ABSTRACT One of the most recent intellectual enterprises of the scientist honored in this book, Walter Alvarez, is the dive into big history. Alvarez’s research and worldview contributed directly to the foundations of this transdisciplinary field. In this paper, the relevance of big history to the emergent idea of planetary health is demonstrated. Since big history studies both natural and human-made systems over long periods of time, it is uniquely positioned to help address the three categories of challenges identified within planetary health: imagination, knowledge, and governance. Most extensively, this paper focuses on governance challenges. A case study on the Ethiopian health system illustrates that governance frameworks can be reimagined in such a way that incentives and efforts of actors within the system are aligned, producing better human health outcomes. For Homo sapiens to have a better chance of survival than dinosaurs did 66 million years ago, these lessons will need to be applied more broadly in the planetary health domain.

Abstract: An investigation to record spatial and seasonal distribution of recent benthic ostracoda was carried out along two transects (East and Northeast) off Rameswaram island of Tamil Nadu coast, India. Thirty sediment and bottom water samples were collected during January 2011 and April 2011 and analysed for various physico-chemical and sediment characteristics using standard procedures. The top 4 cm sediment was preserved in 10% formaldehyde and later in the laboratory the live and total population of Ostracoda was determined using the rose Bengal stain technique. Faunal frequencies for benthic ostracods were computed and correlated with physico-chemical and sediment characteristics. The correlation reveals that ostracod frequency has a positive correlation with sandy substrate and negative correlation with clay substrate and OM%. Faunal frequencies increased by 3 times during summer (April 2011) although values of physico-chemical and sediment characteristics do not show considerable variation from January 2011. The east transect is proximal to the coral reef and characterized by sandy substrate in both seasons, supports high populations and therefore is more congenial for ostracod proliferation. Finally, environmental variables have been correlated with those measured three decades ago to understand the causes for variations.

Abstract : We interpret the subsurface distribution pattern of Late Cretaceous sandstone reservoirs in the Ramnad sub-basin within the framework of sequence stratigraphy via biostratigraphic and lithostratigraphic correlation with outcrop sections in the Ariyalur area of the Cauvery basin. The sequence stratigraphic surfaces recognized in outcrop sections can be correlated to subsurface sections by using biostratigraphic datum markers. By this method five 2 nd and 3 rd order sequences can be recognized in outcrops of the Ariyalur area based on sequence boundaries (SB): 1) the top of the Terani Formation (latest Aptian-earliest Albian SB1), 2) the Karai Formation (middle Turonian Marginotruncana sigali Zone SB2), 3) the Anaipadi member of Garudamangalam Formation (late Santonian Dicarinella asymetrica Zone SB3), 4) the Sillakudi Formation (late Campanian Globotruncanita calcarata Zone SB4), 5) the Ottakovil Formation (early late Maastrichtian Gansserina gansseri Zone SB5), and 6) the Kallamedu Formation (late Maastrichtian Abathomphalus mayaroensis Zone SB6). Examination of log profiles of the Koluvur, Ramnad, Perungulam, Chumaitangi, Kanjirangudi, Periapattinam, Ramanavalasai and Uchipuli structures show that sea level lowstands at the end of the middle Turonian, late Santonian and late Maastrichtian are associated with coarser clastic sediments in deeper parts of the basin. This suggests that low sea levels are associated with bypass of coarser clastics in shelf areas and deposition as fan deposits in the deeper parts of the basin. Major sea level falls thus significantly influence the distribution of coarser clastic sediments and the application of sequence stratigraphic concepts aids the understanding of sandstone reservoirs in the Ramnad sub-basin.

Precambrian terranes and units of the Dahomeyan (now Beninian belt) from Togo, Benin, and southwest Nigeria are described and compared with those from the northernmost part of the Brasiliano belt. The major phases of deformation and metamorphism occurred about 600 Ma in both continents. Foreland nappes derived from passive margin sedimentary beds of the West African craton display high-pressure metamorphism. Parautochthons include slices of an ophiolitic-type assemblage. The suture zone metabasic rocks are only recorded in the Beninian belt. They may represent the granulitized and eclogitized mafic root of ensimatic arc terranes, and have no equivalent in northeast Brazil. The Nigerian Province includes to the west a narrow elongated belt of high-pressure granulites, also found in the northernmost part of the Borborema Province of northeast Brazil. Two main lithostratigraphic units can be recognized in both provinces: (1) gray gneisses that derive from Archean plutonic rocks, thoroughly deformed, recrystallized, and remobilized during the Pan-African–Brasiliano thermo-tectonic events; and (2) Proterozoic monocyclic units displaying the same petrostructural evolution as reworked Archean, and in which we tentatively recognize a Lower Proterozoic group consisting of aluminous metaquartzites and pelitic schists, which were intruded by 2(?) to 1.8 Ga anorogenic granites, and a younger disconformable flysch-type unit of assumed Late Proterozoic age. Large-scale horizontal movements responsible for a flat-lying foliation and nappes affected several domains of the Nigerian and Borborema Provinces, whereas steep structures formed penecontemporaneously along synmetamorphic shear zones. Second-order late-metamorphic steep shear zones are considered as trans-continental lithospheric fractures that overprinted collisional structures. Among these, the 4°50′ Kandi fault and the Sobral fault represent a particularly good correlation of northeast Brazil and southwest Nigeria-Benin, and are used to propose a rigorous Precambrian fit across the south Atlantic Ocean.