Search publications of the members of the Royal Belgian institute of natural Sciences
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Paleoclimate Relevance to Global Warming☆
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Geomorphology, Geoarchaeology and Palaeoenvironments
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ENHANCED FIELD OBSERVATION BASED PHYSICAL AND NUMERICAL MODELLING OF TSUNAMI INDUCED BOULDER TRANSPORT PHASE 1: PHYSICAL EXPERIMENTS
- Coasts around the world are affected by high-energy wave events like storm surges or tsunamis. By focusing on tsunami impacts, we investigate tsunami-induced transport of boulders by an interdisciplinary combination of field observations, laboratory experiments and advanced numerical modelling. In phase 1 of the project we conduct physical laboratory experiments based on real-world data. Following the experimental phase we will develop an enhanced numerical boulder transport model (BTM) based on an existing two-phase model.
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How To Discriminate Athalassic and Marginal Marine Microfaunas: Foraminifera and Other Fossils from an Early Holocene Continental Lake in Northern Saudi Arabia
- The occurrence of athalassic foraminiferal species, along with the brackish-water ostracod Cyprideis torosa, the barnacle Amphibalanus amphitrite, and brackish-water gastropods, prove the existence of a saline lake at Tayma, northern Saudi Arabia, during the early to mid-Holocene. Outcrops at the former shoreline, as well as a single sediment core, allow a reconstruction of the history of the main lake phase. Whereas these outcrops contain masses of calcareous micro- and macrofossils, the core from the modern sabkha does not.Four foraminiferal species were identified: Ammonia tepida is dominant, Quinqueloculina seminula is common, Flintinoides labiosa and Discorinopsis aguayoi are rare. Sieve-pore analysis and shell chemistry of C. torosa, as well as varying but generally high proportions of test anomalies (up to 50%) in foraminifers, indicate fluctuating, mostly hypersaline lacustrine conditions. We suggest, based on these results and on a literature overview on the worldwide distribution of Quaternary athalassic foraminifer taxa, that a combination of low diversity, exclusively marginal marine taxa, combined with occurrences of test anomalies >10% can be used to recognize athalassic saline waters in the fossil record.
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Chronostratigraphy and geomorphology of washover fans in the Exmouth Gulf (NW Australia) – A record of tropical cyclone activity during the late Holocene
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Lakes or wetlands? A comment on ‘The middle Holocene climatic records from Arabia: Reassessing lacustrine environments, shift of ITCZ in Arabian Sea, and impacts of the southwest Indian and African monsoons’ by Enzel et al.
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Luminescence dating of cyclone-induced washover fans at Point Lefroy (NW Australia)
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Comparative Anatomy of Mandibular Neurovascular Canals in Modern Human and Great Apes: A Pilot Study With Cone Beam Computed Tomography
- The aim of the present study was to compare mandibular neurovascular canal anatomy in human and great apes by using cone beam computed tomography (CBCT). The anatomical variability of mandibular neurovascular canals (mandibular, incisive and lingual canals) of 129 modern humans and great apes (Homo, Pan and Gorilla) were analyzed by linear measurements on CBCT images. The Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric test and Dunn’s all pairs for joint ranks were applied to compare the variability of mandibular canals among these groups. Human, Chimpanzee and Gorilla groups showed significant differences in the dimensions of the mandibular canal, mental foramen, incisive canal, lingual canal and anterior mandibular bone width. Bifid mandibular canals and anterior loops were the anatomical variations most frequently observed in the Gorilla. Humans had a larger mental foramen and a distinctive incisive canal. The latter could not be identified in the Gorilla group. The variability in the anatomy within mandibles of human and non-human primates, shows different forms in the neurovascular structures. In comparison to the mandible of great apes, the incisive canal is suggested to be a feature unique to the human mandible.
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Reconstructing the genetic history of late Neanderthals
- Although it has previously been shown that Neanderthals contributed DNA to modern humans1,2, not much is known about the genetic diversity of Neanderthals or the relationship between late Neanderthal populations at the time at which their last interactions with early modern humans occurred and before they eventually disappeared. Our ability to retrieve DNA from a larger number of Neanderthal individuals has been limited by poor preservation of endogenous DNA3 and contamination of Neanderthal skeletal remains by large amounts of microbial and present-day human DNA3,4,5. Here we use hypochlorite treatment6 of as little as 9 mg of bone or tooth powder to generate between 1- and 2.7-fold genomic coverage of five Neanderthals who lived around 39,000 to 47,000 years ago (that is, late Neanderthals), thereby doubling the number of Neanderthals for which genome sequences are available. Genetic similarity among late Neanderthals is well predicted by their geographical location, and comparison to the genome of an older Neanderthal from the Caucasus2,7 indicates that a population turnover is likely to have occurred, either in the Caucasus or throughout Europe, towards the end of Neanderthal history. We find that the bulk of Neanderthal gene flow into early modern humans originated from one or more source populations that diverged from the Neanderthals that were studied here at least 70,000 years ago, but after they split from a previously sequenced Neanderthal from Siberia2 around 150,000 years ago. Although four of the Neanderthals studied here post-date the putative arrival of early modern humans into Europe, we do not detect any recent gene flow from early modern humans in their ancestry.
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A new genus and species of Tachydromiinae (Diptera: Empididae) from the Oriental Realm.
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A new species of Paramedetera, with a key to the species from China (Diptera: Dolichopodidae)
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New yellow-legged Hybos from Nanling, Guangdong, China (Diptera, Empidoidea, Hybotidae)
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A new species of Oedalea from China, with a key to the Asian species (Diptera, Hybotidae).
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Description of three new species of Platypalpus Macquart from Guangdong (Diptera: Hybotidae, Tachydromiinae)
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Revision of Elaphropeza Macquart from Guangdong (Diptera: Hybotidae, Tachydromiinae)
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The Evolution of Cattle Husbandry Practices in the Roman Period in Gallia Belgica and Western Germania Inferior.
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Turning off the DRIP (‘Data-rich, information-poor’) – rationalising monitoring with a focus on marine renewable energy developments and the benthos.
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Taphonomy and palaeoecology of the lower Miocene marine vertebrate assemblage of Ullujaya (Chilcatay Formation, East Pisco Basin, southern Peru)
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Phénologie des abeilles sauvages dans le Parc National de la Kibira au Burundi (Hymenoptera: Apoidea)
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Developing, testing and demonstrating onshore storage of CO2: First results from the ENOS field sites
