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Vingt siècles d’exploitation des argiles plastiques d’Andenne (Belgique) : du gisement au musée de la céramique.
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Arranged in strings, the plastic clay deposits from Andenne are fillings of cryptokarsts of white and colored clays associated with three layers of Dinantian Frasnian limestone oriented EW. Sands, brown coal and Tertiary (Neogene) clays have accumulated according to thekarstic dissolution forming a pocket of up to 100m deep. The sulphuric acid stemming from the oxidation of sulphides of brown coals is the main responsible for the formation of kaolinitic clays at the expense of clay minerals and the feldspathic sands. The circulation of water induced the leaching of the iron and their accumulation in certain horizons. White clays rich in alumina and of low iron and alkali content were the most looked for their refractory properties. Exploitedat first on surface then in subterranean galleries, the extraction reached its maximal development around the 19 and 20th centuries to stop definitively in 1970. The clay and the white sand were used in the industries of fire: glassware, crystal, metallurgy... and fed the pottery, brick, tile, earthenware factory, porcelain factories, pipe factory and the industrial refractories. The white clay first and then the final products have been exported since the Middle Ages in Holland, Germany and France, contributing to the international reputation of the clays from Andenne. Depressions generated by the subsidence as a consequence of the underground extractions form a string of pools and ponds, sources of biodiversity. Finally, the Ceramics Museum preserves the traces of this remarkable geological, mining, industrial and artistic with its outstanding collections of pottery, porcelain and pipes. Living museum holder of memory, it provides educational and cultural functions from its exhibitions.
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RBINS Staff Publications
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Virtual reconstruction of the Neandertal lower limbs with an estimation of hamstring muscle moment arms
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A major problem of fossil hominid analysis is a lack of complete specimens. Many individual specimens have been damaged by the effects of diagenesis and excavation. Significant advances in the field of three dimensional image processing (3D) have enabled the creation of accurately scaled reconstructions of individual fossil bones using mirrored parts of the same fossil bone or human/fossil hominid equivalents. This study presents, for the first time, a method to reconstruct a 3D virtual model of the lower limb of the Neandertal using different bones from different fossil remains (Spy II, Neandertal 1 and Kebara 2) and integrating them into a single model of the Neandertal lower limb. A biomechanical analysis of the model was performed, including computer graphics visualization of the results, motion displacement graphs and muscle moment arms. The overall method has been implemented into an open-source customized software (lhpFusionBox) developed for the biomechanical study of the musculoskeletal system.
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RBINS Staff Publications
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Virtual reconstruction of the skull of Bernissartia fagesii and current understanding of the neosuchian–eusuchian transition
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Since the description of Isisfordia duncani, a number of new extinct species and revisions of previously described species have prompted a variety of contradicting phylogenetic hypotheses on the topology of Neosuchia. As a consequence, a consensus on the rooting of Eusuchia in relation to other neosuchian clades has not been reached and the origin of the group remains unsettled. Exemplifying this, Bernissartia fagesii, from the Early Cretaceous of Belgium, has long been considered a key taxon for understanding the origin of Eusuchia, but more recent hypotheses found support for a more basal position, as an ally to goniopholidids, paralligatorids or atoposaurids. Because many details of the anatomy of the type specimen are hidden by glue and the sediment adhering to the fossils, a number of characters are pending confirmation. Based on computed tomography data, we extract bones of the cranium and mandibles, describe new characters and re-evaluate anatomical details in the lectotype specimen. Our phylogenetic analysis confirms that B. fagesii is a derived neosuchian, unrelated to atoposaurids, goniopholidids and paralligatorids. We recover B. fagesii and Koumpiodontosuchus aprosdokiti in a basal position within Eusuchia, together with Susisuchidae, a group of gondwanan neosuchians containing Susisuchus and Isisfordia, which here form a polytomy with Hylaeochampsidae. The presence/absence of pterygoid-bound internal choanae cannot be used to fully resolve relationships at the neosuchian–eusuchian transition because of the variability of this character even at the familial level, as recently reported within susisuchids and bernissartiids. There is no doubt that true eusuchians were present in Laurasia as early as the Early Cretaceous, the hylaeochampsid Hylaeochampsa vectiana being the oldest (Barremian) undoubted representative. But whether the Eusuchia were also present in southern landmasses depends on solving the phylogenetic position of susisuchids and other less known gondwanan forms within or outside Eusuchia.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2020
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Virus influenza aviaire hautement pathogène H5N8: particularités et implication pour la surveillance en Belgique.
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No RBINS Staff publications
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Visualizing Cross-Sectional Data in a Real-World Context
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If you could fly around your research results in three dimensions, wouldn’t you like to do it? Combining the capabilities of an open-source drawing tool with Google Earth maps allows researchers/geologists to visualize real-world cross-sectional data in three dimensions. Any spatial model displaying research results can be exported to a vertical figure to enable the results to be visualized spatially.
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No RBINS Staff publications
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Volcanic influence of Mt Fuji on the watershed of Lake Motosu and its impact on the lacustrine sedimentary record
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RBINS Staff Publications 2018
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Vulnerability of sexual and asexual Eucypris virens (Crustacea, Ostracoda) to predation: an experimental approach with dragonfly naiads
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RBINS Staff Publications
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Vulnerability of sexual and asexual Eucypris virens (Crustacea, Ostracoda) to predation: an experimental approach with dragonfly naiads
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RBINS Staff Publications
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Water chemistry and not urbanization influences community structure of non-marine Ostracoda (Crustacea) in northern Belgium
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Urbanization is one of the major causes of the destruction of natural habitats in the world. Cities are urban heat islands and can thus significantly influence populations of plants and animals. The research project SPEEDY investigated the effects of urbanization in northern Belgium with a nested sampling design at local and landscape scales for a variety of organisms. Here, we tested the effects of urbanization on non-marine ostracod communities, sampling 81 small pools in three urbanization categories, as defined by percentage built up cover (low, intermediate, high). We identified 17 ostracod species, together occurring in 60 of the 81 sampled pools. We found that urbanization per se had no significant effect on ostracod communities. Of all the measured local factors, ammonium and total phosphorus concentrations had a significant effect on the community structure. In contrast, water temperature had no significant effect, most likely because the ostracod species found in northern Belgium in the present survey mostly have wide temperature tolerances.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2021
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Water level fluctuations and metapopulation dynamics as drivers of genetic diversity in populations of three Tanganyikan cichlid fish species
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RBINS Staff Publications
