Lecture notes in Earth sciences. Volume 18. Numerical geology / Конспекты лекций по наукам о земле. Том 18. Численная геология

Although geologists have dabbled in numbers since the time of Hutton and Playfair, 200 years ago (Merriam 1981e), geology until recently lagged behind other sciences in both the teaching and geological application of mathematics, statistics and computers. Geology Departments incorporating these disciplines in their undergraduate courses are still few (particularly outside the USA). Only two international geomathematical/computing journals are published (Computers & Geosciences; Mathematical Geology), compared with dozens covering, say, petrology or mineralogy. It also remains common practice for years (and $1000s) to be spent setting up computerized machines to produce large volumes of data in machine-readable form, and then for geologists to plot these by hand on a sheet of graph paper! <...>