Abstract This chapter explores the interaction between Archibald Geikie and female geologists in their many different roles and within the social context of his life and time (1835–1924). The roles adopted by female geologists altered around 1875 when there was a change in the educational and legal background. Geikie’s attitude to female fieldwork and research publications changes through time too. His life is divided up into five different stages according to his ability to support and influence female geologists in their roles as researchers, lecturers, wife assistants and students. Case studies of both single and married women are explored looking at the influence and interaction they had with Archibald Geikie. They include Maria Ogilvie Gordon, Catherine Raisin, Annie Greenly, Gertrude Elles, Ethel Skeat and Ethel Wood. Geikie seems to have accepted most of the roles that women undertook and supported them wherever he could.

ABSTRACT Today, the United States Department of the Interior manages 500 million acres of surface land, about one-fifth of the land in the United States. Since enactment of the Antiquities Act in 1906, historic and scientific resources collected on public land have remained government property, held in trust for the people of the United States. As a result, the Department of the Interior manages nearly 204 million museum objects. Some of these objects are in federally managed repositories; others are in the repositories of partner institutions. The establishment of the United States as a nation corresponded with the development of paleontology as a science. For example, mastodon fossils discovered at or near present-day Big Bone Lick State Historic Site, Kentucky, found their way to notable scientists both in the United States and in Europe by the mid-eighteenth century and were instrumental in establishing the reality of extinction. Public land policies were often contentious, but generally they encouraged settlement and use, which resulted in the modern pattern of federal public lands. Continued investigation for fossils from public land filled the nation’s early museums, and those fossils became the centerpieces of many museum exhibitions. Case studies of the management of fossils found in Fossil Cycad National Monument, the John Day fossil beds, the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge and surrounding areas of public land, the American Falls Reservoir, and Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument are outlined. These examples provide a sense of the scope of fossils on federal public land, highlight how their management can be a challenge, and show that public land is vital for continued scientific collection and research.

Abstract Since the early 2000s, the exploitation of shale gas has radically modified the US energy scenario. In a number of European countries, the US boom has elicited questions about its repeatability in Europe. Among the staunchest supporters of the development of national shale-gas resources were Polish administrations, which grounded their activism in this domain in the language of energy security, autonomy vis-à-vis Russian gas, and in Poland’s old oil history. The history of hydrocarbon exploration in the country dates back to the mid-nineteenth century, and is connected to the oil boom that occurred in the region of Galicia. While the boom was over by World War I, promising estimations made in recent years by several agencies about Poland’s shale gas reserves have stirred hopes of a ‘second Galicia’. From 2007, the Polish government started assigning permits to both national and foreign gas companies. However, factors linked to legislation, geology and macroeconomics caused a premature end to hopes of Polish autonomy. After a reconstruction of the history of oil in Galicia and the constitution of the Polish oil and gas sector, this paper narrates the rise and fall of Poland’s ‘affair’ with shale gas.

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to frame selected episodes in the establishment and development of the modern oil and gas industry in the Northern Apennines (Emilia-Romagna region), Italy. The research spans between the political unification of the Italian peninsula into the Kingdom of Italy (1861), and the outbreak of World War I (1914). In the attempt to delve into the socio-economic scenario of those times, we look to contextualize and describe the work of the geologists and engineers who contributed to developing the early scientific knowledge of practical utility on the oil-bearing formations of the Northern Apennines. The history of the Emilia-Romagna oil industry was influenced and shaped by several episodes, and this paper discusses in particular two events that occurred during 1911. The first is an important and political act: the promulgation from the Italian authorities of the first regulation aimed at fostering the national oil industry, including the generous and criticized subsidies to support oil well drilling. The second is a technical–scientific landmark: the publication by Enrico Camerana and Bartolomeo Galdi (both engineers in the Royal Corps of Mines in Bologna) of the treatise I giacimenti petroleiferi dell’Emilia [ The Oilfields of the Emilia Region ], thanks to which Italian oil expertise made an important step forward. This seminal study on the state of the art of geological exploration of the oilfields of northern Italy represents the point of fracture between the empirical knowledge concerning oil and gas exploration and production and the development of the first national original research in the field of geosciences, to be fully developed in the decades to come.