Teilhardina belgica is one of the earliest fossil primates ever recovered and the oldest fossil primate from Europe (~ 56 Million years). It was originally described by Teilhard de Chardin (1927) from the MP7 reference level of Dormaal (Belgium), which is situated at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary at the base of the Tienen Formation (Smith & Smith, 1996). Teilhardina is known on all three northern continents in association with the carbon isotope excursion marking the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum. Relative position within the carbon isotope excursion indicates that Asian Teilhardina asiatica is oldest, European T. belgica is younger, and North American T. brandti and T. americana are, successively, youngest. Analysis of morphological dental characteristics of all four species supports an Asian origin and a westward Asia-to-Europe-to-North America dispersal for Teilhardina. High-resolution isotope stratigraphy indicates that this dispersal happened in an interval of 25,000 years (Smith et al, 2006). Moreover, Teilhardina is one of the most primitive fossil primates known to date and the earliest haplorhine with associated three dimensional postcranials making it relevant to a reconstruction of the ancestral primate morphotype. As such, Teilhardina has often been hypothesized as a basal tarsiiform on the basis of its primitive dental formula with four premolars and a simplified molar cusp pattern. Until recently, little was known concerning its postcranial anatomy with the exception of its well-known tarsals. Here we describe additional postcranial elements for Teilhardina belgica and compare these to other tarsiiforms and to primitive adapiforms. Teilhardina is a small primate with an estimated body mass between 30-60 g, similar to the size of a mouse lemur. Its hindlimb anatomy suggests frequent and forceful leaping with excellent foot mobility and grasping capabilities. It can now be established that it exhibits critical primate postcranial synapomorphies such as a grasping hallux and a tall knee (Gebo et al, 2012), and nailed digits (Rose et al, 2011). This anatomical pattern and behavioral profile is similar to what has been inferred before for other omomyids and adapiforms. The most unusual feature of Teilhardina belgica is its elongated middle phalanges suggesting that this early primate had very long fingers similar to those of living tarsiers. Our phyletic analysis indicates that we can identify several postcranial characteristics shared in common for stem primates as well as note several derived postcranial characters for Tarsiiformes.
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The Eastern Visayas region in the Philippines experiences some of the most violent tropical cyclones on Earth, exemplified by Typhoon Haiyan (7–9 November 2013) or Typhoon Hagupit (6–8 December 2014). Moreover, strong earthquakes along the Philippine Trench have triggered tsunamis in the past, both implying significant hazards of coastal flooding through extreme waves for the Pacific coast of the island of Samar. Due to the very short and fragmented historical record of the region, not much is known about frequency-magnitude relationships and maximum magnitudes on centennial and millennial scales, which can be derived from geological traces and which should be considered in coastal hazard management. We studied a large boulder field along the north coast of Eastern Samar distributed over an elevated reef platform to understand mechanisms of boulder transport and to derive implications for the maximum spatial extent, depth and velocity of coastal flooding. In this paper, we compare the field observations to physical experiments of boulder transport by extreme waves currently undertaken in a flume of the Methods: (i) Documentation of location, shape, morphological features, length, orientation of main axes of >250 boulders (1.5 m<a-axes<11.9 m) in the field; (ii) UAV-based 2D/3D- mapping; (iii) creation of SfM-based models of prominent boulders; (iv) interviewing elders of the local community for past events; (v) inverse modelling of coastal flooding and comparison with Deft3D-based numerical models of Haiyan and Hagupit; (vi) multi-temporal analyses of Pléiades and Worldview-3 scenes to reconstruct boulder movement during recent events; (vii) estimate the age of the carbonate platform and the timing of transport through 230U/Th dating. Preliminary results: (i) the platform’s age is mid-/late Holocene and formed through relative sea-level fall; boulder transport occurred over the late Holocene; (ii) Haiyan and Hagupit shifted boulders up to 115 t in steps of <32 m only at the seaward margin of the boulder field; (iii) transport during Haiyan and Hagupit clearly reflects the individual approaching angle of waves; (iv) size-distance relationships of the entire boulder field are unclear (r2=0.46 at best) and large clasts are located up to 1.3 km from the platform edge indicating that also major long-period waves (infragravity waves, tsunamis) have occurred in the past; (vi) flow velocities of up to 6–7 m/s were inferred for Hagupit, while largest clasts more inland (up to 11.9x8.1x4.2 m3; 433 t) require minimum values >10 m/s.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2018
