The contents of this dissertation fall into two broad areas: geology and history of geology. Although apparently unrelated, the two categories in fact parallel one another. The development of geological systems finds a mirror, on a shorter timescale, in the development of the human understanding of geological systems. The present state of a science - like the present state of an earth system - represents the concatenation of many subtle or evident processes and influences operating over time. Moreover, the events of the past condition the state of the present in science as well as in objects of scientific study. Thus, for instance, to understand why we now hold certain interpretations about the formation of sediment-hosted copper deposits, we must study not only the deposits themselves but the historical development and the philosophical concerns that guided and shaped modern thought about them. In this dissertation the geological and historical aspects are presented in sequence rather than juxtaposed. The geological section comes first, with three chapters detailing the formation and development of the Tenke-Fungurume Cu-Co district and the Central African Copperbelt, followed by another taking a broad view of the mineralogical, geochemical, and metallurgical implications of some of the geological features there. Then follows the history of geology: first two chapters on the role of Georgius Agricola in founding modern geology, and one on how it developed through the following centuries in tune with simultaneous developments in other sciences.

<p> A theory of spin waves for the spin structures found in the rare earth metals of hcp crystal structure is described. The theory is developed for the conical spiral spin structure which contains the planar spiral, the nonplanar ferromagnet and the planar ferromagnet as special cases. Included in the Hamiltonian are isotropic and anisotropic exchange interactions, single-ion crystal field terms, and magnetoelastic terms, both of the single-ion type and the two-ion type. Equations of motion for the spin operators are linearized with the help of the random phase approximation which makes it possible to express some spin-wave interaction effects in terms of powers of the reduced magnetization. Expressions for the spin-wave energies are given for the four structures under consideration.</p> / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)