Search publications of the members of the Royal Belgian institute of natural Sciences
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The Devonian limestones of the Ardennes
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Redescription of the rugose coral Macgeea (Rozkowskaella) sandaliformis (ROZKOWSKA, 1980) from the Upper Frasnian of the Holy Cross Mountains (Poland)
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Excursion B1, Devonian coral bearing strata of the Eifel Hills and the Ardenne.
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La Carrière du Cimetière à Boussu-en-Fagne
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Sédimentologie, diagenèse et stratigraphie des biohermes de marbre rouge de la partie supérieure du Frasnien belge. Compte rendu de la Session extraordinaire des Sociétés géologiques belges les 14 et 15 septembre 1990
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La Carrière de marbre rouge de Beauchâteau: aperçu paléontologique, stratigraphique et sédimentologique
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Sédimentologie et paléoécologie de l'Emsien supérieur et de l'Eifelien inférieur des régions de Couvin et de Villers-la-Tour (bord sud du Synclinorium de Dinant, Belgique)
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Revision der rugosen Koloniekoralle Iowaphyllum rhenanum (SCHLÜTER 1880) aus dem Oberdevon des Rheinischen Schiefergebirges (Deutschland)
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Stratigraphie et systématique des Rugueux de la partie moyenne du Frasnien de Frasnes-lez-Couvin (Belgique)
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Espèces du genre Peneckiella SOSHKINA, 1939 dans le Frasnien de la Belgique
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Contribution à l'étude des rugueux frasniens de la Province du Hunan en Chine
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Le Givetien en Avesnois (Nord de la France): paléoenvironnements et implications paléogéographiques
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Extensive diversity and disparity of the early Miocene platanistoids (Cetacea, Odontoceti) in the southeastern Pacific (Chilcatay Formation, Peru)
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Monticules micritiques frasniens de la Belgique.
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Responses of Southern Ocean Seafloor Habitats and Communities to Global and Local Drivers of Change
- Knowledge of life on the Southern Ocean seafloor has substantially grown since the beginning of this century with increasing ship-based surveys and regular monitoring sites, new technologies and greatly enhanced data sharing. However, seafloor habitats and their communities exhibit high spatial variability and heterogeneity that challenges the way in which we assess the state of the Southern Ocean benthos on larger scales. The Antarctic shelf is rich in diversity compared with deeper water areas, important for storing carbon (“blue carbon”) and provides habitat for commercial fish species. In this paper, we focus on the seafloor habitats of the Antarctic shelf, which are vulnerable to drivers of change including increasing ocean temperatures, iceberg scour, sea ice melt, ocean acidification, fishing pressures, pollution and non-indigenous species. Some of the most vulnerable areas include the West Antarctic Peninsula, which is experiencing rapid regional warming and increased iceberg-scouring, subantarctic islands and tourist destinations where human activities and environmental conditions increase the potential for the establishment of non-indigenous species and active fishing areas around South Georgia, Heard and MacDonald Islands. Vulnerable species include those in areas of regional warming with low thermal tolerance, calcifying species susceptible to increasing ocean acidity as well as slow-growing habitat-forming species that can be damaged by fishing gears e.g., sponges, bryozoan, and coral species. Management regimes can protect seafloor habitats and key species from fishing activities; some areas will need more protection than others, accounting for specific traits that make species vulnerable, slow growing and long-lived species, restricted locations with optimum physiological conditions and available food, and restricted distributions of rare species. Ecosystem-based management practices and long-term, highly protected areas may be the most effective tools in the preservation of vulnerable seafloor habitats. Here, we focus on outlining seafloor responses to drivers of change observed to date and projections for the future. We discuss the need for action to preserve seafloor habitats under climate change, fishing pressures and other anthropogenic impacts.
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Sediment biogeochemistry across a permeability gradient in the Southern Bight of the North Sea: a modelling approach.
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Nutrient, pigment, suspended matter and turbidity measurements in the Belgian part of the North Sea
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Experimental approach towards the understanding of food web interactions in an offshore wind farm environment under different climate and aquaculture scenarios
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Effect of climate change on the microbiome of the blue mussel
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Understanding the Earth for the people that inhabit it: Belgian and Flemish institutes joining hands in the framework of GeoERA
- Societies rely on a secure, responsible and affordable supply of resources to meet their basic needs, in order to live life in a safe and healthy environment. The natural resources from the subsurface, i.e. groundwater, geo-energy and raw materials, represent essential elements in this provision. Safety from catastrophic events, such as those linked to earthquakes, or continuous ones, such as subsidence, can be improved by understanding the causes, frequency or rates of processes, and their impacts. These applied goals require a correct and intimate understanding of the regional geology. While geological surveys and other organisations working on the subsurface were initially very much focussed on national supply of resources, issues such as environmental consequences have increasingly come to the forefront. Europe has now become the relevant scale when considering import or export of raw materials. This results in an increasing pressure to place regional knowledge in a cross-border or pan-European context. To support cross-border, thematic research, the European Commission issued a call for an ERA-NET to which a consortium of 33 national and 15 regional organisations responded. An ERA-NET is a project that internally organises a competitive call for projects. In 2017, GeoERA officially started. After an internal call for project proposals, 15 projects were approved that receive about 30% top-up funding under H2020. The remainder of the resources comes from different sources of funding, totalling the budget to 30.3 M€. Projects are funded under the themes Geo-Energy, Raw Materials, and Ground Water. A fourth theme, Data Infrastructure, will realise the shared ambition of all projects to jointly store and publish their data on-line as an extension of country specific databases (e.g. DOV, Gisel). The starting date of the GeoERA research projects granted funding is 1 July 2018, and the projects will run for three years. Belgian and Flemish institutes involved are: the Geological Survey of Belgium (GSB), the Bureau for Environment and Spatial Development – Flanders (VPO), the Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO), Flanders Environment Agency (VMM) and the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre (SCK-CEN). Although not involved as official partner, the Geological Survey of Wallonia supports the initiative by means of data provision. The GSB is involved in seven projects, VITO, as linked third partyof VPO in two projects, VPO itself in one project, and VMM in three projects of which two will be elaborated in close cooperation with SCK-CEN, the linked third party of VMM. Together with VPO-VITO, the GSB is coordinator of GeoConnect³d, a strongly crossthematic Geo-Energy project that aims to disclose geological information for policy support and subsurface management. Other funded Geo-Energy projects in which the GSB is involved are MUSE, a project on shallow geothermal energy in European urban areas, and HIKE, on induced hazards and impacts related to the exploitation of subsurface resources throughout Europe. Under the theme Raw Materials the GSB participates in Mintell4EU, which aims to improve the European knowledge base on raw materials, as well as in FRAME, that is designed to research the critical and strategic raw materials in Europe. For groundwater the GSBeis directly involved in the HOVER project, mainly on data collection related to natural springs. VMM is also involved in HOVER, but in a work package on the distinction between anthropogenic and geogenic causes of groundwater contamination (especially how to deal with it in groundwater policy and management) with substances like arsenic. Moreover, VMM is, together with SCK-CEN, participating and leading a work package in two other Ground Water projects, namely VoGERA on investigating the vulnerability of shallow groundwater resources to deep subsurface energy-related activities, and RESOURces about harmonization of information about Europe’s groundwater resources through cross-border demonstration projects. Finally, the GIP-P project, where the GSB is work package leader, will establish a common platform for organising, disseminating and sustaining the digital results of the GeoERA projects. GeoERA is more than the occasional H2020 project. The combined efforts by the Belgian and Flemish institutes to engage in 10 different projects is a cooperative approach, with clear ambitions to demonstrate how cross-thematic research links can be set-up by different institutes, and how these can provide fruitful results for policy makers and other stakeholders. This is a notable effort in a project that is about establishing and demonstrating the added value of a European geological surveys research area, and finding how to optimally link regional, national and European efforts and interests. Acknowledgements This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 731166
