Search results for "SL"

2017

Abstract. 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 understood, 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 interpretation of individual environmental signals (e.g., water temperature) often is particularly difficult. Additional proxies not influenced by multiple en…

Impact of Coseismic Frictional Melting on Particle Size, Shape Distribution and Chemistry of Experimentally-Generated Pseudotachylite

2020

In natural friction melts, or pseudotachylites, clast textures and glass compositions can influence the frictional behavior of faults hosting pseudotachylites, and are, in turn, sensitive to the processes involved in pseudotachylite formation. Quantification of these parameters in situations where the host rock composition and formation conditions are well-constrained, such as analogue experiments, may yield calibrations that can be employed in analysis of natural pseudotachylites. In this paper, we experimentally-generated pseudotachylites in granitoid rocks (tonalite and Westerly granite) at Pconf= 40 MPa and slip rates of ∼0.1 m s−1, comparable to the conditions under which natural pseud…

Comparing methods for computation of run-up heights of landslide-generated tsunami in the Northern Sicily continental margin

2018

The North Sicily continental margin is a very active region located in the Central Mediterranean. Strong seismicity, active tectonics and volcanism, fluid escape, high sediment supply, and widespread mass movements historically have exposed this region to marine geohazards, with a potential for tsunami generation. Morpho-bathymetric analysis revealed that one of the most common mechanisms associated with marine geohazards is due to submarine mass failure processes, genetically linked to the other processes active in this margin. With the aim to assess the risks associated with landslide-generated anomalous waves, we selected two sectors of this margin, Gulf of Palermo to the west and Patti …

Analysis of Cipollino Verde marble wall decoration in Ephesos, Turkey, using geological reconstruction

2021

Abstract Slabs of Cipollino Verde, composed of layered and folded marble from Euboea in Greece, decorated the hall of a Roman town house in Ephesos, Turkey in the second century AD. After excavation, the fragmented slabs were restored. Preservation of the dowels in the walls from which the slabs were originally suspended allowed reconstruction of the order in which they had been placed on the walls. The pattern of folded layering in the slabs in turn allowed 3D structural geological reconstruction of the folds, and reconstruction of the arrangement of slabs in the marble block, from where they were serially sectioned, using a slab saw. Investigation of geological fold alignment in the block…

Obsidian from the Site of Piano dei Cardoni, Ustica (Palermo, Italy): Preliminary Results on the First Occupation of the Island

2021

Abstract New investigations on Ustica (Palermo, Sicily) originated from the need to improve our knowledge of the island’s archaeological and environmental heritage. Through field surveys, particular attention was paid to human occupation in the Neolithic phases and focused on the less investigated southern side of the island. The systematic survey of the area of Piano dei Cardoni in 2018 brought to light a new Middle/Late Neolithic site, already partially documented in the literature. The island was settled for the first time during these phases, as also testified from the area of Punta Spalmatore. The presence of Serra d’Alto, incised dark burnished, and Diana styles suggests that the site…

Tracing the Alkinoos Harbor of ancient Kerkyra, Greece, and reconstructing its paleotsunami history

2017

International audience

New Insights into the Provenance of the Obsidian Fragments of the Island of Ustica (Palermo, Sicily)

2016

In this study we applied a multidisciplinary approach, coupling geophysical and geochemical measurements, to unveil the provenance of 170 obsidian flakes, collected on the volcanic island of Ustica (Sicily). On this island there are some prehistoric settlements dated from the Neolithic to the Middle Bronze Age. Despite not having geological outcrops of obsidian rocks, the countryside of Ustica is rich in fragments of this volcanic glass, imported from other source areas. The study of obsidian findings was carried out first through visual observations and density measurements. At least two different obsidian families have been distinguished, probably imported from Lipari and Pantelleria isla…

Arqueoentomología y arqueobotánica de los espacios de almacenamiento a largo plazo: el granero de Risco Pintado, Temisas (Gran Canaria)

2019

This contribution aims at understanding the storage techniques used in the past by means of studying the entomological and plant remains present in the pre-hispanic granary of Risco Pintado, dated between the IX and XV centuries cal AD.This type of granary groups together a large number of silos excavated in the volcanic tuff, situated on steep escarpments, difficult to access and easy to defend.The exceptional environmental conditions of these infrastructures have allowed the desiccated remains of the stored plant products and the pests associated with such storage to be preserved within the silos.The domestic species documented include cereals (barley and wheat), legumes (broad beans and …

New data about the landscape of the first occupation of Mallorca: Coval Simó (Escorca, Mallorca)

2020

The Coval Simó shelter provides some of the oldest evidence for settlement on the island of Mallorca and the Balearic archipelago. It also has the peculiarity of being a habitat in a mountain area, so that the human groups that settled there had to adapt their agricultural and farming sys­tem to this environment. The plant remains (wood charcoal and seeds) recovered in the occupation levels allow us to address these issues, since they are the result of the different activities developed in this cavity: fuel for domestic activities, food for livestock, etc. The results of this study show that between the III and II millennium cal BC, an agricultural system based on livestock and cereal farmi…

A low seasonality scenario in the Mediterranean Sea during the Calabrian (Early Pleistocene) inferred from fossil Arctica islandica shells

2017

Understanding past seasonal temperature variability in the ocean is essential to evaluate the effects of future climate change on marine ecosystems. Here, we estimate seasonal water temperature amplitudes from stable oxygen isotope (δ18Oshell) values of fossil shells of Arctica islandica (assuming δ18Owater= + 0.9 ± 0.1‰ V-SMOW). Specimens were collected from three Pleistocene successions (Emilian and Sicilian substages of the Calabrian) in Central and Southern Italy (i.e., Rome, Lecce and Sicily). Biostratigraphic analyses from Rome Quarry deposits indicate an age between 1.6 and 1.2 Ma, whereas Sicily and Lecce successions are slightly more recent (between 1.1 and 0.62 Ma). Prior to …