Search publications of the members of the Royal Belgian institute of natural Sciences
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New finds of goniatite anaptychi from the Frasnian (Upper Devonian) of Belgium.
- Poster
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Dolomite. Minerals in your Life.
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Provenance des matières premières et diffusion des meules.
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Analyses pétrographiques et géochimiques.
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Echantillonnage.
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Les roches sédimentaires.
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Provenance et diffusion des meules : les roches sédimentaires et volcaniques.
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Catalogue et méthodologie utilisée.
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Unravelling geographical and geological sources of geological raw materials used as ornamental stones, millstones and whetstones from the Roman period in Belgium: a mutual favourable cross-border collaboration between geologists and archaeologists.
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Earth sciences in walloon archaeology, four exemples of co-operation.
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La chapelle d’une compagnie de marchands londoniens à la collégiale de Dinant.
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Le lapidaire du sanctuaire de Jupille-sur-Meuse. Témoin d’une activité édilitaire dans l’agglomération du IIe siècle.
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Romancing the stones. Premier bilan d’une analyse multidisciplinaire dans le Civitas Manapiorum.
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Sediment plume monitoring in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone
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On-demand assessment of spatial and temporal variability of sediment transport parameters, Belgian and southern Dutch part of the North Sea. Extended abstract, Studiedag Zandwinning : Welke toekomst voor de zandwinning in het Belgische deel van de NZ ?
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Response to the Technical Comment on 'A Jurassic ornithischian dinosaur from Siberia with both feathers and scales'
- Lingham-Soliar questions our interpretation of integumentary structures in the Middle-Late Jurassic ornithischian dinosaur Kulindadromeus as feather-like appendages and alternatively proposes that the compound structures observed around the humerus and femur of Kulindadromeus are support fibres associated with badly degraded scales. We consider this hypothesis highly unlikely due to the taphonomy and morphology of the preserved structures.
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Long-standing enigmas of a giant ornithomimosaur Deinocheirus mirificus resolved
- The holotype of Deinocheirus mirificus was collected by the 1965 Polish-Mongolian Palaeontological Expedition at Altan Uul III in the southern Gobi of Mongolia1. Because the holotype consists mostly of giant forelimbs (2.4m in length) with scapulocoracoids2, Deinocheirus has remained one of the most mysterious dinosaurs for almost 50 years. The mosaic of ornithomimosaur and non-ornithomimosaur characters in the holotype has made it difficult to resolve the phylogenetic status of Deinocheirus3,4. Here we describe two new specimens of Deinocheirus that were discovered in the Nemegt Formation of Altan Uul IV in 2006 and Bugiin Tsav in 2009. The Bugiin Tsav specimen (MPC-D 100/127) includes a left forelimb clearly identifiable as Deinocheirus and is 6% longer than the holotype. The Altan Uul IV specimen (MPC-D 100/128) is approximately 74% the size of MPC-D 100/127. Cladistic analysis indicates that Deinocheirus is the largest member of the Ornithomimosauria; however, it has many unique skeletal features unknown in other ornithomimosaurs, indicating that Deinocheirus was a heavily built, non-cursorial animal with an elongate snout, tall neural spines, an expanded pelvis for strong muscle attachments, and a relatively short hind limb. Ecomorphological features in the skull, more than a thousand gastroliths, and stomach contents (fish remains) suggest Deinocheirus was a megaomnivore that lived in mesic environments.
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Intercontinental dispersal of mammals during the Paleocene new data from Europe
- The Paleocene in general and in Europe in particular, is generally considered as an epoch with high endemism and few intercontinental dispersals of mammals, although some faunal interchange is known between Asia and North America, mainly from the Tiffanian-Clarkforkian boundary. Up to now, however, faunal interchange between Europe and North America during the Paleocene has almost never been demonstrated. The study of the early Paleocene fauna of Hainin (Belgium) reveals high endemism in European mammals at the end of the Danian (early Paleocene). The age of the fauna of Walbeck (Germany) is reevaluated and is likely to be Selandian (middle Paleocene), significantly older than previously suggested. Therefore, Walbeck is closer in age to Hainin than to the typical late Paleocene fauna of Cernay (France). However, the faunas from Walbeck and Cernay share many common genera that are not present in Hainin, showing a faunal turnover around the Danian-Selandian boundary in Europe, marked by the first occurrence of Plesiadapis, Arctocyon and Adunator in Walbeck, and of neoplagiaulacid multituberculates and Dissacus in Cernay. The three genera present in Walbeck are abundant and diversified in North America from the beginning of the Tiffanian, i.e., older than the expected age of Walbeck. Therefore, it is inferred that these genera dispersed from North America to Europe around the Danian–Selandian boundary, corresponding roughly to the Torrejonian–Tiffanian boundary. The absence of multituberculates in the fauna of Walbeck does not allow the drawing of definite conclusions about the moment of their dispersal, but it is likely that it happened at the same time as Plesiadapis and Arctocyon, because neoplagiaulacids are abundant and diversified during the whole Paleocene in North America. Similarly, Dissacus is very rare in Cernay, and could also have dispersed at the same time as others, but remained unnoticed because of its rarity. The Clarkforkian in North America is marked by massive arrival of taxa from Asia, among which are rodents, carnivorans, and tillodonts. The recent discovery of the latest Paleocene fauna of Rivecourt (France), where typical Paleocene taxa cohabit with rodents and a carnivoran, indicates that the large-scale dispersal event marking the Paleocene–Eocene boundary began in Europe about at the same time as in North America, with the arrival of rodents and carnivorans. The morphology of the new carnivoran species suggests that this group dispersed separately from Asia to Europe and from Asia to North America.
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A new palaeobatrachidé frog from the Early Paleocene of Belgium
- Palaeobatrachids are an extinct group of aquatic frogs. They occurred from the Late Cretaceous to the Pleistocene, only in Europe with the exception of one questionable species recorded in the late Maastrichtian Lance Formation of Wyoming and a second possible occurrence in the early Paleocene of Montana.Here, we describe about ninety isolated palaeobatrachid bones well-preserved in three-dimensions (maxillae, surangulars, vertebrae, urostyles, ilia and humeri) from the early Paleocene locality of Hainin (Belgium), which is the reference-level MP1-5 of the mammalian biochronological scale for the European Paleogene. These remains are clearly attributable to a single species of palaeobatrachid that presents the following typical characters: a surangular with a coronoid process bearing muscle scars on dorsal surface; a bicondylar sacro-urostylar articulation; an urostyle with a low neural crest and lacking transversal processes; a humerus with the humeral condyle in the alignment of the bone, epicondyles similar in size; an ilium presenting a large acetabular area, a short and posteriorly oriented pars ascendens, an elongate tuber superius, an horizontal depression on the inner surface of the iliac shaft and lacking the dorsal crest and the pars descendens; and procoelous vertebrae with typical crescent-like cotyle and condyle. The four known palaeobatrachid genera have all been recently synonymized with Palaeobatrachus for which at least seven species are now recognized. The taxon from Hainin differs from most Palaeobatrachus species in the absence of cubital fossa on the humerus, the presence of diapophyses on the first vertebra, and the maxilla that presents a higher number of tooth positions. It is thus referred to a new Palaeobatrachus species or a new genus depending of the definition of the genus Palaeobatrachus. Prior to this study, fragmentary remains of palaeobatrachids had been identified in the Campanian of France and Spain and in the Late Paleocene of France. The early Paleocene species from Hainin is therefore the earliest formally described species from Europe. This abstract is a contribution to the project BR/121/A3/PALEURAFRICA funded by the Belgian Science Policy Office.
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Huaridelphis raimondii, a new early Miocene Squalodelphinidae (Cetacea, Odontoceti) from the Chilcatay Formation, Peru
