Mathematical Geosciences - Forty Years and Still Modelling!

Roussos Dimitrakopoulos
Editor-in-Chief

This is our 40th year of publication, a major reason for celebration, and it is complemented by the unveiling of our new name, Mathematical Geosciences.

From the very start, this journal was created to contribute to scientific knowledge by crossing conventional disciplinary boundaries and thinking. This crossing went beyond the norms of the 1960’s to produce innovation through interdiscipli-nary research and cross-field fertilization. We now recognize such strategies as key contributors to, and frequently prerequisite elements for, leading-edge research.

More specifically, four decades ago under this journal, the then largely qualitative science of “geology” was to be suitably reexamined in the presence of the science of “mathematics”. Andrew Vistelius noted in the introductory issue 1(1) of Mathemat­ical Geology in 1969 that the “inductive thinking of geologists” and the “deductive one of a mathematician” combined “would discover more differences than likeness” and spoke about an interaction that would bring about a “science that is neither geology nor mathematics”. In a broader context of scientific development, this interaction is the very expression of what decades later became a key element of the norm. Interestingly, it was in the same decade that Thomas Kuhn introduced his notions of nor-mal science, paradigm and paradigm shifts, terms that are now, however imperfectly interpreted, as common in our scientific vocabulary as inter-and cross-disciplinary. For those who have followed our journal over time, most of Kuhn’s notions and related descriptions have been manifested over the years on our pages. From the start, the journal was a shifting paradigm with the subsequent development of aspects of “normal science” and the debates over issues, such as the legitimacy of methods, superiority of a new theory, standards of solutions, just to name a few. This scientific discourse is one of the most significant accomplishments of Mathematical Geology, the flagship journal of the International Association for Mathematical Geology.               

Mathematical Geosciences, our new name, is arguably the embodiment of significant past contributions and the articulation of what ‘is’ our endeavor today: meeting the current, growing multi-disciplinary interests and diversity of our readers and contributors. At the same time, the new name (i) signifies the opportunity to facilitate the natural renewal of the journal in a changing scientific, engineering and philosophical world; and (ii) reaffirms our dedication to expand our contribution to scientific knowledge, attract new readers and authors, influence developments in interacting fields of study, and further contribute to human understanding in geo-sciences and engineering. In doing so, Mathematical Geosciences will publish original, high-quality, interdisciplinary papers focusing on quantitative methods and studies of the Earth, its natural resources and its changing environment. Our journal will continue and seek to further expand its role as an essential reference for researchers and practitioners who develop and apply quantitative models to a multitude of earth science and geo-engineering problems.

To facilitate the evolution of the journal, several changes have been made over the past year. The journal now has a new Editor-in-Chief and three new Associate Editors, who have been given the responsibility of handling the processing of and recommendations for manuscript submissions. The past Editor-in-Chief will continue as Deputy Editor to ensure continuity. New roles and responsibilities have been as-signed to a renewed Editorial Board. Renewal is, in general, a certainty to continue in the years to come. In addition, major changes have taken place on the production front. The journal’s production has been moved to Heidelberg, Germany, the head-quarters of Springer-Verlag, and Dr. Chris Bendall is our new Publishing Editor. The new collaboration with Springer-Verlag has been outstanding and meets the needs of a modern international technical journal. Lastly, we have seen improvements in the journal’s performance: its highest ever ISI citation index, a 35% increase in sub-missions, an average manuscript turn-around time now just under three months, and a rejection rate of 45%.

As the first forty years of challenges and accomplishments will be soon left behind, the question now is: What will the future of Mathematical Geosciences be forty years from now? The statement “our field of activity is very wide and our difficulties are numerous” is somehow still true four decades after Vistelius’s preface in our first issue. Will this remain the same? Which new challenges will present themselves? What will the new contributions to knowledge be? What new boundaries will be formed from interactions in the world of applied sciences and engineering? To these and many more questions about the future one cannot respond with certainty. However, a journal can commit, with certainty, support for and investment in what drives our future: intellectual curiosity. If one is allowed to utilize Bruno Latour’s concepts and language, however imperfectly interpreted, then Mathematical Geosciences strongly encourages the search deeply into Pandora’s open box for the “Hope” still lying on the bottom.

 For all the above and more, it is you – the reader, the author, the reviewer, the colleague and, occasionally, the friend – that can make things happen.

 Published in Mathematical Geosciences, Volume 40, Number 1 (January 2008)