0000000001275195
AUTHOR
Laura Sanna
Secondary minerals from salt caves in the Atacama Desert (Chile): a hyperarid and hypersaline environment with potential analogies to the Martian subsurface
Over the past 15 years several expeditions by French, American and especially Italian cavers have unveiled over 50 caves in the Cordillera de la Sal (Atacama Desert, Northern Chile). Many of these caves contain a variety of speleothems and minerals, some of which have rarely been observed within karst systems. Most of the secondary deposits in these caves are composed of halite, but also other halide, carbonate, sulphate, nitrate, phosphate, and silicate minerals have been found. Among the sixteen cave mineral species recognized, atacamite, darapskite, blödite, leonite, anhydrite, and especially antarcticite are worth mentioning. In one of the samples an unknown Ca-Sr-bearing chloride miner…
Pyrrolo[1,2-f]phenanthridines and related non-rigid analogues as antiviral agents.
Abstract The pyrrolo[1,2- f ]phenanthridines 8 – 22 and the corresponding non-rigid analogues 23 – 41 were synthesised and their ability to inhibit the replication of HIV-1 was tested. Only the polycyclic derivatives 10 , 11 , and 13 showed a weak anti -HIV activity, whereas several pyrrolo-phenanthridines ( 8 , 10 , 16 – 18 ) were found to stimulate the multiplication of MT-4 cells at low concentrations. Derivative 10 demonstrated to possess the unique property of stimulating the multiplication of lymphocytes joined to HIV inhibition.
A review on hypogene caves in Italy
Although hypogene cave systems have been described since the beginning of the 20th century, the importance in speleogenesis of ascending fluids that acquired their aggressiveness from in-depth sources has been fully realized only in the last decades. Aggressiveness of waters can be related to carbonic and sulfuric acids and the related corrosion-dissolution processes give rise to different types of caves and underground morphologies. The abundance of hydrothermal springs and associated travertine deposits, and the widespread interaction between volcanic or sub-volcanic phenomena and karst in many sectors of the Italian peninsula are a strong evidence of hypogene speleogenesis. Furthermore, …
Secondary minerals from halite caves in the Atacama Desert (Chile)
In the past 15 years several expeditions by French, American and especially Italian cavers have surveyed over 15 km of salt cave passages in the Cordillera de la Sal, close to San Pedro de Atacama village (Atacama Desert, Northern Chile). Over 50 caves have been explored up to now at an elevation around 2,500 m asl. These karst systems are characterized by in-cave temperature of around 17 °C and a relative humidity always very low, with a maximum of 15%. This extreme aridity is due to the severe conditions of the area with only a couple millimeters annual rainfall and several years without rain. Currently the rare precipitation events are enough to allow the dissolution of the salt rock and…