[1] The seismic cycle on a major fault involves long periods of elastic strain and stress accumulation, driven by aseismic ductile deformation at depth, ultimately released by sudden fault slip events. Coseismic slip distributions are generally heterogeneous with most of the energy being released in the rupture of asperities. Since, on the long term, the fault’s walls generally do not accumulat...

Rayleigh distillation models are developed to describe theoretical growth zoning of Lu, Hf, Rb, Sr, Sm, and Nd in typical garnet crystals from metapelites and metabasites. Effects of diffusion-limited transport within the matrix and intracrystalline diffusion are also considered qualitatively. Theoretical zoning profiles show strong depletions of Lu in garnet rims compared to cores, but virtual...

bacterial culturability and abundance in an alpine soil. (manuscript) isolated from alpine and forest soils. Int. Dr. F. Gich has supervised the diploma-thesis from H. Hoffelner who has contributed the alpine soil sample, the data for the ATP activity in soil slurries, the data of the preliminary tests for detachment of soil bacteria from soil particles, and has produced the MicroDrop cultures....

Alpine regions are moving into the focus of scientific attention: chapter 13 of Agenda 21 is dedicated to mountains, 2002 was declared «International Year of the Mountain» and German Geographers' Day 2003 was entitled «Alpine World Mountain World: Islands, Bridges, Borders». The sustainable preservation of alpine regions represents a global issue, because a tenth of the world's population lives...

Soil freezing-thawing cycle may substantially influence soil physical properties, microbial activity, and the rates of carbon and nitrogen cycling in soils. In this study, the soil water soluble organic C, N (WSOC, WSON) as well as microbial biomass C, N (MBC, MBN) of two alpine grassland types, alpine meadow and alpine steppe, were investigated after freezing-thawing cycles in a grassland land...

Due to changes in the global climate, isolated alpine sites have become one of the most vulnerable habitats worldwide. The indigenous fauna in these habitats is threatened by an invasive species, dwarf pine (Pinus mugo), which is highly competitive and could be important in determining the composition of the invertebrate community. In this study, the association of species richness and abundanc...

PURPOSE Ocular melanin synthesis modulates rod photoreceptor production, because in albino eyes, rod numbers are reduced by approximately 30%. In this study, rod numbers and ocular rhodopsin concentrations were measured in intermediate pigmentation phenotypes to determine whether proportional reductions in melanin are correlated with proportional changes in rod numbers. Further, patterns of cel...