Search results for " behavior"

Rich fen development in CE Europe, resilience to climate change and human impact over the last ca. 3500 years

2017

Here, for the first time in SE Poland, we document the long-term development of a rich fen and assess its sensitivity to climate change and human impacts over the last ca. 3500 years. Our results are based on a high-resolution, continuous plant macrofossil remains, mollusc and pollen record, complemented by geochemical, mineral magnetic and physical characterisation, and radiocarbon dating from Bagno Serebryskie rich fen located in SE Poland. Based on the palaeoecological data we distinguished five stages of wet habitat conditions: 5000–3300, 2800–2150, 1600–1100, 750–230, 150–10 cal yr BP and five dry periods at ca. 3300–2800, 2150–1600, 1100–750, 230–150, 10 to − 64 cal yr BP. The pollen …

Vegetation dynamics of Kisima Ngeda freshwater spring reflect hydrological changes in northern Tanzania over the past 1200 years: implications for pa…

2021

13 pages; International audience; Kisima Ngeda (KN), a spring on the northern margin of saline Lake Eyasi, Tanzania, sustains an Acacia-Hyphaene palm woodland and Typha swamps, while the surrounding vegetation is semi-desert. To study the vegetation changes associated with this spring, which represents a plausible modern analog for the fossil springs documented in the nearby paleoanthropological and archaeological sites of Olduvai Gorge, we analyzed the pollen content of a 43 cm-long sediment core that documents vegetation changes since the last ~1200 years (from cal yrs. C.E. 841 to 2011). Our results show that (1) Hyphaene palms, which require meso-halophytic soil conditions were most abu…

COMMENT TO LEHRMANN ET AL. NEW SECTIONS AND OBSERVATIONS FROM THE NANPANJIANG BASIN, SOUTH CHINA

2016

In the study of Earth-surface environmental processes during the events associated with the Permian–Triassic boundary, a key issue is the nature of the latest Permian pre-extinction surface in shallow marine limestones in numerous sites, principally within the Tethyan realm. Sediments below this surface pre-date the extinction event, so that the limestones comprising these latest Permian facies contain diverse fossil remains of organisms that lived just before the extinction. At all reported sites, this surface is disconformably overlain by post-extinction sediments, which contain microbialites in many places, particularly in Tethys. The nature of the youngest pre-extinction surface remains…

Amphibians and reptiles as palaeonvironmental proxies during the Late Pleistocene (MIS3): The case of Stratigraphic Unit V of El Salt, Alcoi, Spain

2021

The locality of El Salt (Alcoi, Spain) is a key site for understanding the extirpation of Neanderthals in the eastern part of Iberia. In this paper, we analyse an assemblage of amphibians and reptiles from Stratigraphic Unit V (45.2 ± 3.4 ka to 44.7 ± 3.4 ka), which corresponds to one of the last regional records of Neanderthals, to improve knowledge of the palaeoecology and palaeoclimate of this event. The assemblage comprises three anurans (Pelodytes sp., Alytes obstetricans, and Epidalea calamita), two lizards (Lacertidae indet. and Chalcides bedriagai), and five snakes (Colubridae indet., Coronella sp., Coronella sp./Zamenis sp., Natrix maura, and Vipera latastei). Palaeoclimatic recons…

Using growth and geochemical composition of Clathromorphum compactum to track multiscale North Atlantic hydro-climate variability

2020

International audience; Records of ocean/atmosphere dynamics over the past centuries are essential to understand processes driving climate variability. This is particularly true for the Northwest Atlantic which is a key region with an essential role in global climate regulation. Over the past two decades, coralline red algae have been increasingly used as environmental and climatic archives for the marine realm and hold the potential to extend long-term instrumental measurements. Here, we investigate the possibility to extract climate and environmental information from annual growth patterns and geochemical composition of the coralline red algae, Clathromorphum compactum, from Saint-Pierre …

2020

Skeletal remains in archaeological strata are often assumed to be of similar ages. Here we show that combined Sr and O isotope analyses can serve as a powerful tool for assessing fish provenance and even for identifying fossil fish teeth in archaeological contexts. For this purpose, we established a reference Sr and O isotope dataset of extant fish teeth from major water bodies in the Southern Levant. Fossil shark teeth were identified within Iron Age cultural layers dating to 8–9th century BCE in the City of David, Jerusalem, although the reason for their presence remains unclear. Their enameloid 87Sr/86Sr and δ18OPO4 values [0.7075 ± 0.0001 (1 SD, n = 7) and 19.6 ± 0.9‰ (1 SD, n = 6), res…

Micro-PIXE/PIGE analysis of Palaeolithic mammoth ivory: Potential chemical markers of provenance and relative dating

2014

Abstract Micro-Proton Induced X-ray and Gamma-ray Emission (micro-PIXE/PIGE) provide non-destructive methods for the evaluation of the major, minor and trace element compositions of archaeological material. The current study applies micro-PIXE/PIGE analysis to mammoth ivory artefacts from four Palaeolithic sites (Abri Castanet, Vogelherd Cave, Grottes de la Verpilliere I and II) in France and Germany in order to assess the effectiveness of this approach to material older than 30,000 y BP. It has thus far not been established whether such methods of analysis can yield results of scientific and archaeological interest on ivory material that has undergone such extended periods of diagenesis. T…

Guodunites, a low-palaeolatitude and trans-panthalassic Smithian (Early Triassic) ammonoid genus

2009

11 pages; International audience; Based on new, bed-rock controlled material from Oman and Utah, USA, the Early Triassic genus Guodunites, which was recently erected on the basis of scarce specimens from northwestern Guangxi, South China, is now shown to be a representative of Proptychitidae. This solves the question of the previously unknown phylogenetic affinity of this genus. The genus is restricted to the late middle Smithian, and to date, its biogeographical distribution comprises Oman, South China and Utah, thus indicating an essentially low palaeolatitudinal distribution during the Early Triassic. Its palaeobiogeographical distribution further strengthens the existence of significant…

Early Triassic conodont clusters from South China: revision of the architecture of the 15 element apparatuses of the superfamily Gondolelloidea

2012

Several fused clusters of conodont elements of the genera Neospathodus and Novispathodus were recovered from limestone beds at the Dienerian-Smithian and Smithi- an-Spathian boundaries, respectively, from several localities in Guangxi province, South China. Conodont clusters are otherwise extremely rare in the Triassic, and these are first described for the Early Triassic. The exceptional specimens partially preserve the relative three-dimensional position and orientation of ramiform elements and are therefore extremely important for testing hypotheses on the architecture of appa- ratuses. These specimens partly confirm the previous recon- struction of the Novispathodus apparatus by Orchard…

Conodont biostratigraphy of the Yujiang Formation (Emsian, Lower Devonian) at Shizhou, Guangxi, South China

2018

Abstract We study conodonts from the upper part of the Shizhou Member of the Yujiang Formation in Liujing area for the first time. Relatively abundant conodonts were collected from six sampling levels located between the uppermost part of the Shizhou Member to the lowermost part of the Daliancun Member at the Shizhou section, Liujing, Guangxi. The material includes Polygnathus excavatus excavatus Carls and Gandl, P. excavatus ssp. 114 Carls and Valenzuela-Rios, P. nothoperbonus Mawson, P. perbonus (Philip) as well as “ Ozarkodina ” midundenta (Wang and Ziegler) and “ O. ” prolata Mawson. The lowest record of P. nothoperbonus is documented 0.35 m below the boundary between the Shizhou and Da…