Lithological Units of Glaciolacustrine Border during the last glaciation in the Jura Range (France)

Dunng the last glacial period (Würm), the Jura range was covered by an ice cap independent of the alpine cap; its length was about 100 km in the NE-SW direction and 40 km in the SE-NW direction. From up-stream, basal tills may be noted, progressively going along to ablation tills, then to coarse deltaic cones and finally to laminated small sized deposits. Numerous sedimentary structures are described in each of the lithologicál units, showing the glacial effect in the formation of these deposits

Efectos de la temperatura sobre las características físicas de granos actuales de Chenopodium quinoa Willd (quínoa)

La quínoa forma parte de la dieta de numerosas poblaciones andinas desde momentos prehispánicos hasta hoy y su consumo requiere la desaponificación de los granos mediante el escarificado y/o lavado. En Argentina se han registrado restos disecados y carbonizados de esta planta en distintos contextos arqueológicos. Teniendo esto en cuenta, el objetivo de este trabajo es describir el estado de preservación y los efectos de la temperatura sobre las características físicas de granos actuales de quínoa luego de ser sometidos a exposiciones térmicas controladas en laboratorio. Esta experimentación permite concluir que a bajas temperaturas, no se observan indicios macroscópicos de la acción del calor sobre los granos pero sí variaciones de tamaño, mientras que a mayores valores de temperatura el calor ocasiona modificaciones que se aprecian a simple vista. Estas observaciones alertan sobre la importancia de generar colecciones de referencia útiles al momento de realizar interpretaciones arqueológicasThe quinoa is part of the Andean population’s diet since pre-Hispanic times until the present. Its consumption requires the desaponification by scarifying and/or washing the grains. Charred and dry preserved remains of this plant have been found in Argentine in different archaeological contexts. Considering this, the aim of this paper is to describe the preservation state and the effects of the temperature on the physical features of current quinoa grains after controlled thermal exposures in the laboratory. The results of this experimentation show that the macroscopic traces of heat on grains cannot be observed in low temperatures, but it is possible to see the variations of size, while higher temperature produces macroscopic alterations on the grains. These observations alert about the importance of useful reference collections in archaeological interpretation

Calculations of 6^{6}He+p elastic scattering cross sections using folding approach and high-energy approximation for the optical potential

Calculations of microscopic optical potentials (OP's) (their real and imaginary parts) are performed to analyze the $^6$He+p elastic scattering data at a few tens of MeV/nucleon (MeV/N). The OP's and the cross sections are calculated using three model densities of $^6$He. Effects of the regularization of the NN forces and their dependence on nuclear density are investigated. Also, the role of the spin-orbit terms and of the non-linearity in the calculations of the OP's, as well as effects of their renormalization are studied. The sensitivity of the cross sections to the nuclear densities was tested and one of them that gives a better agreement with the data was chosen.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, to be published in Eur. Phys. J.

New Insight into the Colonization Processes of Common Voles: Inferences from Molecular and Fossil Evidence

Elucidating the colonization processes associated with Quaternary climatic cycles is important in order to understand the distribution of biodiversity and the evolutionary potential of temperate plant and animal species. In Europe, general evolutionary scenarios have been defined from genetic evidence. Recently, these scenarios have been challenged with genetic as well as fossil data. The origins of the modern distributions of most temperate plant and animal species could predate the Last Glacial Maximum. The glacial survival of such populations may have occurred in either southern (Mediterranean regions) and/or northern (Carpathians) refugia. Here, a phylogeographic analysis of a widespread European small mammal (Microtus arvalis) is conducted with a multidisciplinary approach. Genetic, fossil and ecological traits are used to assess the evolutionary history of this vole. Regardless of whether the European distribution of the five previously identified evolutionary lineages is corroborated, this combined analysis brings to light several colonization processes of M. arvalis. The species' dispersal was relatively gradual with glacial survival in small favourable habitats in Western Europe (from Germany to Spain) while in the rest of Europe, because of periglacial conditions, dispersal was less regular with bottleneck events followed by postglacial expansions. Our study demonstrates that the evolutionary history of European temperate small mammals is indeed much more complex than previously suggested. Species can experience heterogeneous evolutionary histories over their geographic range. Multidisciplinary approaches should therefore be preferentially chosen in prospective studies, the better to understand the impact of climatic change on past and present biodiversity