Ultramafic vegetation and soils in the circumboreal region of the Northern Hemisphere

The paper summarizes literature on climate, soil chemistry, vegetation and metal accumulation by plants found on ultramafic substrata in the circumboreal zone (sensu Takhtajan, Floristic regions of the world, 1986) of the Northern Hemisphere. We present a list of 50 endemic species and 18 ecotypes obligate to ultramafic soils from the circumboreal region of Holarctic, as well as 30 and 2 species of Ni and Zn hyperaccumulators, respectively. The number of both endemics and hyperaccumulators are markedly lower compared to that of the Mediterranean and tropical regions. The diversity of plant communities on ultramafics soils of the circumboral region is also described. The underlying causes for the differences of ultramafic flora between arctic, cold, cool temperate and Mediterranean and tropical regions are also discussed. © 2018, The Ecological Society of Japan

Simultaneous magnetotelluric and magnetovariation soundings in the western slope of the Voronezh massif

This paper presents the international project KIROVOGRAD studying the geoelectrical structure of the western slope of the Voronezh Massive in Russia and Ukraine by means of the advanced simultaneous deep electromagnetic sounding array with natural field excitation and geological and geophysical analysis of the nature of the revealed crustal conducting anomalies. We discuss the history, goals, tasks and organizing structure of the project, methodical and technological innovations applied, the achieved results and perspective plans. Maps of the most important invariants of magnetotelluric and magnetovariational transfer functions are presented in the area from the Mos- cow Syncline to the Dnepr-Donetsk Trough and from Belorussian borders to the railway Moscow-Kharkov. Geoelectrical sections along the series of profiles and maps of sedimentary and crustal conductance obtained from 2D+ and quasi-3D data interpretations are shown. The complex junction of three quasi-linear crustal anomalies - Kirovograd, Kursk and Kirov-Bariatino is demonstrated