B O O K R E V I E W S

Scotland's Environment during the last 30,000 years, by R.J. Price. Scottish Academic Press, (1983) ISBN 0-7073-0325-7 ,224 pp. £27.50 hardcover, £15 softcover.

This volume is a well illustrated and well written summary of the environment of Scotland from the middle Devensian interstade, through the Late Devensian Glaciation, to the nonglacial conditions of the Flandrian. The book attempts, successfully, to integrate information from glacial geomorphology, glacial geology, palynology, and other Quatern- ary studies into a framework for events and climate over the period in question. A fundamental corner-stone in the volume is the assertion, or assumption, that the planktonic record from North Atlantic deep-sea cores provides a framework against which to evaluate the evidence from Scotland. Although the ocean evidence often appears compelling it is worth noting that several facets of these records are far from being generally agreed upon - - for example, the statement (p. 30) that 50% of the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets had disappeared by 13,000 BP is a contentious statement. It clearly is an important one on the global scale but it is certainly far from proven. Thus, although I fully recognize the importance of the ocean record in attempts to gain an understanding of the Scottish glacial and nonglacial stratigraphy I remain to be convinced that it is the standard against which we test our terrestrial records - - at least I would argue that there needs to be an exchange in both directions.

This caveat apart the synthesis by Price serves an extremely useful function in combing, in a single treatment, a variety of different data sets that have been gathered on the Scottish environments of the last 30,000 years. A notable feature of the book is the extended discussions on the reliability and meaning of radiocarbon dates as they are used to define the late glacial period (Chapter 4). This leads to the statement (p. 100) that:

"It may be concluded, therefore, that purely on the basis of the radiocarbon dates of samples from the Scottish sites that sometime between 11,900 and 10,800 BP (23 out of 46 dates fall within the period if one standard deviation is plotted) there was a revertence to glacial/periglacial conditions in Scotland., This stadial comes to an end in Scotland between 10,900 and 9,300 BP . . . . "

This statement and the discussion that precedes it stresses the problems of applying chronostratigraphic terms to the late glacial period in Scotland (and elsewhere for that matter). The only element that should have been discussed more fully was in connection with the 14C dates on marine shells. How were these dates reported by the various laboratories? Do they refer to calculations based on the NBS standard or are they corrected for the so-called reservoir effect? If the latter have not been applied then the quoted dates might be too old by approximately 400 years.

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iv Book Reviews

The volume is organized into five chapters. The first chapter presents a useful overview of the present physical environment and the broad controls on temperature and precipitation. It is in this chapter that Price argues that the temperatures over Scotland must reflect changes in the position of the Polar Front in the northeastern North Atlantic. The remainder of the chapter is devoted to a survey of the evidence for paleoenvironmental change in five major geographic areas - - the mountain, lowland, coastal, continental shelf and ocean basin zones. A discussion on Quaternary dating follows. This is a useful discussion and includes most techniques currently employed in Scottish Quaternary studies.

The second chapter involves a treatment of 'Scotland Before the Last Glaciation'. The major feature of this chapter, compared to many other areas in the Northern Hemisphere, is the dearth of materials and sections that date events prior to the Late Devensian Glaciation. Price discusses in considerable detail the interpretation of several sites from Scotland where radiocarbon dates indicate an early Devensian/Late Middle Devensian interstadial and clearly demonstrates the difficulties that exist in determining whether this small selection of sites can be used to document conditions prior to the onset of the Late Devensian Glaciation.

'The Last Ice Sheet circa 27,000-14,000 BP' is the title of the third chapter and this takes up 42 pages of text. Price discusses various models for the last ice sheet including recent evidence which suggests that independent ice divides ' . . . developed over, or to the west of, the Outer Hebrides ' (p. 57). In a similar vein there is some evidence that during the Late Devensian the Shetland islands were covered by a local ice sheet with a divide running N-S. Geomorphological evidence in the form of meltwater channels, eskers, and other stagnation deposits are used to infer that there was ' . . . rapid ice wastage' (p. 86) during deglaciation, although as Price points out there is no direct evidence of climatic conditions in the form of pollen diagrams or other faunal/floral assemblages.

Sixty-four pages are devoted to 'The Lateglacial Period circa 14,000-10,000 BP'. This is both an interesting and critical period in the glacial and climatic history of Scotland. There are numerous pollen diagrams and some beetle records from this interval. In addition, there is the well documented late glacial resurgence of ice in the mountains during the Loch Lomond Stadial. This event ' . . . despite the problems associated with its chronology there is little doubt that the Loch Lomond Stadial represents a short, sharp deterioration in Scotland's climate' (p. 113). Price proceeds to document this event in terms of a regional survey of local glaciers and ice caps throughout Scotland. This survey is based largely on the work of J.B. Sissons. However , an attractive and important point in the book is Price's ability to survey the evidence from several lines of investigation and bring these together in a regional and temporal survey of the changing environment throughout this critical time in Scotland's geological history.

The last two major chapters consider the evidence for changes in sea level and climate between 10,000-5000 BP and the last 5000 years. The volume ends with a short but information chapter on 'The Magnitude and Frequency of Environmental Changes - - Retrospect and Prospect ' .

In conclusion, therefore, I believe that Price has drawn together many strands in the webb of the climatic and glacial history of Scotland for the last 30,000 years. This volume is

Book Reviews v

an important document and is recommended to anyone interested in the history of the North Atlantic region.

Geological Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, U.S.A.

J.T. Andrews

Permafrost. Fourth International Conference, Proceedings, edited by National Academy of Sciences, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C. 1983, ISBN 0-309-03435-3, 1524 pp. $65.00.

The international conferences on permafrost tend to develop into very large congresses. This has disadvantages as well as advantages. Among the latter are the usually very well conducted proceedings which come out of the meetings. The fourth and latest of these conferences, held in 1983 in Fairbanks, Alaska, has now presented its main volume of proceedings, a heavy 1524 pp. book which is completed by a 278 pp. volume of abstracts, programme etc., and a forthcoming additional volume.

The editors of the proceedings have assembled an impressive work in a very short time. In spite of the heterogeneous origin and content of the individual papers they have produced a surprisingly homogeneous book. The organizing committee under the chairmanship of Troy L. Pdw6 and Jerry Brown, and the editorial group with Robert D. Miller as chairman are to be congratulated.

The book contains 276 papers by authors from 22 countries. We notice with pleasure that numerous papers derive from countries from whom the scientific literature is sometimes not easily accessible. There are, among others, 41 Chinese papers.

The content of the papers can be divided into 25 different groups of subject. These are indicated in a special index - - the papers themselves are presented in strictly alphabetic order based upon the name of the senior author. The titles of papers contain the most different types of subject, from patterned ground to pipelines, from sub-sea permafrost to problems of foundation, from the Alps to the Jovian moons. A considerable interest is devoted to permafrost on other planets. Eight papers deal with this issue, especially Martian conditions. Permafrost obviously exists on Mars, and has a great morphological importance all over the planet.

Exploitation of oil and gas in the subarctic regions, and its' transport in pipelines offer many problems because of the permafrost. The same applies to the construction of buildings, roads, airports etc. Consequently, research on permafrost has increased in the last decades, and is a main reason for the increasing size of the conferences. The increasing activity comprises methods of investigation as well as construction work. Among the methods of investigation we notice the application of remote sensing. A group of papers deal with such methods and mapping problems and techniques.

The classical aspects of the permafrost problems seem to play a decreasing role, while the