About the Editors
Dr. Glenn B. Stracher is Professor Emeritus of Geology and Physics at East Georgia College, University System of Georgia, Swainsboro, Georgia, USA. After receiving his M.S. in Geology and a Ph.D. in Geology and Engineering Mechanics from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, he served as a Lady Davis Scholar at the Institute of Earth Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Dr. Stracher is the former chair of the Geological Society of America’s Coal Geology Division and serves on the society’s External Awards Committee. He is the co-author of three chemical thermodynamics books, published in English and Japanese and taught graduate level courses in this subject at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. In 2010, he was named a University System of Georgia “Shining Star,” by the state’s Board of Regents, for excellence in research and teaching.In 2015, he was named a Geological Society of America Fellow for his contributions to coal-fires science.
Trained as a structural geologist, mineralogist, and metamorphic petrologist, the main focus of his research since 1995; and for which he is internationally known, has been coal fires burning around the world. In addition to numerous peer-reviewed publications about coal fires, he has convened coal-fires symposia with the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Geological Society of America (GSA), and led four GSA National, coal-fires field trips. Dr. Stracher is the editor of the Geological Society of America book, Geology of Coal Fires: Case Studies from Around the World. He also edited the International Journal of Coal Geology special publication, Coal Fires Burning Around the World: A Global Catastrophe.
He was also nominated by the United Nations as a Fulbright Scholar while in graduate school before completing his postdoctoral work in Israel. The China University of Mining and Technology in Xuzhou, Jiangsu, has invited him to teach short courses about coal and peat fires using this four-volume book. He has also received an invitation to visit and do research at Tianjin University in China.
Dr. Stracher appears in two National Geographic Channel (NGC) movies about coal-fires: Wild Fires, part of a seven part NGC series entitled Built for Destruction, and the more recent movie, Underground Inferno, which has won several international film festival awards. Currently, he is working with historian Timo Hauge at the German Mining Museum in Bochum, Germany, on a permanent display about mine fires. The display in the 37,000 square foot museum will open in 2018 and feature much of Dr. Stracher’s work as well as photos taken by Glenn and Janet Stracher during their numerous field expeditions. The German Mining Museum is the most famous mining museum in the world. The web address of the museum is: http://www.bergbaumuseum.de/index.php/en.
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Email: stracher@ega.edu
Dr. Anupma Prakash is Professor of Remote Sensing Geology and Geophysics at the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska - Fairbanks, USA. After receiving her M.Sc. degree in Geology from Lucknow University, India, and a Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from the Indian Institute of Technology - Roorkee, India, she moved to the Netherlands to work for the International Institute of Geo-information Surveys and Earth Sciences (ITC), Enschede, The Netherlands. She is internationally recognized for her research on the use of remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) techniques for investigating surface and underground coal-mine fires. Her coal-fires research involves fire detection, mapping, monitoring, depth estimation, characterization, and quantitative estimation of environmental impacts.
Since 2002, Dr. Prakash has used remote sensing for mapping Earth surface composition and change due to climate change and anthropogenic activities. She serves on the thermal infrared science working group for NASA’s planned HyspIRI satellite mission.
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Email: prakash@gi.alaska.edu
Dr. Ellina V. Sokol is head of the combustion metamorphism research group at the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk. She received her M.Sc. degree in Geochemistry at Novosibirsk State University and a Ph.D. in Metamorphic Petrology from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Her primary areas of research are the mineralogy, petrogenesis, environmental geochemistry, and metamorphic facies associated with combustion metamorphism due to burning coal and hydrocarbon gases. Her work includes the first published studies about burnt rocks from spoil heaps in the coal basins of the Urals, ancient coal fires and related combustion metamorphic rocks of SW Siberia, and combustion metamorphic events associated with hydrocarbon, gas-generated mud volcanic provinces of the Black Sea and Middle East. She is the co-author of over 80 scientific articles and 4 books.
CLICK HERE for details about the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. CLICK HERE for additional information.
Email: sokol@igm.nsc.ru