Impure reworked evaporitic sandstones, preserved on Meridiani Planum, Mars, are mixtures of roughly equal amounts of altered siliciclastic debris, of basaltic provenance (40F10% by mass), and chemical constituents, dominated by evaporitic minerals (jarosite, Mg-, Ca-sulfatesFchloridesFFe-, Na-sulfates), hematite and possibly secondary silica (60F10%). These chemical constituents and their relat...

Chapter one Outline and Scope of this thesis, gives a brief account of the aims and scopes of the study. Chapter two General Introduction, gives an overview of the topic of study for the LeCHE research training network: dairy farming – its effects in the past and the present, and how we can study this. The last part of this chapter describes the role of the current project within the network an...

Calcified cyanobacterial microfossils are common in carbonate environments through most of the Phanerozoic, but are absent from the marine rock record over the past 65 Myr. There has been long-standing debate on the factors controlling the formation and temporal distribution of these fossils, fostered by the lack of a suitable modern analog. We describe calcified cyanobacteria filaments in a mo...

The information potentially available from biomolecules is vast, and often related to the most central concerns of archaeology. It is, however, entirely limited by the survival of such complex molecules and, further, by the sensitivity of the methods for their recovery and analysis. Recent advances in immunology, in protein chemistry and especially in the amplification of DNA sequences are begi...

We have applied correlative microscopy to identify the key constituents of a dorsal rib fossil from Koreanosaurus boseongensis and its hosting mudstone discovered at the rich fossil site in Boseong, South Korea, to investigate the factors that likely contributed to diagenesis and the preservation of fossil bone. Calcite and illite were the commonly occurring phases in the rib bone, hosting muds...

Other than halite diagenesis and organic matter degradation, Cl and Br are considered to be conservative in marine pore fluids. Consequently, Br/Cl ratios should remain constant during most diagenetic reactions. Nonetheless, Br/Cl molar ratios decrease to 1.27 3 10 ('18% less than seawater value) in pore fluids from Site 833 in the Aoba Basin of the New Hebrides convergent margin despite the la...

The Ellenburger Group of the West Texas Permian Basin is part of a Lower Ordovician carbonate platform sequence that covers a large area of the United States. During the Early Ordovician, the Permian Basin area was located on the southwest edge of the Laurentia plate between 20° and 30° latitude. The equator crossed northern Canada, situating Texas in a tropical to subtropical latitude. The are...

Chemical analyses of historical and prehistoric bone material provide us with a complex body of knowledge in bioarcheological studies. These can be used for reconstructing diet, migration, climate changes and the weaning process. The analysis of enamel, dentin and bones allows researchers to gather data on life strategies of an individual by retrospectively tracing his ontogenetic phases. This ...

The mineralogy and geochemistry of the bulk rock and clay fraction of sediments deposited at the CretaceousTertiary transition and in the KTB layer have been investigated by various methods in two sections from the Betic Cordilleras (Agost, Caravaca) and five sections from the Basque-Cantabrian Basin (Monte Urko, Sopelana, Zumaya, Hendaye, Biarritz). Active terrigenous supply prevailed in both ...