Search results for "fossil"
showing 10 items of 412 documents
A Sustainable Energy Mix for the Aeolian Islands
2018
The paper examines the current status of the electrical energy production in the Aeolian Islands, an Italian archipelago, composed by small island North of Sicily. Instead the availability of renewable energy sources, like wind, solar, geothermal and sea wave, these islands produce electrical energy using almost entirely fossil fuels. Starting from this initial condition, the paper proposes an energetic mix based on the available resources and focusing the attention on sea wave. An innovative device is presented in order to exploit this energy source.
Revision of Recent and fossil Mixtacandona Klie 1938 (Ostracoda, Candonidae) from Italy, with description of a new species
2017
Although studies on ostracods dwelling in inland subterranean habitats of Italy have increased in the last decades, highlighting a considerable taxonomic diversity, available information is still far from sufficient to understand phylogenetic and biogeographic relationships. Mixtacandona Klie 1938 is one of the most common and diverse genera of ostracods in subterranean waters. Of the 20 living recognized species in the genus, all stygobiontic and restricted to the Palearctic Region, four are known for the Italian peninsula and Sardinia, one of which exclusively as fossil. Several other Recent and fossil taxa attributable to Mixtacandona, but identified at supraspecific level, have been rep…
Concreções calcárias da formação Santana, bacia do Araripe: uma proposta de classificação.
2007
18 pages; The calcareous concretions of the Santana Formation have been known since 1800 thanks to the work of João da Silva Feijó (1800). Their study was promoted internationally by the report of von Spix and von Martius (1823-1831), and their richness in fossil fishes led Silva Santos to name them “ichthyoliths” in 1950. Here we propose a classification for the various types of calcareous concretions that occurred in the Santana Formation (Late Cretaceous, Araripe Basin). We consider their geographic distribution and we propose a terminological uniformization for the descriptions of that material. This will serve future statistical, geographical, geochemical and taphonomical studies that,…
New skulls of the basal sauropodomorph Plateosaurus trossingensis from Frick, Switzerland: is there more than one species?
2021
The Triassic basal sauropodomorph Plateosaurus trossingensis is well-known from mass accumulations at the German localities of Trossingen and Halberstadt and the Swiss locality of Frick, and is significant especially regarding its ta-phonomy and proposed developmental plasticity. These implications, however, rely on the assumption that this material derives from a single species, which has been questioned. Here we describe new skull material from Frick including eight complete and six partial skulls, more than doubling the number of known skulls of P. trossingensis. This exceptional sample size allows for gaining a deeper understanding of variability that may occur in a single species. The …
THE POSSIBILITY OF DISPOSING OF SPENT COFFEE GROUND WITH ENERGY RECYCLING
2015
The current policy of waste management requires, above all, a gradual reduction of waste amount and, to a larger extent, forces us to seek new methods of waste disposal. Recycling the energy contained in biomass waste is a more and more universally applied method of thermal converting. Biomass combustion allows saving fossil fuels which fits into sustainable development. This paper checks the possibility of using spent coffee ground (SCG) in energy recycling using a combustion process. This particular biomass type up to now has not been widely examined, which inclines to consider its usage as a potential additive to alternative fuels. In the study, we examined the quality of fuel, which was…
Methodology for Calculating the Potential Maritime Wind Park Area by Taking into Account the Needs of Shipping Sector
2018
Renewable energy sources (wind energy, solar energy, hydroelectricity, ocean energy, geothermal energy, biomass and biofuels) are alternatives to fossil fuel that help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, diversify energy supplies and reduce dependency on markets of unsustainable and volatile fossil fuels, particularly oil and gas. Wind energy is one of the renewable energy sources and is considered to be self-renewable as it is the result of the Sun’s activity. Using wind energy is a rapidly developing industry today, and more and more wind turbines are installed worldwide every year, land-based wind turbines being more widespread than offshore ones. In Latvia, spread of land-based wind par…
Calcareous Nannofossil Biostratigraphy and Chronostratigraphy of ODP Hole 964D (eastern Mediterranean Sea)
2008
Quantitative analyses of calcareous nannofossil were carried out on sediments from ODP Hole 964D succession, recovered in the Ionian Sea, Eastern Mediterranean. Results show that the sedimentary sequence, spanning from about 3.5 Ma (Early Pliocene) to the Present, has been investigated through an average sampling resolution of less than 30 kyr. The detailed subdivision into 11 biozones makes it possible to recognize chronostratigraphic the boundaries in the Early Pliocene-Middle Pleistocene interval. Finally, two sedimentary gaps, lasting at least 340 kyr and 120 kyr respectively, have been recognized between the Zanclean and Piacenzian and in the lower part of the Early Pleistocene. SHORT …
A reappraisal of the purported gastric pellet with Pterosaurian bones from the Upper Triassic of Italy
2015
A small accumulation of bones from the Norian (Upper Triassic) of the Seazza Brook Valley (Carnic Prealps, Northern Italy) was originally (1989) identified as a gastric pellet made of pterosaur skeletal elements. The specimen has been reported in literature as one of the very few cases of gastric ejecta containing pterosaur bones since then. However, the detailed analysis of the bones preserved in the pellet, their study by X-ray microCT, and the comparison with those of basal pterosaurs do not support a referral to the Pterosauria. Comparison with the osteology of a large sample of Middle-Late Triassic reptiles shows some affinity with the protorosaurians, mainly with Langobardisaurus pand…
Recent changes in chironomid communities and hypolimnetic oxygen conditions relate to organic carbon in subarctic ecotonal lakes
2018
A key question in aquatic elemental cycling is related to the influence of bottom water oxygen conditions in regulating the burial and release of carbon under climate warming. In this study, we used head capsules of Chironomidae larvae to assess community and diversity change between the past (estimated as Pre-Industrial Period) and present and to reconstruct changes in hypolimnetic oxygen conditions from 30 subarctic ecotonal lakes (northeastern Lapland) using the top-bottom paleolimnological approach applying surface sediment (topmost 0-2 cm) and reference (4-5 cm) samples. Subsequently, we tested the findings against dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration of the sites. We found tha…
Biology of the sauropod dinosaurs: the evolution of gigantism
2010
The herbivorous sauropod dinosaurs of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods were the largest terrestrial animals ever, surpassing the largest herbivorous mammals by an order of magnitude in body mass. Several evolutionary lineages among Sauropoda produced giants with body masses in excess of 50 metric tonnes by conservative estimates. With body mass increase driven by the selective advantages of large body size, animal lineages will increase in body size until they reach the limit determined by the interplay of bauplan, biology, and resource availability. There is no evidence, however, that resource availability and global physicochemical parameters were different enough in the Mesozoic to ha…