. This is the 16th volume and, as usual, the range is enormous, the quality is high, the timeliness is admirable, and the choice of topics exemplary. There is something here for everyone. The opening essay by Bob Sharp is on field geology. We then wander around the solar system picking up tidbits about granites, meteorites, landslides, earthquakes, comets, the Caribbean, and the United Plates of America. We are exposed to volcanic winters, ore deposits, nuclear waste disposal, magnetic fields, and seismic stratigraphy. It is clear that after subscribing to these volumes for 5 years or so one develops a fairly broad library. The articles are review articles but they are short and pithy. A decade of these reviews barely take up a foot of shelf space and is probably the best investment of such space for those who need to check on a range of topics outside their specialty, There are 19 review articles by 29 authors, most of whom are the leading experts on the subject. For example we have Kevin Burke discussing the Caribbean, John Wahr on the Earth’s rotation, Vincent Courtillot and Jean Louis Le Mou&lon time variations of the magnetic field, E-an Zen on peraluminous granites, Konrad Krauskopf on nuclear waste disposal, and Paul E. Hoffman on the birth of a craton.
Seismological Laboratory California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA 91125, USA 1859
Don L. Anderson