My title is deliberately provocative. It is intended to give pause to all those - quite a few, I imagine - who are convinced that they owe nothing at all to religion in any shape or form and who, as a result, think they have lost nothing in the recent difficulties that have stripped the Christian churches of most of the hold they still retained over European society. Because it goes without saying, in today's thinking, that religion is a question of personal choice, individual participation and private belief. This is not the kind of religion I am talking about. The thesis I should like to advance is that, whatever our beliefs, church or degree of involvement, until quite recently all of us used to owe something to religion, and that we have all lost something in the enormous change which has carried us with it over the last thirty years and which, among other things, is currently completing its liquidation of the vestiges of religious organisation that remained among us. This something is directly related to the ‘dehumanisation of the world’ with which we are now so preoccupied.

2H NMR spectra of synthetic deuterated kaolinite have been collected in the temperature range from 150 K to 350 K. Hydroxyl groups show a Pake doublet pattern with an asymmetry factor of 0. They are almost fixed spatially, and undergo a wobbling motion with increasing temperature. The quadrupole coupling constant is 273 ± 3 kHz at 150 K, which indicates that interlayer hydrogen bonding is relatively weak.

The long-term impermeability of clay barriers in waste disposal facilities and hydraulic structures is of critical importance to environmental, agricultural, and industrial concerns. Changes in the oxidation state of Fe in the constituent clays of compacted clay barriers may degrade the hydraulic conductivity of these structures because other properties related to hydraulic conductivity, such as swelling, gel microstructure, and particle size, are greatly altered by the oxidation state. Two Na-saturated smectites (SWa-1 and API 25) were reduced by sodium dithionite (Na2S2O4), both in suspension and in situ after consolidation, to examine the effects of structural Fe reduction on hydraulic conductivity. Results indicated that the hydraulic conductivity depended on both the oxidation state and the consolidation history of the clay. The hydraulic conductivity of clay reduced in suspension before consolidation was lower than that of oxidized clay. Initially reduced smectite, thus, may be compactable to a less-permeable material with higher bulk density. But reduction of smectite in situ after consolidation increased the hydraulic conductivity and its variability. The oxidized state of clay liners should, therefore, be preserved.

This article explores the rehabilitation of the ethical dimension of human interactions with nature, using cross-cultural perspectives in Africa. Cross-cultural comparison of indigenous concepts of the relationship between people and nature with contemporary environmental and scientific issues facilitate the rehabilitation, renewal and validation of indigenous environmental ethics. Although increasing attention is being given to the environmental concerns of non-western traditions, most of the related research has centered on Asia, Native American Indians and Australian Aborigines with little attention being paid to Africa. However, this study has confirmed that, like other multicultural traditions, African indigenous traditions contain symbolic and ethical messages that are passed from generation to generation in order to ensure respect and compassion for other living creatures. The article shows, however, that not all indigenous knowledge is environmentally friendly. Indigenous and modern environmental ethics alike have something to teach as well as something to learn.

The chemical and the mineralogical composition of a group of pumiceous tuffs associated with recent salic volcanic episodes from Tenerife (Canary Islands) have been studied. The investigation focused on the two main types of pyroclastic deposits of the zone: ash-flows and ash-falls. The samples can be classified chemically as trachytic and phonolitic rocks with an intermediate silica content and a high percentage of alkali cations (Na+ and K+). The mineralogical composition, determined by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and optical microscopy, shows the occurrence of zeolites (mainly phillipsite, with lesser chabazite and analcime), associated with the parent glass. K-feldspar (sanidine) and calcite are accessory minerals. Zeolites are significantly more abundant in the ash-flow deposits. Zeolite formation by hydrothermal weathering in closed-system conditions varies according to the nature and the origin of the pyroclastic deposits. Tenerife phillipsites differ from typical diagenetic, lacustrine, and deep-sea phillipsites, both in chemical and mineralogical features. Alkali cations exceed divalent cations in the unit-cell that, assuming a monoclinic symmetry, has the following parameters: a = 8.46–10.55 Å, b = 14.21–14.40 Å, c = 7.80–8.70 Å, and β = 105°–110°.

The study of the post-Communist towns of East Europe and Russia does not only present the social sciences with the opening of a new field and the attraction of exoticism close at hand. They are a remarkable observatory of the complex relations which unite the material facets of urban life (extension of the built-up area, architectural forms, types of distribution of infrastructures and services) and the social structures (mode of government, nature of the economic initiative, expressions of sociability). In three-quarters of a century for Russia, in fifty years for the countries of East Europe, cities many ages old were to have two changes of system: from liberal industrial capitalism to the controlled Communist economy, from interventionist autarchy to the globalized market. To give the lie to the poet (Baudelaire), towns change no faster than the hearts of mortals but beat to the rhythm of their continuities, their aspirations and their dreams.

There are as many authors as there are forms of shamanism, and as many points of view on the subject as there are authors. The fact that there is no consensus on the definition of the term shamanism is probably neither accidental nor much of a disadvantage. Is not a certain amount of vagueness appropriate to a phenomenon marked by so much diversity and vitality? For that reason, would it not be more profitable to focus the investigation of the term on the ultimate limits of its applicability? Primitive, shamanism continues to be reborn. Rooted in nature, it has blossomed in great industrial cities. Animistic, it has enriched the popular foundation of the great religions without modeling its own practices on them. Instead, shamanism has sometimes manifested itself in grand recurring rituals that celebrate ethnic identity; at other times, it has been an instrument used by private individuals to channel the course of events in a direction favorable to them or, more often, to make sure that their course is not unfavorable. To someone suffering from a psychic burden, shamanism can represent a priceless instrument that will offer relief, or help in being reassimilated into the community. For the expert practitioner, shamanism can be a means to personal advancement. Even when scorned by all and, in some cases, combated, shamanism has found a way to adapt itself everywhere.

This paper analyses certain contemporary narratives among Buryats of Russia and China. At issue is the nature of responsibility for the campaigns of terror, in particular the devastation of the Buddhist church in the 1930s. In these accounts political leaders appear as reincarnations, destined to unleash terrible events. Stalin, for example, is said by Buryat Mongol villagers to have been the reincarnation of a Blue Elephant which lived in ancient times in India. I examine local discussions around these stories to suggest that the narrators, themselves having been caught up in the seemingly objective and transparent, yet deeply irrational, accounts of the Party-State, do not (at any rate at present) confront actions in which they were both perpetrators and victims ‘matter-of-factly’. Having been a particular target of the Stalinist all-pervasive organisation of suspicion and punishment, Buryat Buddhists today are creating ‘paranoid narratives’ of their own to explain the repressions - a narrative of displacement, in which the actions attributed to an other (in this case Stalin) are in some way ‘about’ oneself. The reincarnation stories point up the crucial moral issue erased by socialist metahistory, the ethical problem of individual accountability. They are about complicity, for they reveal an uneasy, and probably unconscious, identification with Stalin.

The third sex, which for a long period of history meant the androgyne and the homosexual, took on a new sense around 1900, when it was applied to emancipated women, who were featured by novelists and analysed by psychiatrists. Assimilated with lesbians, ‘desexualized’ by their modern way of life, they were labelled ‘neuter’, worker bees in a hive-state where ‘female-male’ markers were tending to disappear. Neither men in sex, nor women in gender (at least according to traditional assumptions), they constituted a new ‘battalion’ which highlighted all the anxieties of the time: the involution of dimorphism, the threat of lack of differentiation and the ‘extinction of the race’. But for those who accepted the label, neuterdom evolved from a pejorative concept into an instrument of a kind of liberation and the strategic means to set up creative space cleared of sexual stigma, until political cooption, aware of the resurgence of a ‘superior species’, changed its meaning and tipped over into the worst sort of excess.

The hydrolytic behavior of Fe solutions at room temperature under acidic conditions was investigated. In the presence of Al ions, with Cl and NO3 as associated anions, the Fe hydrolysis began almost instantaneously and a crystalline β-FeOOH (akaganeite) was formed in the AlCl3/FeCl3 system within a short period. Initially the particles were small with large surface area. However, with time the particles grew in size and the surface area decreased. After about 42 days of equilibration, the akaganeite particles grew to 60–300 nm long, 10–50 nm wide and with a surface area of 55 m2/g, which is similar to other reports for akaganeite prepared at higher temperatures. In the NO3 system [Al(NO3)3/Fe(NO3)3], lepidocrocite (γ-FeOOH) and goethite (α-FeOOH) were formed. In a mixed anion system (Cl/NO3) solid phases identified were akaganeite (β-FeOOH) and lepidocrocite (γ,-FeOOH). The introduction of poly-nuclear hydroxy-Al along with monomer Al in Cl and NO3 systems of Fe affected the quantity and quality of the solid phase. The crystallinity of β-FeOOH formed in the presence of polynuclear hydroxy-Al ions in a Cl-system was more disordered than when it formed in the presence of monomer Al-ions alone. In NO3 systems, polynuclear hydroxy-Al hindered the formation of goethite (α-FeOOH). Our experiments showed that Fe oxyhydroxides crystallize readily under acidic conditions in the presence of Al ions and the data also indicated that the Cl was essential for the crystallization of akaganeite, whereas goethite was formed in those systems when Cl was absent.

Clay mineralogy (including illite crystallinity) was studied in Pennsylvanian synorogenic sediments (Atoka Formation) in the subsurface of the Arkoma Basin and the adjacent Ouachita thrust belt. Vitrinite reflectance values range from ≥0.8% at the surface up to as high as 4.7% Ro at the base of the Atoka Formation. The mineralogy of the <2 µm fraction of the mudrocks is fairly monotonous and composed of illite (<10% interstratified smectite), Fe-chlorite, kaolinite, quartz, and traces of feldspars. Kaolinite is common at shallow levels and “disappears” in most wells at a thermal maturity of 1.9–2.1% Ro, suggesting its possible use as an independent paleothermal indicator in this basin. Illite crystallinity (IC) values are fairly high (0.3–0.5° 2θ) and show little variation throughout the entire maturity range. In addition, no relation was observed between vitrinite reflectance and illite crystallinity, indicating that IC is not a useful paleothermal indicator in these rocks. Illite is almost exclusively of the 2M1 polytype, suggesting a predominantly detrital origin. Incipient metamorphic and low-grade metamorphic mudrocks in the Ouachita thrust belt to the east of the Arkoma Basin are regarded as the source rocks for the clays of the Atoka Formation. Rapid transportation and deposition by turbidity currents probably played a key role in protecting these unweathered micas from pervasive alteration in the terrestrial environment.

In the Pohang area of Korea, heulandite occurs as cements in conglomerate and sandstone of a Miocene marine fan-delta system resting on Eocene dacitic volcanics. Three types of heulandite cements are distinguishable in the fan-delta sediments on the basis of texture, chemical composition and authigenic mineral association. The earliest type I heulandite (Si/(A1+Fe): 3.5–3.8) occurs as microcrystalline (10–30 μm) in situ crystallites that replace volcanic matrix and are intermixed with early-formed smectite. Type II heulandite (Si/(A1+Fe): 3.2–3.6) occurs as medium-grained (30–60 μm) crystal aggregates rimming intergranular cavities. Type III heulandite (Si/(A1+Fe): 3.6–4.1) is the last to form and is a composite phase of heulandite-clinoptiloite, which occurs as unusually coarse (50–200 μm) single-crystal cement associating with late-formed smectite and hematite.

These characteristic heulandite cements were formed by alteration of volcaniclastic sediment during shallow burial (burial temperature: 40–60 °C) and uplift in marine pore fluid diluted by meteoric water. Sr isotope data for heulandite II (87Sr/86Sr: 0.706565–0.706598) and heulandite III (87Sr/86Sr: 0.707347–0.707432) indicate that the pore fluid was progressively mixed with meteoric water during burial and uplift but the Ca in the pore-filling heulandites has been derived mainly from dissolution of carbonate cements. Heulandite III, heulandite-clinoptilolite, was formed with an unusual coarsening and chemical zoning at somewhat diluted and disequilibrium conditions caused by the migration of oxygen-rich meteoric water during or after uplifting.

Upper Cretaceous-Tertiary marine clayey-calcareous rocks of the Hekimhan basin contain fibrous clay minerals in significant amounts. Ophiolitic rocks in the provenance area have contributed the elements to form the clay minerals. XRD, SEM, major, trace and REE analyses were applied to samples taken from several stratigraphic sections. Diagenetic minerals such as smectite, dolomite, calcite, gypsum, celestite and quartz/chalcedony are associated with sepiolite-palygorskite group clays. Trace and rare earth elements (REE) are more abundant in palygorskite than sepiolite. REE abundances in the sepiolite-palygorskite are characterized by negative Eu and positive Nd anomalies when normalized with respect to chondrite and shale. Sepiolites with sharp XRD peaks are formed by diagenetic replacement of dolomite and diagenetic transformation of palygorskite, or by direct crystallization from solution. The average structural formula of the sepiolite is:

(Mg7.15Al0.13Fe0.31Cr0.06Ni0.04)(Si11.98Al0.02)O30(OH)4(OH2)4Ca0.03Na0.02K0.02.8H2O

Palygorskite appears to be authigenic by direct precipitation from solution. It exists in both monoclinic and orthorhombic forms with the mean structural formula given below

(Mg2.22Al1.00Ti0.04Fe0.77Cr0.01Ni0.02)(Si7.68Al0.32)O20(OH)2(OH2)4Ca0.07Na0.05K0.10.4H2O

This article is the story of the partition of Moldova into two republics after the short war of the Dniestr in 1992. It is for the most part a narrative drawing on field notes gathered in June 1993 from witnesses and actors in the drama. Its consequences have relegated Moldova, a flourishing soviet republic well known for its high-quality wines and its specialized industrial products within a large military-industrial complex, to the rank of one of the poorest post-soviet entities, struggling with terrible problems of survival. Numbers of its inhabitants have been thrown into every kind of trafficking (drugs, prostitution, illegal work). This story and its commentary aim to reveal the exacerbation of tensions that occurred between the end of perestroïka and the breakup of the USSR - a period of confused loyalties, inter-ethnic and nationalist crisis, and difficult negotiations between the great powers over sharing out zones of influence.

For three decades, studies of the African slave trade and the system of slavery have proliferated. Conferences have been held one after another: in Copenhagen (1974), New York (1978), Port-au-Prince (1978), Washington, Harvard University (1979), Manchester (1982), Nantes (1985), Madrid (1988), Paris, Port-au-Prince, Saint-Louis, Dakar (all in 1989), Nantes (1993), and Nouakchott (1995). Numerous specialists from universities in Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and the Americas (Brazil, the United States, and Canada) have convened to compare the results of their research. Year after year, archival records have been brought to bear and the bibliography has grown ever longer. A number of studies of oral tradition have been undertaken in Africa.

The vitric component of the silicic pyroclastic flows and surge deposits (Prassa ignimbrite unit), from the northwestern exposures of the pyroclastics formation of Polyegos Island, South Aegean Sea Volcanic Arc in Greece, is replaced by authigenic zeolite and clay minerals. Mordenite dominates, and clinoptilolite (heulandite type 3), illite and illite-smectite (I-S) are subordinate. Opal-CT, quartz, feldspar, biotite and halite complete the mineralogical suite. In the southwestern part of the pyroclastics formation (Myrsini pyroclastics unit), kaolinite, halloysite, alunite and amorphous silica are the major mineralogical constituents as a result of a strong hydrothermal alteration by solutions enriched in SO42-. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) examination proved that the 1st type of zeolites formed within the area were heulandite minerals, following the formation of smectite, as a result of the activity of pore fluids within the volcaniclastic pile. There was no substantial evidence to support a hypothesis that mordenite was formed with the heulandite minerals after the initial stages of glass dissolution, other than some very minor mordenite that was formed from a gel-like type of material. The majority of mordenite present is most often draped over and formed from the crystals of heulandite minerals. Heulandite minerals often show advanced dissolution effects. The mineral dissolution was due to the emplacement of rhyolite lava domes and flows and the associated temperature rise and circulation of hydrothermal fluids, which had also mixed with seawater. The volcanic activity raised the temperature and changed the pore fluid chemistry, and the more unstable members of the heulandite minerals group were transformed to mordenite. Clinoptilolite (heulandite type 3), which was found within a few samples, was thermally more stable than any heulandite type 1 or 2 phases initially present. Therefore, clinoptilolite was either transformed more slowly or within a very few cases, it has not been affected at all. A heulandite-minerals-derived material acted as the major precursor for the formation of mordenite. The temperature increase within the area and the later hydrothermal alteration effect are also indicated by the illitization of the smectite. Mordenite is also found to have formed from I-S clays. Overall, mordenite formed as a result of elevated temperature and high Na+ concentration.