Search results for "Geochemistry"
showing 10 items of 2967 documents
Upper Paleolithic Bone and Antler Projectiles in the Spanish Mediterranean Region: The Magdalenian Period
2016
We have focused our study on the projectile points of Cova de Parpallo. The Magdalenian sequence in this archaeological site is one of the most complete in the Upper Paleolithic from the southwest of Europe. We have analyzed 334 pieces from an assemblage that includes well over 2000 finished objects, and consider these weapons as a representative sample from two well differentiated Magdalenian phases. The first period studied dates to the Badegoulian (layer 2.40–2.20 m), while the second is Upper Magdalenian (layer 0.80–1.00 m). The main aspects of this analysis are typological evaluation (hafting kinds or bases, sections, morphometry) and fracture patterns (position and kinds of fractures,…
Accelerated transgressive processes in a Mediterranean coastal barrier: Subsidence, anthropic action and geomorphological changes since the Little Ic…
2020
Abstract Subsidence, changes in sediment supply and environments, sea storms, current sedimentary deficit and recent anthropic action are factors determining coastal geomorphological processes and evolution of a transgressive Mediterranean coastal barrier. At a longer timescale, the barrier landward migration is partially due to local subsidence of tectonic origin. Peatmarsh remains under seawater at around 100 m from the present-day coastline (4821–4566 and 4874‒4820 cal BP) show evidence of the more advanced position towards the sea of the late Holocene coastal barrier, which has not been preserved. Furthermore, behind the present gravel barrier, wide sandy washover fans dating about 665 …
Sea–land geology of Marettimo (Egadi Islands, central Mediterranean sea)
2016
We present a 1:10,000 scale geological map of Marettimo Island and its offshore (Egadi Archipelago, central Mediterranean Sea). The map was achieved by integrating a new geological survey with data from recent, marine, geological and geophysical surveys acquired along the adjacent continental shelf. The island is composed of a Mesozoic, mostly carbonate platform succession, which is overlain by continental to coastal marine Quaternary deposits. Extensional tectonics have affected the carbonate platform since the Late Triassic producing an initial increase of accommodation space that was filled by interbed breccias, marls and calcareous marls. During the Jurassic, a NE-SW-directed normal fau…
Seismites resulting from high-frequency, high-magnitude earthquakes in Latvia caused by Late Glacial glacio-isostatic uplift
2016
Abstract Geologically extremely rapid changes in altitude by glacial rebound of the Earth crust after retreat of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet at the end of the last Weichselian glaciation influenced the palaeogeography of northern Europe. The uplift of the Earth crust apparently was not gradual, but shock-wise, as the uplift was accompanied by frequent, high-magnitude earthquakes. This can be deduced from strongly deformed layers which are interpreted as seismites. Such seismites have been described from several countries around the Baltic Sea, including Sweden, Germany and Poland. Now similarly deformed layers that must also be interpreted as seismites, have been discovered also in Latvia, a…
Evaluating the potential of tree-ring methodology for cross-dating of three annually laminated stalagmites from Zoolithencave (SE Germany)
2019
Abstract Three small stalagmites from Zoolithencave (southern Germany) show visible laminae, which consist of a clear and a brownish, pigmented layer pair. This potentially provides the opportunity to construct precise chronologies by counting annual laminae. The growth period of the three stalagmites was constrained by the 14C bomb peak in the youngest part of all three stalagmites and 14C-dating of a piece of charcoal in the consolidated base part of stalagmite Zoo-rez-2. These data suggest an age of AD 1970 for the top laminae and a lower age limit of AD 1973–1682 or AD 1735–1778. Laminae were counted and their thickness determined on scanned thin sections of all stalagmites. On stalagmi…
Regional Tectonic Setting and Geological Structure of the Rhenish Massif
1983
This chapter contains an outline of the geological history of the Rhenish Massif and the development of its margins and surrounding areas. Section 2.2 gives some main aspects of the development of the Variscan geosyncline and orogeny and a short description of the pre-Variscan geological history of this region. Since the end of the Variscan orogeny many different epeirogenetic processes have occurred here (Sect. 2.3). During these long geological times uplift and subsidence changed in the different parts of the Massif and in the surrounding areas.
The owl that never left! Taphonomy of Earlier Stone Age small mammal assemblages from Wonderwerk Cave (South Africa)
2022
Wonderwerk Cave, in South Africa, is an exceptional site that has yielded a large collection of small mammal fossils in a stratigraphic sequence reaching back ca. 2 million years. Taphonomic studies undertaken to date, show that Tytonidae (likely Tyto alba) was the dominant predator during the Earlier Stone Age. They produced masses of pellets that formed a dense carpet-like surface that covered the cave floor at intervals throughout the sequence. This paper compares the taphonomic signatures of five different Earlier Stone Age small mammal assemblages from Wonderwerk Cave, including assemblages not studied before, as well as a modern pellet assemblage collected from inside the cave. These …
Climatic ups and downs in a disturbed Jurassic world.
2011
4 pages; International audience; The tropical, warm, and equable climate of the Jurassic world is regularly challenged by geoscientists, especially since oxygen isotopes ( 18O) of fossil hardparts have been used to reconstruct the paleotemperature history of seawater. By applying the innovative “SiZer” (significant zero crossings of the derivatives) statistical approach to a newly compiled 18O database for the Jurassic, we demonstrate the occurrence of major and multiscale 18O changes mainly related to climate disturbances. For the first time, two long-term anomalies in 18O are identified during the Toarcian and the Late Jurassic, in conjunction with intensive volcanism in large igneous pro…
Paleoecological constraints on reef-coral morphologies in the Tortonian–early Messinian of the Lorca Basin, SE Spain
2004
Abstract Coral reefs represent one of the main carbonate factories that contributed to the control of the stratigraphic architecture of carbonate platforms, which had a widespread development during the late Miocene in the paleo-Mediterranean area. The late Miocene reef complexes of the Lorca Basin in southeastern Spain are composed of five mixed siliciclastic/carbonate units, middle Tortonian to early Messinian in age. The development of coral reefs probably ceased when the first evaporitic event occurred in the basin centre in the early Messinian. This study mainly focuses on the response of reef communities and the modifications of reef organisation to global and regional parameters. At …
Geological Setting and Paleoecology of the Upper Cretaceous Bench 19 Marine Vertebrate Bonebed at Bentiaba, Angola
2014
AbstractThe Bench 19 Bonebed at Bentiaba, Angola, is a unique concentration of marine vertebrates preserving six species of mosasaurs in sediments best correlated by magnetostratigraphy to chron C32n.1n between 71.4 and 71.64 Ma. The bonebed formed at a paleolatitude near 24°S, with an Atlantic width at that latitude approximating 2700 km, roughly half that of the current width. The locality lies on an uncharacteristically narrow continental shelf near transform faults that controlled the coastal outline of Africa in the formation of the South Atlantic Ocean. Biostratigraphic change through the Bentiaba section indicates that the accumulation occurred in an ecological time dimension within …