The Quercy Phosphorites Formation in France is world famous for its Eocene to Miocene faunas, especially those from the upper Eocene to lower Oligocene, the richest of all. The latter particularly helped to understand the ‘Grande Coupure’, a dramatic faunal turnover event that occurred in Europe during the Eocene-Oligocene transition. Fossils from the Quercy Phosphorites were excavated from the middle 19th century until the early 20th century in a series of sites and became subsequently dispersed over several research institutions, while often losing the temporal and geographical information in the process. In this contribution, we provide an overview and reassess the taxonomy of these barely known collections housed in three Belgian institutions: the Université de Liège, KU Leuven, and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. We focus our efforts on the carnivorous mammals (Hyaenodonta and Carnivoramorpha) and assess the stratigraphic intervals covered by each collection. These fossils are derived from upper Eocene (Priabonian), lower Oligocene (Rupelian), and upper Oligocene (Chattian) deposits in the Quercy area. The richness of the three collections (e.g., the presence of numerous postcranial elements in the Liège collection), the presence of types and figured specimens in the Leuven collection, and some identified localities in the RBINS collection make these collections of great interest for further studies on systematics and the evolution of mammals around the ‘Grande Coupure’.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2021
New global standards on sulphur content in marine fuels have led to an increasing number of ships installing exhaust gas cleaning systems, also known as scrubbers, to reduce air emissions of sulphur oxides. Ships equipped with a scrubber can continue to use heavy fuel oil, resulting in significant discharge of acidified water containing several contaminants, such as heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants (POPs; mainly polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), and nitrogen compounds.The simplest and most common type of scrubber system, the open-loop scrubber, directly discharges the contaminated water in to the sea. The use of scrubber systems by ships is an emerging global problem and an additional pressure on the marine environment. The substances found in scrubber discharge water can cause acute effects on marine biota and may have further impacts, through bioaccumulation, acidification, and eutrophication, on the structure and functioning of marine ecosystems.The number of ships with installed scrubber systems is increasing, but legislation on scrubber discharge is lagging, inconsistent between countries, and often insufficient to protect the environment. ICES recommends the use of cleaner low-sulphur fuels, such as marine gas oil, to eliminate scrubber use and associated impacts on the marine environment.Until this is possible, ICES proposes a set of measures to mitigate scrubber impacts
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RBINS Staff Publications 2020
