Encyclopedia of Geology

Scott A. Elias grew up in Colorado, USA, and received both an undergraduate degree and Ph.D. in Environmental Biology from the University of Colorado. He went on to do postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Waterloo, Canada, and the University of Berne, Switzerland. Scott returned to the University of Colorado in 1982 and became a research associate of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. In 2000 he took a lectureship in Physical Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London, and became a Professor of Quaternary Science in 2007. He has served as editor-in-chief of three editions of the Encyclopedia of Quaternary Science, and co-editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Geology and the Cryosphere Comprehensive.

David Alderton is Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Earth Sciences at Royal Holloway (University of London). He has been lecturing to undergraduate and postgraduate students for the past 36 years, mostly at UK institutions but also to US classes. Lecture courses have mostly been in the fields of mineralogy and mineral resources, mineral exploration and environmental and analytical geochemistry. He is also an experienced field geologist, having led numerous undergraduate field excursions and research expeditions, to various locations in Europe and farther afield (North and South America, Australia, central and south-east Asia). His research focuses on hydrothermal mineral deposits and the nature of environmental pollution related to mining, and the results of these studies have been published in more than 60 peer-reviewed papers. He has close links to industry and has been successful in obtaining funding to study the nature and behavior of mining-related waste materials.