No abstract

A major geodynamic study has provided significant new information about the location of active plate boundaries in and around Southeast Asia, as well as deformation processes in the Sulawesi region of Indonesia and tectonic activity in the Philippine archipelago. Results also have confirmed the existence of the so‐called Sunda Block, which appears to be rotating with respect to adjacent plates. The study, known as the Geodynamics of South and South‐East Asia (GEODYSSEA) project, has been a joint venture of the European Commission and the Association of South‐ East Asian Nations. It began in 1991 and involved a large team of European and Asian scientists and technicians studying the complex geodynamic processes and natural hazards of the region from the Southeast Asia mainland to the Philippines to northern Australia. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, and tectonically induced landslides endanger the lives of millions of people in the region, and the tectonic activity behind these natural hazards results from the convergence and collision of the Eurasian, Philippine, and Indo‐Australian Plates at relative velocities of up to 10 cm per year.

This document is intended as a guide to the protocol development for trials of prophylactic vaccines. The template may serve phases I–IV clinical trials protocol development to include safety relevant information as required by the regulatory authorities and as deemed useful by the investigators. This document may also be helpful for future site strengthening efforts.

The book follows the conventional pattern adopted in previous publications on sugarcane in dividing the contents into twelve chapters on: origin and history, botany, environment, varieties, cultivation, pests, diseases, ripening, reaping and transport, manufacture, byproducts and cane farmers. There is, throughout, an attractive admixture of the practical aspects and art of cane growing to complement the more theoretical and scientific treatment. The value of the book has been enhanced by contributions from several persons who have become acknowledged specialists in their fields. By this means the reader is provided with excellent summaries of the present state of knowledge, as a result of the more recent advances in technology. Some errors have inevitably slipped in, for example, in Fig. 3.11. The conventional harvesting cost figure of $4.03, quoted on page 281, does not agree with the $3.80 figure given in Table 9.2. Such errors, however, are of minor importance and do not detract from the readability of the work as a whole. The strength of the book stems from the distillation of the author's own wide experience, involving organization and management responsibilities, supplementing his grounding in agronomy. It is recommended reading for all those who have opted for tropical agriculture as their field of endeavour.

The 300 km long South Westland Fault Zone (SWFZ) is within the footwall of the Central Alpine Fault (<20 km away) and has 3500 m of dip‐slip displacement, but it has been unknown if the fault is active. Here the first evidence for SWFZ thrust faulting in the “stable” Australian Plate is shown with cumulative dip‐slip displacements up to 5.9 m (with 3 m throw) on Pleistocene and Holocene sediments and gentle hanging wall anticlinal folding. Cone penetration test (CPT) stratigraphy shows repeated sequences within the fault scarp (consistent with thrusting). Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating constrains the most recent rupture post‐12.1 ± 1.7 ka with evidence for three to four events during earthquakes of at least Mw 6.8. This study shows significant deformation is accommodated on poorly characterized Australian Plate structures northwest of the Alpine Fault and demonstrates that major active and seismogenic structures remain uncharacterized in densely forested regions on Earth.