20,016 research outputs found
A CHECK-LIST OF FOSSIL CHONDRICHTHYES FROM BRIELAS (LANGHIAN, PORTUGAL)
Located in a slope of the Costa de Caparica motorway, in the peninsula of SetĂşbal, West Portugal,
the outcrop of Brielas stand out as one of the best Miocene sections of the Lower Tagus Basin to collect
a great diversity of fossil Chondrichthyes, which are cartilaginous fishes also known as selachians.
The first mention regarding this outcrop was made by Antunes and Jonet (1970), in a study focused
on the characterization of Serravalian to Tortonian shark fossil forms of Lisbon. The sediments present
in Brielas can be correlated with the geological units Vc, VIa and VIIa traditionally used for the Miocene
of Lisbon (Cotter in Dollfus et al., 1903-1904). The samples studied were taken from the unit Vc, with
approximately four meters thick and characterized by sandy-silt banks, intercalated with fossiliferous
biocalcarenites. Through 87Sr/86Sr dating (H. Elderfield) of a Pectinid shell it was determined that the
Vc unit has an age of approximately 14 ± 0,4Ma (Antunes et al., 1999), and integrates the depositional
sequence S1 (Antunes et al., 2000). The planktonic foraminifera association found by Legoinha (2001)
portrays the unit Vc as part of the biozone N9, correlative of the Langhian.
The present study aims to contribute to the improvement of the knowledge about Brielas section
and its rich marine selachian faun
Dirac points merging and wandering in a model Chern insulator
We present a model for a Chern insulator on the square lattice with complex
first and second neighbor hoppings and a sublattice potential which displays an
unexpectedly rich physics. Similarly to the celebrated Haldane model, the
proposed Chern insulator has two topologically non-trivial phases with Chern
numbers . As a distinctive feature of the present model, phase
transitions are associated to Dirac points that can move, merge and split in
momentum space, at odds with Haldane's Chern insulator where Dirac points are
bound to the corners of the hexagonal Brillouin zone. Additionally, the
obtained phase diagram reveals a peculiar phase transition line between two
distinct topological phases, in contrast to the Haldane model where such
transition is reduced to a point with zero sublattice potential. The model is
amenable to be simulated in optical lattices, facilitating the study of phase
transitions between two distinct topological phases and the experimental
analysis of Dirac points merging and wandering
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