Journal articles on the topic 'Nathaniel W'

In The House of the Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne performed a multilevel act of literary revenge against Charles W. Upham, the politician and former minister responsible for his dismissal from the Salem Custom House, by caricaturing him in the person of Judge Pyncheon in a portrait rich with biographical and historical allusions.

In the early nineteenth century, when theological disputes centered on suggestions of a kinder, gentler God, Yale's Nathaniel William Taylor brought to fruition America's “one great contribution to the theological thinking of Christendom,” the New Haven theology. Taylor's theology combined elements of Calvinist and Newtonian worldviews and centered on three critical assumptions: the benevolence of God, his moral government, and human free agency. Thus, Taylor held that God was both a wise and powerful creator and a good and just ruler, whose concern for and involvement with his creation extended into contemporary human affairs. Moreover, he believed that men and women were moral agents whose sinfulness was worthy of divine condemnation as well as empirically inevitable, but that human sin was in no way preordained or necessary to the prevailing System of moral government.

The representation of age in the moralising books of early modern periodThe study focuses on some literary representations of old age and old people in selected works of the early modern period. Those are moralising books written in the years before the Battle of White Mountain published at the turn of the 17th century, namely Třinácte tabulí věku lidského The Thirteen Images of Human Life, 1601 by Bartoloměj Paprocký from Hloholy, Věk člověka The Age of Human, 1604 by Tobiáš Mouřenín from Litomyšl, Theatrum Mundi Minoris 1605 by Nathanael Vodňanský from Uračov, and Kniha o starosti aneb věku sešlém a šedivém The Book of Misery or the Wretched and Dull Age, 1610 by Havel Žalanský Phaetön.Obraz starości w moralitetach okresu wczesnonowożytnegoArtykuł koncentruje się na niektórych literackich aspektach tematu związanego ze starością i starymi ludźmi w wybranych utworach wczesnego okresu nowożytnego. Chodzi o moralizatorskie spisy zokresu przedbiałogórskiego wydane na przełomie XVI i XVII wieku, mianowicie o Třinácte tabulí věku lidského 1601 Bartosza Paprockiego, Věk člověka 1604 Tobiasza Mouřenína z Litomyśla, Theatrum mundi minoris 1605 Nathanaela Vodňanskiego zUračova i Knihu o starosti aneb věku sešlém a šedivém 1610 Havla Žalanskiego Phaëtona.

We used a top–down, multidisciplinary approach to examine the physical and biological environment of the pack ice of the eastern Ross Sea (approximately 125–170°W) during the austral summer of 1999/2000 from RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer and its ship-based helicopters. The approach focused on pack-ice seals while incorporating studies of biotic and abiotic factors that may influence the distribution and abundances of these apex predators in the Ross Sea to yield a holistic understanding of the structure and function of this complex, large marine ecosystem. This research represented the US component of the international Antarctic Pack Ice Seal (APIS) program, which was designed to document the circumpolar distribution and abundance of Antarctic pack-ice seals. The eastern Ross Sea is one of the two major areas in the Southern Ocean where substantial pack ice exists throughout summer. We found that vast multi-year ice floes (>20 km diameter) and smaller floes north of the shore-fast ice front provide a unique habitat for seals and penguins (apex predators) to forage and haul out while molting in late summer. Farther north, more Ross seals were observed than in any previous surveys in the circumpolar pack ice, perhaps because they are attracted to the area in summer to molt on large stable first-year ice floes. Extensive fast ice along the coastline and drifting pack ice in the shelf–slope boundary zone provided haul-out areas for seals and penguins with access to feeding in the coastal shelf region. Distributions of potential prey for seals and penguins varied over the study area, as determined by nets, acoustics, and diving surveys. Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) were found throughout the survey region, overlapping the distributions of two smaller species, Thysanoëssa macrura (primarily off-shelf) and E. crystallorophias (primarily found on-shelf). In some locations, E. superba occurred at high densities underneath ice floes, where they foraged on the sea-ice microbial community. Two general fish communities, oceanic and shelf, were distinguished. Off-shelf fishes were members of the classic oceanic midwater fish fauna, whereas on-shelf fishes were Antarctic endemics. The abundance of pelagic fishes was relatively low throughout the study area compared with other Southern Ocean ecosystems. In contrast, benthic fish biomass and diversity on-shelf were high (41 species, 6 families). Hydroacoustic analyses indicated that densities of potential prey were highest in the coastal shelf region where large aggregations of euphausiids (primarily E. crystallorophias) and individual juvenile Antarctic silverfish (Pleuragramma antarcticum) occurred.

In early modern times, numerous inhabitants of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, both townsmen and representatives of the nobility and magnatery, visited the United Provinces. Many of the burghers also studied at the University of Leiden or other Dutch universities and gymnasia. In the autumn of 1727, Nathanael Jacob Gerlach from Gdańsk/Danzig matriculated at the Academia Lugduno-Batava. The Danziger, together with his tutor, Christian Gabriel Fischer, took a few-year educational journey through Western countries. The testimony of their several months’ stay in the Netherlands is the 2nd volume of Fischer’s handwritten Itinerarium. The selection presents those excerpts from the 2nd volume of the diaries which describe people, places and events related to the teaching of medicine and natural history in the 18th century Netherlands. The fi rst part of the paper focuses on Leiden, the second one – on Amsterdam, Haarlem and Utrecht.

The article deals with the problem of control provision over the Trans-Siberian Railway as a motive for Britain’s participation in an Allied intervention in the Far East and Siberia and evaluates its role in this operation. The work is based on the facts and judgments contained in the memorandum “Siberia” by George Nathaniel Curzon, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, dated December 20, 1919. The memorandum has not been previously described and researched in the domestic historiography. Besides the text of the memorandum, the source base includes the minutes of the meetings of the British War Cabinet, the memories of W. Graves, the commander of the American expeditionary force, and of J. Ward, the chief of the British expeditionary detachment, and some other sources of personal origin. Works by N.E. Bystrova, F.D. Volkova, R. Ullman, A.I. Utkin, N.A. Halfin and other researchers were also used. The main research methods were comparative and narrative. The comparative method made it possible to compare the memorandum with some other documents from the National Archives of the United Kingdom, as well as with the sources of personal origin important for the research topic, and confirm its analytical, resumptive nature. Since some of the documents, including the memorandum “Siberia”, have not been previously investigated and described in the domestic historiography, the narrative method was widely used in the study. First, the author examines the main issues: Curzon’s approaches to the Eastern policy of Britain; Russia’s place in the British Eastern policy; control over globally important railways as an element of Britain’s Eastern policy. Then the author reviews the provisions of the memorandum relating to the Trans-Siberian Railway and the motives for Britain’s participation in the intervention in the Far East and Siberia, as well as the data on the participation of the United States, Japan, and Britain in the operation, and, on this basis, investigates the specificity, forms of participation and role of Britain in the intervention in these regions. The author concludes that, in fact, Britain became the main political driving force that led to the Allied intervention in the Far East and Siberia. The active position of Britain regarding the intervention in the Far East and Siberia was based on the tasks to oppose Germany during the war and at the same time to form and maintain Britain’s long-term Eastern policy under the new conditions. The control over the Trans-Siberian Railway could be an effective instrument to overcome these challenges. A possibility to participate in the allied control over the Trans-Siberian Railway was a weighty motive for Britain to intervene in Eastern Russia. Its role in the operation was political and pragmatic.

-Alan L. Karras, Lauren A. Benton, Law and colonial cultures: Legal regimes in world history, 1400-1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. xiii + 285 pp.-Sidney W. Mintz, Douglass Sullivan-González ,The South and the Caribbean. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001. xii + 208 pp., Charles Reagan Wilson (eds)-John Collins, Peter Redfield, Space in the tropics: From convicts to rockets in French Guiana. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. xiii + 345 pp.-Vincent Brown, Keith Q. Warner, On location: Cinema and film in the Anglophone Caribbean. Oxford: Macmillan, 2000. xii + 194 pp.-Ann Marie Stock, Jacqueline Barnitz, Twentieth-century art of Latin America. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001. 416 pp.-Ineke Phaf, J.J. Oversteegen, Herscheppingen: De wereld van José Maria Capricorne. Emmastad, Curacao: Uitgeverij ICS Nederland/Curacao, 1999. 168 pp.-Halbert Barton, Frances R. Aparicio, Listening to Salsa: Gender, latin popular music, and Puerto Rican cultures. Hanover NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1998. xxi + 290 pp.-Pedro Pérez Sarduy, John M. Kirk ,Culture and the Cuban revolution: Conversations in Havana. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001. xxvi + 188 pp., Leonardo Padura Fuentes (eds)-Luis Martínez-Fernández, Damián J. Fernández, Cuba and the politics of passion. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000. 192 pp.-Eli Bartra, María de Los Reyes Castillo Bueno, Reyita: The life of a black Cuban woman in the twentieth century. Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2000. 182 pp.-María del Carmen Baerga, Felix V. Matos Rodríguez, Women and urban change in San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1820-1868. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1999. xii + 180 pp. [Reissued in 2001 as: Women in San Juan, 1820-1868. Princeton NJ: Markus Weiner Publishers.]-Kevin A. Yelvington, Winston James, Holding aloft the banner of Ethiopa: Caribbean radicalism in early twentieth-century America. New York: Verso, 1998. x + 406 pp.-Jerome Teelucksingh, O. Nigel Bolland, The politics of labour in the British Caribbean: The social origins of authoritarianism and democracy in the labour movement. Kingston: Ian Randle; Princeton NJ: Marcus Weiner, 2001. xxii + 720 pp.-Jay R. Mandle, Randolph B. Persaud, Counter-Hegemony and foreign policy: The dialectics of marginalized and global forces in Jamaica. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. xviii + 248 pp.-Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, Mary A. Renda, Taking Haiti: Military occupation and the culture of U.S. imperialism, 1915-1940. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. xvi + 414 pp.-James W. St. G. Walker, Maureen G. Elgersman, Unyielding spirits: Black women and slavery in early Canada and Jamaica. New York: Garland, 1999. xvii + 188 pp.-Madhavi Kale, David Hollett, Passage from India to El Dorado: Guyana and the great migration. Madison NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1999. 325 pp.-Karen S. Dhanda, Linda Peake ,Gender, ethnicity and place: Women and identities in Guyana. London: Routledge, 1999. xii + 228 pp., D. Alissa Trotz (eds)-Karen S. Dhanda, Moses Nagamootoo, Hendree's cure: Scenes from Madrasi life in a new world. Leeds, UK: Peepal Tree, 2000. 149 pp.-Stephen D. Glazier, Hemchand Gossai ,Religion, culture, and tradition in the Caribbean., Nathaniel Samuel Murrell (eds)-Michiel van Kempen, A. James Arnold, A history of literature in the Caribbean. Volume 2: English- and Dutch- speaking regions. (Vera M. Kuzinski & Ineke Phaf-Rheinberger, sub-eds.).Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2001. ix + 672 pp.-Frank Birbalsingh, Bruce King, Derek Walcott: A Caribbean life. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. ix + 714 pp.-Frank Birbalsingh, Paula Burnett, Derek Walcott: Politics and poetics. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001. xiii + 380 pp.-Jeanne Garane, Micheline Rice-Maximin, Karukéra: Présence littéraire de la Guadeloupe. New York: Peter Lang, 1998. x + 197 pp.-Jeanne Garane, Marie-Christine Rochmann, L'esclave fugitif dans la littérature antillaise: Sur la déclive du morne. Paris: Karthala, 2000. 408 pp.-Alasdair Pettinger, Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert ,Women at sea: Travel writing and the margins of Caribbean discourse. New York: Palgrave, 2001. x + 301 pp., Ivette Romero-Cesareo (eds)

Nathanael Huwiler: De Pace – De Bello. Eine völkerrechtshistorische Typologie der europäischen Kriege und Frieden zwischen 1648 und 1815 (Markus Henkel) Martin Bossenbroek: Tod am Kap. Geschichte des Burenkrieges (Michael Fröhlich) Michael Hörter, Diego Voigt (Hg.): Verdun 1916. Eine Schlacht verändert die Welt (Ludger Tewes) Niklas Napp: Die deutschen Luftstreitkräfte im Ersten Weltkrieg (Jürgen W. Schmidt) Robert Gerwarth: Die Besiegten. Das blutige Erbe des Ersten Weltkriegs (Christian Hacke) Georg von Witzleben: „Wenn es gegen den Satan Hitler geht …“ Erwin von Witzleben im Widerstand (Heinrich Walle) Klaus Froh: Die 1. MSD der NVA. Zur Geschichte der 1. mot. Schützendivision (1956-1990) (Jürgen W. Schmidt) Peter Joachim Lapp: Grenzbrigade Küste. DDR-Grenzsicherung zur See (Christian Ostersehlte) Moritz Pöllath: Eine Rolle für die NATO out-of-area? Das Bündnis in der Phase der Dekolonisierung (1949-1961) (Herbert Elzer) Carsten Barth, Oliver Schaal: Deutschland dienen. Im Einsatz – Soldaten erzählen (Matthias Glasow)

Globalization and the Po st-Creole Imagination: Notes on Fleeing the Plantation,by Michaeline A. Crichlow with Patricia Northover (reviewed by Raquel Romberg)Afro-Caribbean Religions: An Introduction to their Historical, Cultural, and Sacred Traditions, by Nathaniel Samuel Murrell (reviewed by James Houk) Africas of the Americas: Beyond the Search for Origins in the Study of Afro-Atlantic Religions, edited by Stephan Palmié (reviewed by Aisha Khan) Òrìṣà Devotion as World Religion: The Globalization of Yorùbá Religious Culture, edited by Jacob K. Olupona & Terry Rey (reviewed by Brian Brazeal) Sacred Spaces and Religious Traditions in Oriente Cuba, by Jualynne E. Dodson (reviewed by Kristina Wirtz) The Coolie Speaks: Chinese Indentured Laborers and African Slaves of Cuba, by Lisa Yun (reviewed by W. Look Lai) Cuba and Western Intellectuals since 1959, by Kepa Artaraz (reviewed by Anthony P. Maingot) Inside El Barrio: A Bottom-Up View of Neighborhood Life in Castro’s Cuba, by Henry Louis Taylor, Jr. (reviewed by Mona Rosendahl) On Location in Cuba: Street Filmmaking During Times of Transition, by Ann Marie Stock (reviewed by Cristina Venegas) Cuba in The Special Period: Culture and Ideology in the 1990s, edited by Ariana Hernandez-Reguant (reviewed by Myrna García-Calderón) The Cubans of Union City: Immigrants and Exiles in a New Jersey Community. Yolanda Prieto (reviewed by Jorge Duany) Target Culebra: How 743 Islanders Took On the Entire U.S. Navy and Won, by Richard D. Copaken (reviewed by Jorge Rodríguez Beruff) The World of the Haitian Revolution, edited by David Patrick Geggus & Norman Fiering (reviewed by Yvonne Fabella) Bon Papa: Haiti’s Golden Years, by Bernard Diederich (reviewed by Robert Fatton, Jr.) 1959: The Year that Inflamed the Caribbean, by Bernard Diederich (reviewed by Landon Yarrington) Dominican Cultures: The Making of a Caribbean Society, edited by Bernardo Vega (reviewed by Anthony R. Stevens-Acevedo) Chanting Down the New Jerusalem: Calypso, Christianity, and Capitalism in the Caribbean, by Francio Guadeloupe (reviewed by Catherine Benoît) Once Jews: Stories of Caribbean Sephardim, by Josette Capriles Goldish (reviewed by Aviva Ben-Ur) Black and White Sands: A Bohemian Life in the Colonial Caribbean, by Elma Napier (reviewed by Peter Hulme) West Indian Slavery and British Abolition, 1783-1807, by David Beck Ryden (reviewed by Justin Roberts) The Children of Africa in the Colonies: Free People of Color in Barbados in the Age of Emancipation, by Melanie J. Newton (reviewed by Olwyn M. Blouet) Friends and Enemies: The Scribal Politics of Post/Colonial Literature, by Chris Bongie (reviewed by Jacqueline Couti) Nationalism and the Formation of Caribbean Literature, by Leah Reade Rosenberg (reviewed by Bénédicte Ledent) Signs of Dissent: Maryse Condé and Postcolonial Criticism, by Dawn Fulton (reviewed by Florence Ramond Jurney) The Archaeology of the Caribbean, by Samuel M. Wilson (reviewed by Frederick H. Smith) Crossing the Borders: New Methods and Techniques in the Study of Archaeological Materials from the Caribbean, edited by Corinne L. Hofman, Menno L.P. Hoogland & Annelou L. van Gijn (reviewed by Mark Kostro)

The second part of the paper presents those excerpts from the second volume of N.J. Gerlach and Ch.G. Fischer Itinerarium, which describe people, places and events related to the teaching of medicine and natural history in Amsterdam, Haarlem and Utrecht.

Buchwalder, Lynn F., Michelle Lin, Thomas J. McDonald, and Peter W. Nathanielsz. Fetal sheep adrenal blood flow responses to hypoxemia after splanchnicotomy using fluorescent microspheres. J. Appl. Physiol. 84(1): 82–89, 1998.—Adrenal gland blood flow (ABF) increases during hypoxemia in fetal sheep, but regulation of ABF is poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of splanchnic nerve section on fetal ABF responses to hypoxemia using the fluorescent microsphere (FM) technique. At 125 days of gestation, 14 unanesthetized fetal sheep [bilateral splanchnicotomy (Splx, n = 6) and control (Cont, n = 8)] were injected with FM before and at 60 min of N2-induced hypoxemia (∼40% decrease in fetal arterial [Formula: see text]). Adrenal tissue and reference blood samples were digested and filtered, and FM dye was extracted for spectrometer analysis. Baseline whole, medullary, and cortical ABF for the Cont group were similar to published values using radioactive microspheres and did not differ from Splx values. Hypoxemia increased whole, medullary, and cortical ABF (mean ± SE) from baseline for the Cont group by 281 ± 35, 258 ± 31, and 496 ± 81% ( P < 0.05). The increase for the Splx group was attenuated compared with the Cont group ( P < 0.05) for whole and medullary ABF (139 ± 27 and 43 ± 27%) but not cortical ABF (326 ± 91%). We conclude that 1) the FM technique is valid for measuring fetal ABF and 2) in fetal sheep the splanchnic nerve is not necessary to maintain basal ABF but plays an important role in regulating the hypoxemia-induced increase in ABF through the medullary, but not cortical, ABF response.

The use of the term authenticity in the social science literature can be rather eclectic at best and unscrupulous at worst. (Vanini, 74)We live in an age of authenticity, according to Charles Taylor, an era which prizes the finding of one’s life “against the demands of external conformity” (67–68). Taylor’s argument is that, correctly practiced, authenticity need not result in individualism or tribalism but rather a generation of people “made more self-responsible” (77).Philip Vanini has surveyed the turn toward authenticity in sociology. He has parsed the word authenticity, and argued that it has been used in three ways—factual, original, and sincere. A failure to attend to these distinctives, mixed with a “paucity of systematic empirical research” has resulted in abstract speculation (75). This article responds to Taylor’s analysis and Vanini’s challenge.My argument utilises Vanini’s theoretical frame—authenticity as factual, original, and sincere—to analyse empirical data gathered in the study of recent religious innovation occurring amongst a set of (“alternative worship”) Christian communities in the United Kingdom. I am drawing upon longitudinal research I have conducted, including participant observation in digital forums from 1997 to the present, along with semi-structured interviews conducted in the United Kingdom in 2001 and 2012.A study of “alternative worship” was deemed significant given such communities’s interaction with contemporary culture, including their use of dance music, multi-media, and social media (Baker, Taylor). Such approaches contrast with other contemporary religious approaches to culture, including a fundamentalist retreat from culture or the maintenance of a “high” culture, and thus inherited patterns of religious expression (Roberts).I argue that the discourse of “alternative worship” deploy authenticity-as-originality as essential to their identity creation. This notion of authenticity is used by these communities to locate themselves culturally (as authentically-original in contemporary cultures), and thus simultaneously to define themselves as marginal from mainstream religious expression.Intriguingly, a decade later, “alternative worship” was appropriated by the mainstream. A new organisation—Fresh Expressions—emerged from within the Church of England, and the Methodist Church in Britain that, as it developed, drew on “alternative worship” for legitimation. A focus on authenticity provides a lens by which to pay particular attention to the narratives offered by social organisations in the processes of innovation. How did the discourse deployed by Fresh Expressions in creating innovation engage “alternative worship” as an existing innovation? How did these “alternative worship” groups, who had found generative energy in their location as an alternative—authentically-original—expression, respond to this appropriation by mainstream religious life?A helpful conversation partner in teasing out the complexity of these moves within contemporary religious innovation is Sarah Thornton. She researched trends in dance clubs, and rave music in Britain, during a similar time period. Thornton highlighted the value of authenticity, which she argued was deployed in club cultures to create “subcultural capital” (98-105). She further explored how the discourses around authenticity were appropriated over time through the complex networks within which popular culture flows (Bennett; Collins; Featherstone; McRobbie; Willis).This article will demonstrate that a similar pattern—using authenticity-as-originality to create “subcultural capital”—was at work in “alternative worship.” Further, the notions of authenticity as factual, original, and sincere are helpful in parsing the complex networks that exist within the domains of religious cultures. This analysis will be two-fold, first as the mainstream appropriates, and second as the “alternative” responds.Thornton emerged “post-Birmingham.” She drew on the scholarship associated with the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, glad of their turn toward popular culture. Nevertheless she considered her work to be distinct. Thornton posited the construction of “taste cultures” through distinctions created by those inside a particular set of signs and symbols. She argued for a networked view of society, one that recognised the complex roles of media and commerce in constructing distinctions and sought a more multi-dimensional frame by which to analyse the interplay between mainstream and marginal.In order to structure my investigation, I am suggesting three stages of development capture the priority, yet complexity, of authenticity in contemporary religious innovation: generation, appropriation, complexification.Generation of Authenticity-as-OriginalityThornton (26, italics original) writes:authenticity is arguably the most important value ascribed to popular music … Music is perceived as authentic when it rings true or feels real, when it has credibility and comes across as genuine. In an age of endless representations and global mediation, the experience of musical authenticity is perceived as a cure both for alienation … and dissimulation.Thornton is arguing that in this manifestation of youth culture, authenticity is valued. Further, authenticity is a perception, attached to phrases like “rings true” and “feels real.” Therefore, authenticity is hard to measure. Perhaps this move is deliberate, an attempt by those inside the “taste culture” to preserve their “subcultural capital,”—their particular sets of distinctions.Thornton’s use of authentic slides between authenticity-as-sincerity and authenticity-as-originality. For example, in the above quote, the language of “true” and “real” is a referencing of authenticity-as-sincerity. However, as Thornton analysed the appropriation of club culture by the mainstream, she is drawing, without stating it clearly, on both authenticity-as-sincerity and authenticity-as-originality.At around the time that Thornton was analysing club cultures, a number of Christian religious groups in the United Kingdom began to incorporate features of club culture into their worship services. Churches began to experiment with services beginning at club times (9.00 pm), the playing of dance music, and the use of “video-jockeying.” According to Roberts many of these worshipping communities “had close links to this movement in dance culture” (15).A discourse of authenticity was used to legitimise such innovation. Consider the description of one worship experience, located in Sheffield, England, known as Nine o’Clock Service (Fox 9-10, italics original).We enter a round, darkened room where there are forty-two television sets and twelve large video screens and projections around the walls—projections of dancing DNA, dancing planets and galaxies and atoms … this was a very friendly place for a generation raised on television and images … these people … are doing it themselves and in the center of the city and in the center of their society: at worship itself.This description makes a number of appeals to authenticity. The phrase “a generation raised on television and images” implies another generation not raised in digitally rich environments. A “subcultural” distinction has been created. The phrase “doing it themselves” suggests that this ‘digital generation’ creates something distinct, an authentic expression of their “taste culture.” The celebration of “doing it for themselves” resonates with Charles Taylor’s analysis of an age of authenticity in which self-discovery is connected with artistic creation (62).The Nine o’Clock Service gained nationwide attention, attracting attendances of over 600 young people. Rogerson described it as “a bold and imaginative attempt at contextual theology … people were attracted to it in the first instance for aesthetic and cultural reasons” (51). The priority on the aesthetic and the cultural, in contrast to the doctrinal, suggests a valuing of authenticity-as-originality.Reading Rogerson alongside Taylor teases out a further nuance in regard to the application of authenticity. Rogerson described the Nine o’Clock Service as offering “an alternative way of living in a materialist and acquisitive world” (50). This resonates with Charles Taylor’s argument that authenticity can be practiced in ways that make people “more self-responsible” (77). It suggests that the authenticity-as-originality expressed by the Nine o’Clock Service not only appealed culturally, but also offered an ethic of authenticity. We will return to this later in my argument.Inspired by the Nine o’Clock Service, other groups in the United Kingdom began to offer a similar experience. According to Adrian Riley (6):The Nine O’clock Service … was the first worshipping community to combine elements of club culture with passionate worship … It pioneered what is commonly known as “alternative worship” … Similar groups were established themselves albeit on a smaller scale.The very term “alternative worship” is significant. Sociologist of religion Abby Day argued that “boundary-marking [creates] an identity” (50). Applying Day, the term “alternative” is being used to create an identity in contrast to the existing, mainstream church. The “digitally rich” are indeed “doing it for themselves.” To be “alternative” is to be authentically-original: to be authentically-original means a participant cannot, by definition, be mainstream.Thornton argued that subcultures needed to define themselves against in order to maintain themselves as “hip” (119). This seems to describe the use of the term “alternative.” Ironically, the mainstream is needed, in order to define against, to create identity by being authentically-original (Kelly).Hence the following claim by an “alternative worship” organiser (Interview G, 2001):People were willing to play around and to say, well who knows what will happen if we run this video clip or commercial next to this sixteenth century religious painting and if we play, you know, Black Flag or some weird band underneath it … And what will it feel like? Well let’s try it and see.Note the link with music (Black Flag, an American hard core punk band formed in 1976), so central to Thornton’s understanding of authenticity in popular youth cultures. Note also the similarity between Thornton’s ascribing of value in words like “rings true” and “feels real,” with words like “feel like” and “try and see.” The word “weird” is also significant. It is deployed as a signifier of authenticity, a sign of “subcultural capital.” It positions them as “alternative,” defined in (musical) distinction from the mainstream.In sum, my argument is that authenticity-as-originality is present in “alternative worship”: in the name, in the ethos of “doing it themselves,” and in the deploying of “subcultural capital” in the legitimation of innovation. All of this has been clarified through conversation with Thornton’s empirical research regarding the value of authenticity in club culture. My analysis of “alternative worship” as a religious innovation is consistent with Taylor’s claim that we inhabit an age of authenticity, one that can be practiced by “people who are made more self-responsible” (77).Mainstream AppropriationIn 2004, the Church of England produced Mission Shaped Church (MSC), a report regarding its future. It included a chapter that described recent religious innovation in England, grouped under twelve headings (alternative worship and base ecclesial communities, café, cell, network and seeker church models, multiple and mid week congregations, new forms of traditional churches, school and community-based initiatives, traditional church plants, youth congregations). The first innovation listed is “alternative worship.”The incoming Archbishop, Rowan Williams, drew on MSC to launch a new organisation. Called Fresh Expressions, over five million pounds was provided by the Church of England to fund an organisation to support this religious innovation.Intriguingly, recognition of authenticity in these “alternative” innovations was evident in the institutional discourse being created. When I interviewed Williams, he spoke of his commitment as a Bishop (Interview 6, 2012):I decided to spend a certain amount of quality time with people on the edge. Consequently when I was asked initially what are my priorities [as Archbishop] I said, “Well, this is what I’ve been watching on the edge … I really want to see how that could impact on the Church of England as a whole.In other words, what was marginal, what had until then generated identity by being authentic in contrast to the mainstream, was now being appropriated by the mainstream “to impact on the Church of England as a whole.” MSC was aware of this complexity. “Alternative worship” was described as containing “a strong desire to be different and is most vocal in its repudiation of existing church” (45). Nevertheless, it was appropriated by the mainstream.My argument has been that “alternative worship” drew on a discourse of authenticity-as-originality. Yet when we turn to analyse mainstream appropriation, we find the definitions of authenticity begin to slide. Authenticity-as-originality is affirmed, while authenticity-as-sincerity is introduced. The MSC affirmed the “ways in which the Church of England has sought to engage with the diverse cultures and networks that are part of contemporary life” (80). It made explicit the connection between originality and authenticity. “Some pioneers and leaders have yearned for a more authentic way of living, being, doing church” (80). This can be read as an affirmation of authenticity-as-originality.Yet MSC also introduced authenticity-as-sincerity as a caution to authenticity-as-originality. “Fresh expressions should not be embraced simply because they are popular and new, but because they are a sign of the work of God and of the kingdom” (80). Thus Fresh Expressions introduced authenticity-as-sincerity (sign of the work of God) and placed it alongside authenticity-as-originality. In so doing, in the shift from “alternative worship” to Fresh Expressions, a space is both conflated (twelve expressions of church) and contested (two notions of authenticity). Conflated, because MSC places alternative worship as one innovation alongside eleven others. Contested because of the introduction of authenticity-as-sincerity alongside the affirming of authenticity-as-originality. What is intriguing is to return to Taylor’s argument for the possibility of an ethic of authenticity in which “people are made more self-responsible” (77). Perhaps the response in MSC arises from the concern described by Taylor, the risk in an age of authenticity of a society that is more individualised and tribal (55-6). To put it in distinctly ecclesiological terms, how can the church as one, holy, catholic and apostolic be carried forward if authenticity-as-originality is celebrated at, and by, the margins? Does innovation contribute to more atomised, self-absorbed and fragmented expressions of church?Yet Taylor is adamant that authenticity can be embraced without an inevitable slide in these directions. He argued that humans share a "horizon of significance" in common (52), in which one’s own "identity crucially depends on [one’s] dialogical relations with others" (48). We have already considered Rogerson’s claim that the Nine o’Clock Service offered “an alternative way of living in a materialist and acquisitive world” (50). It embraced a “strong political dimension, and a concern for justice at local and international level” (46). In other words, “alternative worship’s” authenticity-as-originality was surely already an expression of “the kingdom,” one in which “people [were] made more self-responsible” (77) in the sharing of (drawing on Taylor) a "horizon of significance" in the task of identity-formation-in-relationships (52).Yet the placing in MSC of authenticity-as-sincerity alongside authenticity-as-originality could easily have been read by those in “alternative worship” as a failure to recognise their existing practicing of the ethic of authenticity, their embodying of “the kingdom.”Consequent ComplexificationMy research into “alternative worship” is longitudinal. After the launch of Fresh Expressions, I included a new set of interview questions, which sought to clarify how these “alternative worship” communities were impacted upon by the appropriation of “alternative worship” by the mainstream. The responses can be grouped into three categories: minimal impact, a sense of affirmation and a contested complexity.With regard to minimal impact, some “alternative worship” communities perceived the arrival of Fresh Expressions had minimal impact on their shared expression of faith. The following quote was representative: “Has had no impact at all actually. Apart from to be slightly puzzled” (Interview 3, 2012).Others found the advent of Fresh Expressions provided a sense of affirmation. “Fresh expressions is … an enabling concept. It was very powerful” (Focus group 2, 2012). Respondents in this category felt that their innovations within alternative worship had contributed to, or been valued by, the innovation of Fresh Expressions. Interestingly, those whose comments could be grouped in this category had significant “subcultural capital” invested in this mainstream appropriation. Specifically, they now had a vocational role that in some way was connected to Fresh Expressions. In using the term “subcultural capital” I am again drawing on Thornton (98–105), who argued that in the complex networks through which culture flows, certain people, for example DJ’s, have more influence in the ascribing of authenticity. This suggests that “subcultural” capital is also present in religious innovation, with certain individuals finding ways to influence, from the “alternative worship” margin, the narratives of authenticity used in the complex interplay between alternative worship and Fresh Expressions.For others the arrival of Fresh Expressions had resulted in a contested complexity. The following quote was representative: “It’s a crap piece of establishment branding …but then we’re just snobs” (Focus group 3, 2012). This comment returns us to my initial framing of authenticity-as-originality. I would argue that “we’re just snobs” has a similar rhetorical effect as “Black Flag or some weird band.” It is an act of marginal self-location essential in the construction of innovation and identity.This argument is strengthened given the fact that the comment was coming from a community that itself had become perhaps the most recognizable “brand” among “alternative worship.” They have developed their own logo, website, and related online merchandising. This would suggest the concern is not the practice of marketing per se. Rather the concern is that it seems “crap” in relation to authenticity-as-originality, in a loss of aesthetic quality and a blurring of the values of innovation and identity as it related to bold, imaginative, aesthetic, and cultural attempts at contextual theology (Rogerson 51).Returning to Thornton, her research was also longitudinal in that she explored what happened when a song from a club, which had defined itself against the mainstream and as “hip,” suddenly experienced mainstream success (119). What is relevant to this investigation into religious innovation is her argument that in club culture, “selling out” is perceived to have happened only when the marginal community “loses its sense of possession, exclusive ownership and familiar belonging” (124–26).I would suggest that this is what is happening within “alternative worship” in response to the arrival of Fresh Expressions. Both “alternative worship” and Fresh Expressions are religious innovations. But Fresh Expressions defined itself in a way that conflated the space. It meant that the boundary marking so essential to “alternative worship” was lost. Some gained from this. Others struggled with a loss of imaginative and cultural creativity, a softening of authenticity-as-originality.More importantly, the discourse around Fresh Expressions also introduced authenticity-as-sincerity as a value that could be used to contest authenticity-as-originality. Whether intended or not, this also challenged the ethic of authenticity already created by these “alternative worship” communities. Their authenticity-as-originality was already a practicing of an ethic of authenticity. They were already sharing a "horizon of significance" with humanity, entering into “dialogical relations with others" that were a contemporary expression of the church as one, holy, catholic and apostolic (Taylor 52, 48). ConclusionIn this article I have analysed the discourse around authenticity as it is manifest within one strand of contemporary religious innovation. Drawing on Vanini, Taylor, and Thornton, I have explored the generative possibilities as media and culture are utilised in an “alternative worship” that is authentically-original. I have outlined the consequences when authenticity-as-originality is appropriated by the mainstream, specifically in the innovation known as Fresh Expressions and the complexity when authenticity-as-sincerity is introduced as a contested value.The value of authenticity has been found to exist in a complex relationship with the ethics of authenticity within one domain of contemporary religious innovation.ReferencesBaker, Jonny. “Alternative Worship and the Significance of Popular Culture.” Honours paper: U of London, 2000.Bennett, Andy. Popular Music and Youth Culture: Music, Identity, and Place. New York: Palgrave, 2000.Cronshaw, Darren, and Steve Taylor. “The Congregation in a Pluralist Society: Rereading Newbigin for Missional Churches Today.” Pacifica: Australasian Theological Studies 27.2 (2014): 1-24.Day, Abby. Believing in Belonging. Belief and Social Identity in the Modern World. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011.Collins, Jim, ed. High-Pop. Making Culture into Popular Entertainment. Oxford: Blackwells, 2002.Cray, Graham. Mission-Shaped Church: Church Planting and Fresh Expressions of Church in a Changing Culture, London: Church House Publishing, 2004.Featherstone, Mike. Consumer Culture and Postmodernism. London: Sage, 1991.Fox, Matthew. Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1996.Guest, Matthew, and Steve Taylor. “The Post-Evangelical Emerging Church: Innovations in New Zealand and the UK.” International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 6.1 (2006): 49-64.Howard, Roland. The Rise and Fall of the Nine o’Clock Service. London: Continuum, 1996.Kelly, Gerard. Get a Grip on the Future without Losing Your Hold in the Past. Great Britain: Monarch, 1999.Kelly, Steven. “Book Review. Alt.Culture by Steven Daly and Nathaniel Wice.” 20 Aug. 2003. ‹http://www.richmondreview.co.uk/books/cult.html›.McRobbie, Angela. Postmodernism and Popular Culture. London: Routledge, 1994.Riley, Adrian. God in the House: UK Club Culture and Spirituality. 1999. 15 Oct. 2003 ‹http://www.btmc.org.auk/altworship/house/›.Roberts, Paul. Alternative Worship in the Church of England. Cambridge: Grove Books, 1999.Rogerson, J. W. “‘The Lord Is here’: The Nine o’Clock Service.” Why Liberal Churches Are Growing. Eds. Ian Markham and Martyn Percy. London: Bloomsbury T & T, 2006. 45-52.Taylor, Charles. The Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1992.Taylor, Steve. “Baptist Worship and Contemporary Culture: A New Zealand Case Study.” Interfaces: Baptists and Others. Eds. David Bebbington and Martin Sutherland. Carlisle: Paternoster, 2013. 292-307.Thornton, Sarah. Club Cultures. Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Hanover: UP New England, 1996.Vanini, Philip. “Authenticity.” Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture. Ed. Dale Southerton. Los Angeles: Sage, 2011. 74-76.Willis, Paul E., et al. Common Culture. Symbolic Work at Play in the Everyday Cultures of the Young. Milton Keynes: Open UP, 1990.

Unconventional energy sources have become increasingly important to the global energy mix. These include coal seam gas, shale gas and shale oil. The unconventional gas industry was pioneered in the United States and embraced following the first oil shock in 1973 (Rogers). As has been the case with many global resources (Hiscock), many of the same companies that worked in the USA carried their experience in this industry to early Australian explorations. Recently the USA has secured significant energy security with the development of unconventional energy deposits such as the Marcellus shale gas and the Bakken shale oil (Dobb; McGraw). But this has not come without environmental impact, including contamination to underground water supply (Osborn, Vengosh, Warner, Jackson) and potential greenhouse gas contributions (Howarth, Santoro, Ingraffea; McKenna). The environmental impact of unconventional gas extraction has raised serious public concern about the introduction and growth of the industry in Australia. In coal rich Australia coal seam gas is currently the major source of unconventional gas. Large gas deposits have been found in prime agricultural land along eastern Australia, such as the Liverpool Plains in New South Wales and the Darling Downs in Queensland. Competing land-uses and a series of environmental incidents from the coal seam gas industry have warranted major protest from a coalition of environmentalists and farmers (Berry; McLeish). Conflict between energy companies wanting development and environmentalists warning precaution is an easy script to cast for frontline media coverage. But historical perspectives are often missing in these contemporary debates. While coal mining and natural gas have often received “boosting” historical coverage (Diamond; Wilkinson), and although historical themes of “development” and “rushes” remain predominant when observing the span of the industry (AGA; Blainey), the history of unconventional gas, particularly the history of its environmental impact, has been little studied. Few people are aware, for example, that the first shale gas exploratory well was completed in late 2010 in the Cooper Basin in Central Australia (Molan) and is considered as a “new” frontier in Australian unconventional gas. Moreover many people are unaware that the first coal seam gas wells were completed in 1976 in Queensland. The first four wells offer an important moment for reflection in light of the industry’s recent move into Central Australia. By locating and analysing the first four coal seam gas wells, this essay identifies the roots of the unconventional gas industry in Australia and explores the early environmental impact of these wells. By analysing exploration reports that have been placed online by the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines through the lens of environmental history, the dominant developmental narrative of this industry can also be scrutinised. These narratives often place more significance on economic and national benefits while displacing the environmental and social impacts of the industry (Connor, Higginbotham, Freeman, Albrecht; Duus; McEachern; Trigger). This essay therefore seeks to bring an environmental insight into early unconventional gas mining in Australia. As the author, I am concerned that nearly four decades on and it seems that no one has heeded the warning gleaned from these early wells and early exploration reports, as gas exploration in Australia continues under little scrutiny. Arrival The first four unconventional gas wells in Australia appear at the beginning of the industry world-wide (Schraufnagel, McBane, and Kuuskraa; McClanahan). The wells were explored by Houston Oils and Minerals—a company that entered the Australian mining scene by sharing a mining prospect with International Australian Energy Company (Wiltshire). The International Australian Energy Company was owned by Black Giant Oil Company in the US, which in turn was owned by International Royalty and Oil Company also based in the US. The Texan oilman Robert Kanton held a sixteen percent share in the latter. Kanton had an idea that the Mimosa Syncline in the south-eastern Bowen Basin was a gas trap waiting to be exploited. To test the theory he needed capital. Kanton presented the idea to Houston Oil and Minerals which had the financial backing to take the risk. Shotover No. 1 was drilled by Houston Oil and Minerals thirty miles south-east of the coal mining town of Blackwater. By late August 1975 it was drilled to 2,717 metres, discovered to have little gas, spudded, and, after a spend of $610,000, abandoned. The data from the Shotover well showed that the porosity of the rocks in the area was not a trap, and the Mimosa Syncline was therefore downgraded as a possible hydrocarbon location. There was, however, a small amount of gas found in the coal seams (Benbow 16). The well had passed through the huge coal seams of both the Bowen and Surat basins—important basins for the future of both the coal and gas industries. Mining Concepts In 1975, while Houston Oil and Minerals was drilling the Shotover well, US Steel and the US Bureau of Mines used hydraulic fracture, a technique already used in the petroleum industry, to drill vertical surface wells to drain gas from a coal seam (Methane Drainage Taskforce 102). They were able to remove gas from the coal seam before it was mined and sold enough to make a profit. With the well data from the Shotover well in Australia compiled, Houston returned to the US to research the possibility of harvesting methane in Australia. As the company saw it, methane drainage was “a novel exploitation concept” and the methane in the Bowen Basin was an “enormous hydrocarbon resource” (Wiltshire 7). The Shotover well passed through a section of the German Creek Coal measures and this became their next target. In September 1976 the Shotover well was re-opened and plugged at 1499 meters to become Australia’s first exploratory unconventional gas well. By the end of the month the rig was released and gas production tested. At one point an employee on the drilling operation observed a gas flame “the size of a 44 gal drum” (HOMA, “Shotover # 1” 9). But apart from the brief show, no gas flowed. And yet, Houston Oil and Minerals was not deterred, as they had already taken out other leases for further prospecting (Wiltshire 4). Only a week after the Shotover well had failed, Houston moved the methane search south-east to an area five miles north of the Moura township. Houston Oil and Minerals had researched the coal exploration seismic surveys of the area that were conducted in 1969, 1972, and 1973 to choose the location. Over the next two months in late 1976, two new wells—Kinma No.1 and Carra No.1—were drilled within a mile from each other and completed as gas wells. Houston Oil and Minerals also purchased the old oil exploration well Moura No. 1 from the Queensland Government and completed it as a suspended gas well. The company must have mined the Department of Mines archive to find Moura No.1, as the previous exploration report from 1969 noted methane given off from the coal seams (Sell). By December 1976 Houston Oil and Minerals had three gas wells in the vicinity of each other and by early 1977 testing had occurred. The results were disappointing with minimal gas flow at Kinma and Carra, but Moura showed a little more promise. Here, the drillers were able to convert their Fairbanks-Morse engine driving the pump from an engine run on LPG to one run on methane produced from the well (Porter, “Moura # 1”). Drink This? Although there was not much gas to find in the test production phase, there was a lot of water. The exploration reports produced by the company are incomplete (indeed no report was available for the Shotover well), but the information available shows that a large amount of water was extracted before gas started to flow (Porter, “Carra # 1”; Porter, “Moura # 1”; Porter, “Kinma # 1”). As Porter’s reports outline, prior to gas flowing, the water produced at Carra, Kinma and Moura totalled 37,600 litres, 11,900 and 2,900 respectively. It should be noted that the method used to test the amount of water was not continuous and these amounts were not the full amount of water produced; also, upon gas coming to the surface some of the wells continued to produce water. In short, before any gas flowed at the first unconventional gas wells in Australia at least 50,000 litres of water were taken from underground. Results show that the water was not ready to drink (Mathers, “Moura # 1”; Mathers, “Appendix 1”; HOMA, “Miscellaneous Pages” 21-24). The water had total dissolved solids (minerals) well over the average set by the authorities (WHO; Apps Laboratories; NHMRC; QDAFF). The well at Kinma recorded the highest levels, almost two and a half times the unacceptable standard. On average the water from the Moura well was of reasonable standard, possibly because some water was extracted from the well when it was originally sunk in 1969; but the water from Kinma and Carra was very poor quality, not good enough for crops, stock or to be let run into creeks. The biggest issue was the sodium concentration; all wells had very high salt levels. Kinma and Carra were four and two times the maximum standard respectively. In short, there was a substantial amount of poor quality water produced from drilling and testing the three wells. Fracking Australia Hydraulic fracturing is an artificial process that can encourage more gas to flow to the surface (McGraw; Fischetti; Senate). Prior to the testing phase at the Moura field, well data was sent to the Chemical Research and Development Department at Halliburton in Oklahoma, to examine the ability to fracture the coal and shale in the Australian wells. Halliburton was the founding father of hydraulic fracture. In Oklahoma on 17 March 1949, operating under an exclusive license from Standard Oil, this company conducted the first ever hydraulic fracture of an oil well (Montgomery and Smith). To come up with a program of hydraulic fracturing for the Australian field, Halliburton went back to the laboratory. They bonded together small slabs of coal and shale similar to Australian samples, drilled one-inch holes into the sample, then pressurised the holes and completed a “hydro-frac” in miniature. “These samples were difficult to prepare,” they wrote in their report to Houston Oil and Minerals (HOMA, “Miscellaneous Pages” 10). Their program for fracturing was informed by a field of science that had been evolving since the first hydraulic fracture but had rapidly progressed since the first oil shock. Halliburton’s laboratory test had confirmed that the model of Perkins and Kern developed for widths of hydraulic fracture—in an article that defined the field—should also apply to Australian coals (Perkins and Kern). By late January 1977 Halliburton had issued Houston Oil and Minerals with a program of hydraulic fracture to use on the central Queensland wells. On the final page of their report they warned: “There are many unknowns in a vertical fracture design procedure” (HOMA, “Miscellaneous Pages” 17). In July 1977, Moura No. 1 became the first coal seam gas well hydraulically fractured in Australia. The exploration report states: “During July 1977 the well was killed with 1% KCL solution and the tubing and packer were pulled from the well … and pumping commenced” (Porter 2-3). The use of the word “kill” is interesting—potassium chloride (KCl) is the third and final drug administered in the lethal injection of humans on death row in the USA. Potassium chloride was used to minimise the effect on parts of the coal seam that were water-sensitive and was the recommended solution prior to adding other chemicals (Montgomery and Smith 28); but a word such as “kill” also implies that the well and the larger environment were alive before fracking commenced (Giblett; Trigger). Pumping recommenced after the fracturing fluid was unloaded. Initially gas supply was very good. It increased from an average estimate of 7,000 cubic feet per day to 30,000, but this only lasted two days before coal and sand started flowing back up to the surface. In effect, the cleats were propped open but the coal did not close and hold onto them which meant coal particles and sand flowed back up the pipe with diminishing amounts of gas (Walters 12). Although there were some interesting results, the program was considered a failure. In April 1978, Houston Oil and Minerals finally abandoned the methane concept. Following the failure, they reflected on the possibilities for a coal seam gas industry given the gas prices in Queensland: “Methane drainage wells appear to offer no economic potential” (Wooldridge 2). At the wells they let the tubing drop into the hole, put a fifteen foot cement plug at the top of the hole, covered it with a steel plate and by their own description restored the area to its “original state” (Wiltshire 8). Houston Oil and Minerals now turned to “conventional targets” which included coal exploration (Wiltshire 7). A Thousand Memories The first four wells show some of the critical environmental issues that were present from the outset of the industry in Australia. The process of hydraulic fracture was not just a failure, but conducted on a science that had never been tested in Australia, was ponderous at best, and by Halliburton’s own admission had “many unknowns”. There was also the role of large multinationals providing “experience” (Briody; Hiscock) and conducting these tests while having limited knowledge of the Australian landscape. Before any gas came to the surface, a large amount of water was produced that was loaded with a mixture of salt and other heavy minerals. The source of water for both the mud drilling of Carra and Kinma, as well as the hydraulic fracture job on Moura, was extracted from Kianga Creek three miles from the site (HOMA, “Carra # 1” 5; HOMA, “Kinma # 1” 5; Porter, “Moura # 1”). No location was listed for the disposal of the water from the wells, including the hydraulic fracture liquid. Considering the poor quality of water, if the water was disposed on site or let drain into a creek, this would have had significant environmental impact. Nobody has yet answered the question of where all this water went. The environmental issues of water extraction, saline water and hydraulic fracture were present at the first four wells. At the first four wells environmental concern was not a priority. The complexity of inter-company relations, as witnessed at the Shotover well, shows there was little time. The re-use of old wells, such as the Moura well, also shows that economic priorities were more important. Even if environmental information was considered important at the time, no one would have had access to it because, as handwritten notes on some of the reports show, many of the reports were “confidential” (Sell). Even though coal mines commenced filing Environmental Impact Statements in the early 1970s, there is no such documentation for gas exploration conducted by Houston Oil and Minerals. A lack of broader awareness for the surrounding environment, from floral and faunal health to the impact on habitat quality, can be gleaned when reading across all the exploration reports. Nearly four decades on and we now have thousands of wells throughout the world. Yet, the challenges of unconventional gas still persist. The implications of the environmental history of the first four wells in Australia for contemporary unconventional gas exploration and development in this country and beyond are significant. Many environmental issues were present from the beginning of the coal seam gas industry in Australia. Owning up to this history would place policy makers and regulators in a position to strengthen current regulation. The industry continues to face the same challenges today as it did at the start of development—including water extraction, hydraulic fracturing and problems associated with drilling through underground aquifers. Looking more broadly at the unconventional gas industry, shale gas has appeared as the next target for energy resources in Australia. Reflecting on the first exploratory shale gas wells drilled in Central Australia, the chief executive of the company responsible for the shale gas wells noted their deliberate decision to locate their activities in semi-desert country away from “an area of prime agricultural land” and conflict with environmentalists (quoted in Molan). Moreover, the journalist Paul Cleary recently complained about the coal seam gas industry polluting Australia’s food-bowl but concluded that the “next frontier” should be in “remote” Central Australia with shale gas (Cleary 195). It appears that preference is to move the industry to the arid centre of Australia, to the ecologically and culturally unique Lake Eyre Basin region (Robin and Smith). Claims to move the industry away from areas that might have close public scrutiny disregard many groups in the Lake Eyre Basin, such as Aboriginal rights to land, and appear similar to other industrial projects that disregard local inhabitants, such as mega-dams and nuclear testing (Nixon). References AGA (Australian Gas Association). “Coal Seam Methane in Australia: An Overview.” AGA Research Paper 2 (1996). Apps Laboratories. “What Do Your Water Test Results Mean?” Apps Laboratories 7 Sept. 2012. 1 May 2013 ‹http://appslabs.com.au/downloads.htm›. Benbow, Dennis B. “Shotover No. 1: Lithology Report for Houston Oil and Minerals Corporation.” November 1975. Queensland Digital Exploration Reports. Company Report 5457_2. Brisbane: Queensland Department of Resources and Mines 4 June 2012. 1 May 2013 ‹https://qdexguest.deedi.qld.gov.au/portal/site/qdex/search?REPORT_ID=5457&COLLECTION_ID=999›. 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