The Messinian Sicilian stratigraphy revisited: new insights for the Messinian salinity crisis

Controversies around the Messinian salinity crisis (MSC) are because of the difficulties in establishing genetic and stratigraphic relationships between its deep and shallow‐water record. Actually, the Sicilian foreland basin shows both shallow and deep‐water Messinian records, thus offering the chance to reconstruct comprehensive MSC scenarios. The Lower Gypsum of Sicily comprises primary and resedimented evaporites separated in space and time by the intra‐Messinian unconformity. A composite unit including halite, resedimented gypsum and Calcare di Base accumulated between 5.6 and 5.55 Ma in the main depocentres; it records the acme of the Messinian Salinity Crisis during a tectonic phase coupled with sea‐level falls at glacials TG14‐TG12. These deposits fully post‐date primary gypsum, which precipitated in shallow‐water wedge‐top and foreland ramp basins between 5.96 and 5.6 Ma. This new stratigraphic framework results in a three‐stage MSC scenario characterized by different primary evaporite associations: selenite in the first and third stages, carbonate, halite and potash salt in the second one associated with hybrid resedimented evaporites.     

Modern swathe sounding and sub-bottom profiling technology for research applications: The Atlas Hydrosweep and Parasound Systems

This chapter describes two separate but complementary research echosounder systems originally developed by Krupp Atlas Elektronik GmbH for the new German oceanographic research vessel Meteor.The Hydrosweep is a Hydrographic wide-swathe sweep survey echosounder for both shallow and deep water applications providing accurate bathymetric surveys and terrain-following navigation capabilities.The Parasound system is a hull-mounted dual channel parametric narrow-beam deep sea survey and sub-bottom profiling echosounder enabling particularly high vertical and horizontal resolution of seabed features.     

Mauer – the type site of Homo heidelbergensis: palaeoenvironment and age

The mandible of Homo heidelbergensis was found 1907 in the sand pit Grafenrain at Mauer in coarse fluvial sands 24 m below the surface, deposited in a former course of the Neckar River. These ‘Mauer sands’ are overlain by a series of glacial-climate loess deposits with intercalated interglacial palaeosols, which can be correlated with Quaternary climate history, thus indicating an early Middle Pleistocene age for H. heidelbergensis. The ‘Mauer sands’ are famous for their rather rich mammal fauna, which clearly indicates interglacial climate conditions. The faunal evidence – in particular the micromammals – place the ‘Mauer sands’ into MIS 15 or MIS 13 although most stratigraphic arguments favour correlation to MIS 15 and therefore to an age of ca 600 ka.     

Iron metal production in silicate melts through the direct reduction of Fe(II) by Ti(III), Cr(II), and Eu(II)

The production of metallic iron in silicate melts by the chemical reactions, 2Ti³⁺_(melt) + Fe²⁺_(melt) → 2Ti⁴⁺_(melt) + Fe⁰_(crystal)2Cr²⁺_(melt) + Fe²⁺_(melt) → 2Cr³⁺_(melt) + Fe⁰_(crystal)2Eu²⁺_(melt)+ Fe²⁺_(melt) → 2Eu³⁺_(melt) + Fe⁰_(crystal) has been demonstrated under experimental conditions in a simplified basaltic liquid, Such reactions may occur in lunar basalts and other reduced systems, and, thus, may aid in the understanding of the reduced nature of lunar basalts. The reactions were studied in a glass-forming Na-Ca-Mg-Al-silicate composition at a melt temperature of 1250°C and an imposed oxygen fugacity at the C/CO buffer (1 atm total pressure). Microtitrations of individually-doped samples were used in the quantitative assessment of their redox ratios and for the calibration of visible and near-infrared spectral absorptions. These spectral absorptions were then applied to the evaluation of the mutual redox interactions in dual-doped samples.     

Stream overflow and dwarf nova eruptions

We consider the effects of accretion stream overflow on the viscous dynamics of accretion discs in dwarf novae. If the stream from the secondary star is geometrically thick enough, some fraction of its material can flow over and under the disc. The mass and specific angular momentum of the stream are then deposited not only at the point of collision with the outer disc, but also at those radii in the inner disc with geometric heights that are large enough to intercept the residual stream, or near the radius where the disc has the same specific angular momentum as the stream. The overflowing stream can alter the behaviour of heating fronts and cooling fronts in the disc. If the mass fraction of the overflowing stream is of order tens of per cent, the deposition of mass in the inner parts of the disc is sufficient to change the character of the eruption light curves significantly.