El Soldado is the largest (>200 Mt @ 1.4% Cu) of the known Cu manto-type deposits in central Chile. It is strata-bound within a submarine, bimodal calc-alkaline basalt - rhyodacite unit of the Lower Cretaceous Lo Prado Formation., which also contains marine carbonaceous shales and volcaniclastic sandstones. Although stratigraphically restricted, the clustered orebodies are mostly vein-like and discordant, controlled by a system of N-S to NNW faults fonned within a transtensional zone (cymoid loop) of a sinistral, strike-slip brittle shear system. Individual orebodies are zoned, with an external and deeper zone of barren pyrite, followed inward by concentric zones with chalcopyrite-pyrite, chalcopyrite bornite, bornite-chalcocite, and a central zone of chalcocite (± digenite ± covellite) and abundant hematite. The deposit was formed in two main phases: l)a low-temperature, diagenetic phase during which framboidal pyrite developed in association with migrated petroleum, at ca. 130 to 120 Ma; 2) a high-temperature (>300°C from fluid inclusions) hydrothennal phase at ca. 103 Ma, (coinciding with batholith emplacement), that deposited early hematite (± magnetite), followed by chalcopyrite, bornite and chalcocite, mostly replacing pre-existing pyrite, with the excess Fe forming hematite. Gangue minerals are calcite, albite, k-feldspar and chlorite. The hydrothermal Cu mineralization is associated with an increase in Na and depletion in K in host rocks, although there are localised zones of K increase in bornite-chalcocite assemblages near structures. Isotopic studies indicate that: a) the sulphur in diagenetic pyrite provided the bulk of the sulphur for Cu sulphides; b) petroleum was the source of carbon in bitumen and part of the carbonate; c) osmium in diagenetic pyrite was derived from the black shales; d) strontium in calcites was inherited from the Cretaceous arc lavas; e) oxygen isotopes in carbonates, and K-feldspar and atmospheric argon in K-feldspar plus the high salinity of fluid inclusions (21-26% NaCl equivalent) suggest a basinal connate-metamorphic brine was responsible for Cu transport, yet a (distal) magmatic component to the fluids cannot be ruled out.

The flight of the Mariner 2 spacecraft past Venus in December 1962 marked the start of a new era in the exploration of the solar system. At that time our knowledge of the terrestrial planets other than Earth (Mercury, Venus, and Mars) was largely astronomical in nature.

The concept of the adaptive landscape is the creation of the great American geneticist Sewall Wright who, along with the equally great British scientists R. A. Fisher and J.B. S. Haldane, crafted the Neo-Darwinian synthesis of evolutionary theory in the 1930s. The metaphor of the adaptive landscape, that evolution via the process of natural selection could be visualized as a journey across adaptive hills and valleys, mountains and ravines, permeated both evolutionary biology and the philosophy of science through the succeeding years of the twentieth century. Yet critics of the adaptive landscape concept have maintained that the concept is of heuristic value only; that is, it is fine for creating conceptual models, but that you cannot actually use the concept in analysing the evolution of actual animals or plants. That criticism became invalid in the year 1966 when the palaeontologist David M. Raup used computer simulations to model hypothetical life forms that have never existed in the evolution of life on Earth, and who subsequently created the concept of the theoretical morphospace.

The focus of this book is to demonstrate to the reader the power of the adaptive landscape concept in understanding the process of evolution, and to demonstrate that the adaptive landscape concept can be put into actual analytical practice through the usage of theoretical morphospaces. The adaptive landscape concept allows us to visualize the possible effects of natural selection through simple spatial relationships, rather than complicated modelling of changing environmental or ecological conditions. For that reason, this book relies heavily on spatial graphics to convey the concepts developed within these pages, and less so on formal mathematics.

I thank the Santa Fe Institute for the invitation to visit and work on computational methods in theoretical morphology in 2000, for it was at the Santa Fe Institute that the idea of writing this book came to me in conversations with Dave Raup. I thank the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research for the Fellowship that enabled me to work at the institute in 2005, for it was there that I developed many of the ideas presented in Chapters 7 and 8 of this book. Finally, I thank my wife, Marae, for her patient love.

The Geotraveller describes the geology of famous geosites and areas of archaeological and historical interest from the USA, Africa, and Europe. Geological descriptions are supported by simplified geological maps and colour photographs. Many of the geosites occur in national parks and  reserves, some of which have been upgraded to world heritage sites, while others are located in newly formed geoparks. A Geopark is a unified area that advances the protection and use of geological heritage in a sustainable way and promotes the economic well-being of the people who live there (definition from Wikipedia). There are Global Geoparks and National Geoparks. Many of the geosites not located in parks or reserves could be protected as areas of special interest. The creation of geoparks in areas of outstanding natural landforms is indicative of a growing interest in geological heritage and geotourism <...>