Search publications of the members of the Royal Belgian institute of natural Sciences
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Banning paraphylies and executing Linnaean taxonomy is discordant and reduces the evolutionary and semantic information content of biological nomenclature
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Rapport concernant la présence de Manzonia vigoensis (Rolan, 1983) (Gastropoda: Rissoidae) à Peniche sur la côte ouest du Portugal
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Pommeroeul Le Grand Marais (Hainaut, Belgique) : un habitat, un moulin hydraulique et un atelier de bronzier gallo-romains ?
- Printed and available in 2020
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Effects of the use of noise-mitigation during offshore pile driving on harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena)
- In recent years, noise-mitigation technology became more efficient and noise levels during pile driving were reduced significantly. Using passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) datasets from 2016 (Nobelwind construction – no noise mitigation) and 2019 (Northwester 2 and SeaMade construction – Double Big Bubble Curtain) we analyse whether noise mitigation measures applied during the construction of offshore wind farms influenced the likelihood of detecting harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) during pile driving in the Belgian part of the North Sea (BPNS). Exploratory analyses indicate reductions to the spatial and temporal extent of avoidance of the construction area by porpoise when noise mitigation is applied. Without noise mitigation, mean detection rates of porpoises reduced up to 15-20 km from the pile driving location. With noise mitigation however, mean detection rates of porpoises reduced to a lesser extent and this reduction mainly took place at 0-10 km from the pile driving.
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Robot-miners for a new mining future
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The ROBOMINERS mineralogical sensors: spectrometer prototypes for autonomous in-stream, in-slurry geochemical diagnostics.
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The ROBOMINERS mineralogical sensors: spectrometer prototypes for autonomous in-stream, in-slurry geochemical diagnostics.
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A new mining life for non-feasible mineral deposits?
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Suction feeding preceded filtering in baleen whale evolution
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Milieueffectenbeoordeling van het BELWIND offshore windmolenpark op de Bligh Bank
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Offshore windfarm impact assessment: monitoring of marine mammals during 2010. In: S. Degraer, R. Brabant & B. Rumes (Eds.). Offshore wind farms in the Belgian part of the North Sea: selected findings from the baseline and targeted monitoring.pp.131-146
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Radar research on the impact of offshore wind farms on birds: Preparing to go offshore. In: Degraer, S., Brabant, R., Rumes, B. (Eds.), 2012. Offshore windfarms in the Belgian part of the North Sea: heading for an understanding of environmental impacts.
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Executive Summary. In Degraer S., Brabant R., Rumes B., (Eds.), 2012. Offshore wind farms in the Belgian part of the North Sea: Heading for an understanding of environmental impacts.pp. 1-8
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Een zeldzame Otodus obliquus Agassiz, 1843 uit een zand-suppletie op het strand van Dishoek (Walcheren, Nederland)
- In this contribution, we describe a tooth of Otodus obliquus Agassiz, 1843, found in sand supplementation material on the beach of Dishoek, Walcheren (The Netherlands). Even though this species has a broad distribution in Paleocene and early Eocene successions in Western Europe, in the Netherlands it was thus far only known to occur reworked in younger strata in the subsurface of the northern part of the country, and has never been described from sand supplementation material. The described specimen was found in material dredged up from the Middeldiep, a trough in the Zeeuwse Banken area. The associated mollusk fauna suggests that the material is derived from the mid-Pleistocene to early Holocene Kreftenheye Formation, in which the described early Eocene tooth likely occurred as reworked. Potentially, it was originally derived from the early Eocene Tielt Formation, outcropping to the south of Brugge, Belgium, and transported by local rivers to the Zeeuwse Banken area during the Pleistocene. Alternatively, flint and chalk material present in the sand supplementation material suggests that the described specimen could also be originated across the North Sea, derived from the early Eocene Harwich and London Clay deposits exposed in Kent and Essex (England) and transported eastwards by the paleo-Thames.
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Een tijdelijke ontsluiting bij Euverem: nieuwe inzichten in de Campanien/Maastrichtien overgang in het type-Maastrichtien
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Het Paleogeen: een cruciaal tijdperk voor de evolutie van zoogdieren
- Mammals have been around for about 200 million years, and have developed to be one of the most successful animal groups on the planet. In particular the evolutionary steps during the Paleogene Period have been key in this success story. In this contribution, we discus some of the most important developments in mammal evolution during this time period. After the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) extinction (66 million years ago), many ecological niches that were taken by other species became available for the surviving mammals. The first million years after this mass extinction involved a lot of diversification and gave rise to a great diversity of Cenozoic mammals. Additionally, the Paleogene is defined by some of the most intense periods of climate change in the last 100 million years, characterized by hyperthermals such as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). These climate-events probably were important drivers of evolution in the Paleogene.
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Chicxulub impact winter sustained by fine silicate dust
- The Chicxulub impact is thought to have triggered a global winter at the Cretaceous-Palaeogene (K-Pg) boundary 66 million years ago. Yet the climatic consequences of the various debris injected into the atmosphere following the Chicxulub impact remain unclear, and the exact killing mechanisms of the K-Pg mass extinction remain poorly constrained. Here we present palaeoclimate simulations based on sedimentological constraints from an expanded terrestrial K-Pg boundary deposit in North Dakota, United States, to evaluate the relative and combined effects of impact-generated silicate dust and sulfur, as well as soot from wildfires, on the post-impact climate. The measured volumetric size distribution of silicate dust suggests a larger contribution of fine dust (~0.8–8.0 μm) than previously appreciated. Our simulations of the atmospheric injection of such a plume of micrometre-sized silicate dust suggest a long atmospheric lifetime of 15yr, contributing to a global-average surface temperature falling by as much as 15°C. Simulated changes in photosynthetic active solar radiation support a dust-induced photosynthetic shut-down for almost 2 yr post-impact. We suggest that, together with additional cooling contributions from soot and sulfur, this is consistent with the catastrophic collapse of primary productivity in the aftermath of the Chicxulub impact.
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Magical practices? A non-normative Roman imperial cremation at Sagalassos.
- Many thousands of burials have been excavated from across the Roman world, documenting a variety of funerary practices and rites. Individual burials, however, sometimes stand out for their atypical characteristics. The authors report the discovery of a cremation burial from ancient Sagalassos that differs from contemporaneous funerary deposits. In this specific context, the cremated human remains were not retrieved but buried in situ, surrounded by a scattering of intentionally bent nails, and carefully sealed beneath a raft of tiles and a layer of lime. For each of these practices, textual and archaeological parallels can be found elsewhere in the ancient Mediterranean world, collectively suggesting that magical beliefs were at work.
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Aux origins mythologiques du chien
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OSL dating as an alternative tool for age determination of relic charcoal kilns
- Chronometric studies of charcoal production remains are largely based on 14C-dating of associated charcoal. Owing to intrinsic limitations, however, this method provides no meaningful time resolution for post-1650 CE features. We investigate the potential of optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of heated sandy sediments as an alternative and complementary tool for dating charcoal kiln remains. Seven samples from five relic charcoal kilns and 11 complementary samples from the underlying sandy substrate are used. Through a range of procedural tests, we demonstrate that the single-aliquot, regenerative-dose procedure in combination with OSL signals from quartz allows determining equivalent doses both accurately and precisely. For four of the five investigated kilns, OSL ages are consistent with independent age information from 14C-dating and written sources. Especially for post-1650 CE features, the precision can be significantly better than that of 14C-dating, and we highlight the potential of OSL dating for distinguishing, relatively, between charcoal production phases with an unprecedented time resolution. We conclude that the approach is a promising alternative to 14C.
