The latest Ursus spelaeus in Italy,a new contribution to the extinction chronology of the cave bear

The skeleton of a young prime adult cave bear, Ursus spelaeus, was found in Chiostraccio Cave (Siena, Tuscany, central Italy), only slightly buried under rock falls. The specimen was dated yielding a conventional age of 24,030 ± 100 ¹⁴C yr BP (29,200–28,550 cal yr BP), which makes it the latest known representative of the species in Italy. The skeleton was accompanied by the remains of wolf (Canis lupus), wild boar (Sus scrofa), aurochs (Bos primigenius), red deer (Cervus elaphus), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), bat (Vespertinus murinus), and crow (Corvus monedula). The site seems confirming that the latest Italian U. spelaeus populations shared the risk of intrusion. The association of the cave bear with other animals suggests that the assemblage is an attritional palimpsest of remains of different species not originally associated in life. Cave bears were probably more vegetarian than brown bears and possibly became extinct when plant productivity dropped at the onset of MIS 2. Central and southern Italy may have offered isolated and sheltered refugia for cave bears.     

The Ñuagapua alluvial fan sequence: Early and Late Holocene human-induced changes in the Bolivian Chaco?

The Quebrada Ñaguapua alluvial fan provides a record of changes that have affected the Bolivian Chaco during the Holocene. The 4th oldest Unit, possibly related to the last glaciation, is restricted to the fan apex; it was deeply dissected during the Early Holocene, with three other units emplaced within the resultant incision. Sandy sediments characterise Unit 1 and 3 while Unit 2 is a forest soil that marks a period of stability. The oldest Unit 1 was deposited just before 6900 years BP. It contains artefacts that represent the earliest evidence of human occupation and suggests that deposition was perhaps induced by deforestation. Anthropogenic deforestation is evident at the base of Unit 3, which contains a wooden plank (140 years BP), charcoal, ash and charred tree-trunks. Some trunks have been burnt in situ while others survived the fire and are still growing, although their roots emanate from Unit 2. Although, similar events slightly to the north have been attributed to climatic changes, the delay in soil erosion in closely spaced areas could be plausibly attributed to human-induced changes. Megafaunal remains in Unit 1 represent the last occurrence of megafauna, including horse, in South America. The faunal association is anomalous because of the concurrent presence of aquatic, forest and open-environment species. We suggest that the last migrated from the southern part of Continent, where ecologic conditions allowed their survival in the Early Holocene, after the widespread clearing of the natural forest and shortly prior to the extinction of the Magafauna.     

The Mesozoic continental rifting in the Mediterranean area: insights from the Verrucano tectofacies of southern Tuscany (Northern Apennines,Italy)

In the Alpine-Mediterranean region, the continental redbeds and shallow-marine siliciclastics related to the early depositional phases of the Late Permian-Mesozoic continental rifting are referred to as the most common representative of the “Verrucano tectofacies”. The Verrucano-type successions exposed in southern Tuscany are diachronous, spanning from Triassic to earliest Jurassic in age, and accumulated within the Tuscan domain, a paleogeographic region of continental crust that due to the opening of the Piedmont–Ligurian ocean formed part of the Adria passive-margin. They belong to the metamorphic Verrucano Group and the non-metamorphic Pseudoverrucano fm. Viewed overall, these Verrucano-type successions appear to manifest five episodes or pulses of an ongoing continental rifting. With the exception of the first episode that developed entirely within a terrestrial setting, each one is represented by basal Verrucano-type continental siliciclastics overlain by compositionally mixed marine deposits, which resulted from four diachronous, post-Middle Triassic transgressions. This suite of tectonic pulses produced the progressive westward widening (backstepping) of the Tuscan domain in the rifting south-Tuscany area.     

Evidence of site amplification from ground motion of the last two large crustal earthquakes in central-western Argentina

Natural Hazards - The present study has investigated site amplification effects from the analysis of peak ground accelerations (PGA) and spectral accelerations (SA) of the last two major crustal...     

Seismic waves generated by oscillating buildings: analysis of a release test

A three-stories, base-isolated building located in Rapolla (Potenza, Italy) was tested with a snap-back experiment. Free-field measures were performed using 3D seismometers, located at 10 and 50 m from the buildings in direction of motion and at 10 m from the building in direction transverse to the motion. At each measurement point it was possible to separate the soil amplification effects from two source terms, due to the base-isolated building and to the reaction block. The ground motion was noticeable: at 10 m in the longitudinal direction it was comparable with a small size, near-field earthquake.     

Quantum-mechanical modeling of minerals at high pressures. The role of the Hamiltonian in a case study: the beryl (Al4Be6Si12O36)

Ab initio calculations of the beryl structure at room and higher pressures, and of its equation of state, have been performed both at the Hartree–Fock (HF) and density functional (DFT) level. In the latter case, three different hybrid HF/DFT Hamiltonians have been employed, in which the exact non-local exchange contribution increases from 20% (B3LYP Hamiltonian, indicated with the symbol F20) to 50% (F50) and 60% (F60). Within the DFT series, the equilibrium volume (V ₀) increases as the HF exchange contribution decreases; with respect to the experimental datum, F20 overestimates V ₀ by 2.9%, whereas F60 underestimates it by 0.9%; F50 (and HF) volume is very close to the experimental datum (error less than −0.1%). All four Hamiltonians overestimate the bulk modulus (K ₀); with respect to the experimental datum (obtained in the present work) [K ₀=179(1) GPa], the F20 Hamiltonian leads to the smallest error (+2.7%); the corresponding errors for the F50, F60 and HF Hamiltonians are +13.2, +16.2 and +16.3%, respectively. In the case of F20, in spite of the small error in K ₀, the relatively large error in V ₀ leads to an incorrect P(V) equation of state, which significantly overestimates the pressure at a given volume, compared to the experimental one at the same volume; the maximum error in the pressure range investigated is at the largest pressure (P _max=26.4 GPa) and amounts to +34.8%. The corresponding errors for the F50, F60 and HF Hamiltonians are +12.9, +5.7 and +15.5%.     

Probabilistic evaluation of the physical impact of future tephra fallout events for the Island of Vulcano,Italy

A first probabilistic scenario-based hazard assessment for tephra fallout is presented for La Fossa volcano (Vulcano Island, Italy) and subsequently used to assess the impact on the built environment. Eruption scenarios are based upon the stratigraphy produced by the last 1000 years of activity at Vulcano and include long–lasting Vulcanian and sub-Plinian eruptions. A new method is proposed to quantify the evolution through time of the hazard associated with pulsatory Vulcanian eruptions lasting from weeks to years, and the increase in hazard related to typical rainfall events around Sicily is also accounted for. The impact assessment on the roofs is performed by combining a field characterization of the buildings with the composite European vulnerability curves for typical roofing stocks. Results show that a sub-Plinian eruption of VEI 2 is not likely to affect buildings, whereas a sub-Plinian eruption of VEI 3 results in 90 % of the building stock having a ≥12 % probability of collapse. The hazard related to long-lasting Vulcanian eruptions evolves through time, and our analysis shows that the town of Il Piano, located downwind of the preferential wind patterns, is likely to reach critical tephra accumulations for roof collapse 5–9 months after the onset of the eruption. If no cleaning measures are taken, half of the building stock has a probability >20 % of suffering roof collapse.     

Spring thermal resources for grapevine in Kőszeg (Hungary) deduced from a very long pictorial time series (1740–2009)

Since 1740 until now, the Book of Vine Branches encompasses beautiful pictorial representations of shoots and sprouts, collected every year on April 24th in the vineyards of the Hungarian town of K?szeg. A long time series (1740–2009) of sprouts phenological development coded with the BBCH scale is obtained through paintings visual inspection. Consequently, a model relating sprouts development with thermal resources accumulation is developed on the base of Wien daily air temperature series for the 1857–2009 period. Thermal resources is obtained with the Normal Heat Hours approach, a response curve method that takes into account the nonlinear response of phenological development to temperature. The model, calibrated and validated on the 1930–2009 period, shows an overestimation of thermal resources when applied to the 1857–1929, due to the more advanced phenology of that phase. Since this advance can be ascribed to genetics and management instead of more favorable thermal conditions, model outputs previous to 1930 are decreased by a constant factor. Finally, the 1740–2009 time series of grapevine spring thermal resources is obtained applying the model to the complete phenological time series. The analysis of the series highlights a first phase (1740–1780) characterized by high and stable availability of thermal resources during the 1740–1780, a second phase (1781–1820) with the lowest level of resources, a phase of intermediate availability (1821–1929) and a final present phase (1930–2009) with renewed high availability. The adopted method overcomes the lack of correlation for the post 1960 period shown by previous works.