Allen G Hunt, Muhammad Sahimi

Networks on Networks (Second Edition) (eBook, ePUB)

Role of connectivity in physics of geobiology and geochemistry

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

'Networks on Networks' starts from the premise that the pore space in the Critical Zone is ideally suited for life because of its 3 phases, solid, water, and air, and because two of the phases are mobile, carrying nutrients and chemicals for signaling, allowing growth and the formation of connections between organisms. The connectivity properties of the pore space control the speeds at which all these related processes occur, generating the time scales for life, e.g., plant growth and soil formation. Our treatment of these properties, which are of such fundamental importance to life near the Earth's surface, is based on percolation theory over (physical) networks, the most accurate means of predicting the important flow and transport rates. It is through this lens that it is possible to identify some of the properties influenced by life, such as the increase in heterogeneity of the Critical Zone, which are important components of life's effect on making our planet a more suitable host for living objects. Other areas where the book's organization of understanding of hydrology and ecology overlap include finding a set of ecological optimality principles that allow prediction of plant species richness as a function of climate variables and the rate at which the biosphere sequesters carbon, which are both based on the prediction of the partitioning of rainfall at the Earth's surface into run-off and evapotranspiration.

The primary purpose of this book is to demonstrate the relevance of the network properties of the pore-space in the soil to the organization of understanding of plant growth, soil formation, river network development, and the water cycle, with the ability to directly relate time scales from seconds to the cycle of supercontinent break-up and assembly (Wilson Cycle). In the process, implications regarding the viability of the strong vs. the weak (Earth only acts like a living organism) Gaia hypotheses are addressed. All of this makes 'Networks on Networks' of great interest to those in the climate change community.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Institute of Physics Publishing
• Seitenzahl: 270
• Erscheinungstermin: 23. Dezember 2024
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780750356985
• Artikelnr.: 72680959

Autorenporträt

Allen Hunt was trained as a physicist in the application of percolation theory to transport in disordered systems. Post-doctoral experience in soil physics, geomorphology, and hydrology acquainted him with a series of difficult physics problems in porous media, particularly those of soil formation and soil processes. Hunt has over 150 refereed publications in the above fields, climate dynamics, and biological sciences in 45 traditionally archived journals, including Nature. He has been a Fulbright Scholar, and a National Science Foundation Program Director. He is currently Professor of Physics at Wright State University. His book, Percolation Theory for Flow in Porous Media (Lecture Notes in Physics, Springer) has gone through three editions in the past 10 years. He has earned teaching distinctions at the local and national levels, and his PhD student, Behzad Ghanbarian, received the Turcotte Award in 2015 from the American Geophysical Union for his dissertation advancing the science of non-linear geophysics.

Muhammad Sahimi is Professor of chemical engineering and materials science, and the NIOC Chair in petroleum engineering at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. His research interests include flow, transport, reaction, sorption, and deformation in porous media, percolation theory, fracture and failure of heterogeneous materials and rock, and application of artificial intelligence to such problems. He has published over 400 papers and three books, is a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the American Physical Society, and has received numerous research and teaching awards, including, among others, Humboldt Foundation Research Fellowship Award, the Khwarizmi International Award for Distinguished Achievements in Science, Life-time Achievements Award and Honorary Membership of the International Society for Porous Media, and the Kimberly-Clark Distinguished Lectureship Award.