Search results for "QH"

The effects of environment on Arctica islandica shell formation and architecture

2017

Mollusks record valuable information in their hard parts that reflect ambient environmental conditions. For this reason, shells can serve as excellent archives to reconstruct past climate and environmental variability. However, animal physiology and biomineralization, which are often poorly un- derstood, can make the decoding of environmental signals a challenging task. Many of the routinely used shell-based proxies are sensitive to multiple different environmental and physiological variables. Therefore, the identification and in- terpretation of individual environmental signals (e.g., water temperature) often is particularly difficult. Additional prox- ies not influenced by multiple enviro…

A Regional Geography Approach to Understanding the Environmental Changes as a Consequence of the COVID-19 Lockdown in Highly Populated Spanish Cities

2021

Spain has been highly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which is reflected at different scales. From an economic point of view, lockdowns and the reduction of activities have damaged the country (e.g., complete lockdown from March 13 to June 21, 2020). However, it is not clear if the associated environmental impacts could be observed in 2020. Currently, studies on the effects of the lockdown (e.g., decrease in economic activities, transport and social communication) on specific parameters related to climate change, such as air temperature or air pollution, due to a drastic decrease in human activities are rare. They are focused on specific cities and short periods of time. Therefore, the m…

New insights on secondary minerals from Italian sulfuric acid caves

2018

Sulfuric acid minerals are important clues to identify the speleogenetic phases of hypogene caves. Italy hosts ~25% of the known worldwide sulfuric acid speleogenetic (SAS) systems, including the famous well-studied Frasassi, Monte Cucco, and Acquasanta Terme caves. Nevertheless, other underground environments have been analyzed, and interesting mineralogical assemblages were found associated with peculiar geomorphological features such as cupolas, replacement pockets, feeders, sulfuric notches, and sub-horizontal levels. In this paper, we focused on 15 cave systems located along the Apennine Chain, in Apulia, in Sicily, and in Sardinia, where copious SAS minerals were observed. Some of the…

Microbiology and atmospheric processes: biological, physical and chemical characterization of aerosol particles

2008

Abstract. The interest in bioaerosols has traditionally been linked to health hazards for humans, animals and plants. However, several components of bioaerosols exhibit physical properties of great significance for cloud processes, such as ice nucleation and cloud condensation. To gain a better understanding of their influence on climate, it is therefore important to determine the composition, concentration, seasonal fluctuation, regional diversity and evolution of bioaerosols. In this paper, we will review briefly the existing techniques for detection, quantification, physical and chemical analysis of biological particles, attempting to bridge physical, chemical and biological methods for …

2016

Gianluca Tramontana was supported by the GEOCARBON EU FP7 project (GA 283080). Dario Papale, Martin Jung and Markus Reichstein acknowledge funding from the EU FP7 project GEOCARBON (grant agreement no. 283080) and the EU H2020 BACI project (grant agreement no. 640176). Gustau Camps-Valls wants to acknowledge the support by an ERC Consolidator Grant with grant agreement 647423 (SEDAL). Kazuhito Ichii was supported by Environment Research and Technology Development Funds (2-1401) from the Ministry of the Environment of Japan and the JAXA Global Change Observation Mission (GCOM) project (no. 115). Christopher R. Schwalm was supported by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) gran…

Secondary minerals from salt caves in the Atacama Desert (Chile): a hyperarid and hypersaline environment with potential analogies to the Martian sub…

2017

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…

A Participatory Agrobiodiversity Conservation Approach in the Oases: Community Actions for the Promotion of Sustainable Development in Fragile Areas

2021

Rural development policies today include significant directions towards ecological transition and sustainability. Biodiversity plays a fundamental role, especially in fragile environments. The North African oases, for example, are socio-ecological structures with delicate balances in terms of natural resources, where the activation of participatory conservation approaches appears today to be very useful, aiming at long-lasting results. This type of approach was applied in the oasis of El Hamma, in Tunisia. The socio-ecological analysis was carried out through semi-structured interviews with different stakeholders of the oasis. The results were used to activate focus groups and to identify, …

A New Network for the Advancement of Marine Biotechnology in Europe and Beyond

2020

Marine organisms produce a vast diversity of metabolites with biological activities useful for humans, e.g., cytotoxic, antioxidant, anti-microbial, insecticidal, herbicidal, anticancer, pro-osteogenic and pro-regenerative, analgesic, anti-inflammatory, anticoagulant, cholesterol-lowering, nutritional, photoprotective, horticultural or other beneficial properties. These metabolites could help satisfy the increasing demand for alternative sources of nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, cosmeceuticals, food, feed, and novel bio-based products. in addition, marine biomass itself can serve as the source material for the production of various bulk commodities (e.g., biofuels, bioplastics, biomateria…

First in-situ measurements of plume chemistry at mount garet volcano, island of gaua (Vanuatu)

2020

Recent volcanic gas compilations have urged the need to expand in-situ plume measurements to poorly studied, remote volcanic regions. Despite being recognized as one of the main volcanic epicenters on the planet, the Vanuatu arc remains poorly characterized for its subaerial emissions and their chemical imprints. Here, we report on the first plume chemistry data for Mount Garet, on the island of Gaua, one of the few persistent volatile emitters along the Vanuatu arc. Data were collected with a multi-component gas analyzer system (multi-GAS) during a field campaign in December 2018. The average volcanic gas chemistry is characterized by mean molar CO2/SO2, H2O/SO2, H2S/SO2 and H2/SO2 ratios …

A sea surface temperature reconstruction for the southern Indian Ocean trade wind belt from corals in Rodrigues Island (19°S, 63°E)

2016

Abstract. The western Indian Ocean has been warming rapidly over recent decades, causing a greater number of extreme climatic events. It is therefore of paramount importance to improve our understanding of links between Indian Ocean sea surface temperature (SST) variability, climate change and sustainability of tropical coral reef ecosystems. Here we present monthly resolved coral Sr ∕ Ca records from two different locations from Rodrigues Island (63° E, 19° S) in the south-central Indian Ocean trade wind belt. We reconstruct SST based on a linear relationship with the Sr ∕ Ca proxy with records starting from 1781 and 1945, respectively. We assess relationships between the observed long-ter…