Late Ordovician cephalopods,tentaculitides, machaeridians and echinoderms from Kuh-e Faraghan,High Zagros,Iran

Ghavidel-Syooki, M., Evans, D.H., Ghobadi Pour, M., Popov, L.E., Álvaro, J.J., Rakhmonov, U., Klishevich, I.A. & Ehsani, M.D., 15.5.2015. Late Ordovician cephalopods, tentaculitides, machaeridians and echinoderm columnals from Kuh-e Faraghun, High Zagros, Iran. Alcheringa 39, 530–549. ISSN 0311-5518.

Late Ordovician (Katian, uppermost Acanthochitina barbata to Armoricochitina nigerica chitinozoan zones) cephalopods, tentaculitides, machaeridians and echinoderms are documented for the first time from the southern Zagros Ranges. A low-diversity cephalopod fauna includes Geisonocerina dargazense sp. nov., Isorthoceras sp. cf. I. bisignatum (Barrande) and other undetermined orthoceratides. The presence of Late Ordovician tentaculitides in the high- to mid-latitude margins of Gondwana has been documented previously, but no examples have been described in detail. Thus, Costatulites kimi sp. nov., which currently occurs associated with brachiopods characteristic of the Svobodaina havliceki (brachiopod) Association, represents the earliest undoubted record of tentaculitides in Gondwana. Machaeridians constitute a relatively common component of the Late Ordovician benthic faunas from the Mediterranean margin of Gondwana, but no previous records on the Gondwanan Iranian-Arabian segment have been reported. Three echinoderm taxa based on dissociated columnals are documented from the Armoricochitina nigerica chitinozoan Zone, including Sumsaricystis radiatus Stukalina, Ristnacrinus sp. and Rosulicrinus rosulus Stukalina.

Mohammad Ghavidel-Syooki [m_ghavidelsyooki@yahoo.com] Institute of Petroleum Engineering, Technical Faculty of Tehran University, PO Box 11365-4563, Tehran, Iran; David H. Evans [david.evans@naturalengland.org.uk], Natural England, Suite D, Unex House, Bourges Boulevard, Peterborough PE1 1NG, UK; Mansoureh Ghobadi Pour* [mghobadipour@yahoo.co.uk], Department of Geology, Faculty of Sciences, Golestan University, Gorgan, Iran; Leonid E. Popov [leonid.popov@museumwales.ac.uk], Department of Geology, National Museum of Wales, Cathays Park, Cardiff CF10 3NP, UK; J. Javier Álvaro [jj.alvaro@csic.es], Instituto de Geociencias (CSIC-UCM), c/ José Antonio Novais 2, 28040 Madrid, Spain; Utkyr Rakhmonov, Kitab State Geological Reserve, 9 Ipak Yuli Street, Sakhrisabz, Uzbekistan; Inna A. Klishevich, Department of Historical Geology, Geological Faculty, St Petersburg State University, Universitetskaya Naberezhnaya 7/9, 199034 St Petersburg, Russia [inna@IK4848.spb.edu]; Mohammad H. Ehsani [mh_ehsani@hotmail.com], Institute of Petroleum Engineering, Technical Faculty of Tehran University, PO Box 11365-4563, Tehran, Iran. *Also affiliated with Department of Geology, National Museum of Wales, Cathays Park, Cardiff CF10 3NP, UK.     

The Atlantic Empires in the Eighteenth Century

Spanish America; John J. Tepaske     

Seeing like a factory: Technocratic nationalism in Catalonia, 1930–1939

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the role of Catalan industrial engineers in the making of a stateless nation (within Spain) in the interwar period. After the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939), a home rule for Catalonia was established. In this context, the members of the Barcelona Association of Industrial Engineers developed a techno–nationalist program with the double goal of both making technology Catalan and making Catalonia technological. As an alleged ‘third class’ between the working and ruling classes, industrial engineers sought to use their expertise in scientifically managing the workshop to organize the whole nation. They participated in professional initiatives and official institutions from which they spread the ‘factory ideals’ beyond the factory, such as efficiency, rationalization and statistical monitoring. This paper focuses on the nationalist and technocratic engagement of two leading (and politically diverging) industrial engineers: socialist Estanislau Ruiz-Ponsetí and liberal Josep M. Tallada.     

Hallucinations and Pathological Visual Perceptions in Maupassant's Fantastical Short Stories- A Neurological Approach

Maupassant excelled as a realist writer of the nineteenth century, with fantastical short stories being an outstanding example of his literary genius. We have analysed four of his fantastical stories from a neurological point of view. In “Le Horla,” his masterpiece, we have found nightmares, sleep paralysis, a hemianopic pattern of loss and recovery of vision, and palinopsia. In “Qui sait” and in “La main” there is also an illusory movement of the objects in the visual field, although in a dreamlike complex pattern. In “Lui,” autoscopy and hypnagogic hallucinations emerge as fantastical key elements.

The writer suffered from severe migraine and neurosyphilis involving the optic nerve, which led to his death by general paralysis of the insane (GPI). Visual loss and visual hallucinations affected the author in his last years, before a delirant state confined him to a nursing home. Our original hypothesis, which stated that he could have translated his sensorial experiences coming from this source to his works, had to be revised by analyzing some of his earliest works, notably “Le Docteur Héraclius Gloss” and “La main d’écorché” (1875). We found hallucinatory symptoms, adopting the form of autoscopy and other elaborated visual misperceptions, in stories written at age 25, when Maupassant was allegedly healthy. Therefore, we hypothesize that they may be related to his hypersensitive disposition, assuming that no pathology is necessary to experience such vivid experiences. In addition, Maupassant's abuse of drugs, as illustrated in “Rêves,” could have provided an additional element to outline his painstaking visual depictions. All these factors, in addition to his up-to-date neurological knowledge and attendance at Charcot's lectures at “La Salpêtrière,” armed the author for repetitive and enriched hallucinatory experiences, which were transferred relentlessly into his works from the beginning of his career.     

La Sicilia dei Moncada. Le corti,l'arte e la cultura nei secoli XVI–XVII

In the last few decades many studies have underlined the role of philhellenism in shaping the Risorgimento as a transnational movement. But philhellenism also had a significant impact in embodying the pre-unification Italian state in a new imaginative framework, marked by the binary oppositions of civilized/barbarian, liberal/despotic and north/south. This article analyses the influence of philhellenism in shaping the imagery of the Kingdom of Sardinia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the role played by this local imagery in promoting opposing patriotisms within the national political sphere in the years leading up to the unification of Italy. Cavour’s moderate party stressed the positive impact of the Piedmontese domination over the island of Sardinia in order to underline Piedmont's image as a force of modernization of a land strongly marked by feudal despotism and pastoral violence. By contrast, Mazzini and the democrats also deployed a philhellenic narrative scheme to explain the backwardness of Sardinia with reference to the despotic and ‘oriental’ character of the Piedmontese domination in an attempt to encourage opposition to unification under the leadership of the subalpine government.     

The experiments of Ramón M. Termeyer SJ on the electric eel in the River Plate region (c. 1760) and other early accounts of Electrophorus electricus

This paper focuses on Ramón M. Termeyer SJ (1737-1814?), a naturalist who experimented with the electric eel in the River Plate region during the 1760s. After going through an enumeration of the chroniclers that since the sixteenth century noticed the benumbing discharge of Electrophorus electricus, the article summarizes the work that immediately preceded Termeyer's and considers as a term of comparison the experiments on the electric eel performed by Bertrand Bajon (fl. 1751-1778) in the French Guyanne. It ends by discussing the meaning of Termeyer's 1781 and 1810 articles in the light of contemporary ideas of animal electricity.     

Land Tenure and Food Security: Exploring Dynamic Linkages

Land tenure and food security have each been the subject of extensive—but generally separate—research in the past. Links between the two issues are now receiving increased attention, yet critical links between them remain unexplored. After a brief review of the two concepts, this article combines both issues within a dynamic framework that recognizes not just the conventional link between access to land and access to food in the short run, but also the recursive link between access to food and the ability to maintain sufficient resources to meet long-run needs. Such a framework makes explicit the trade-offs that poor households may face in bad years between consumption and investment in non-labour assets. Perhaps less intuitively, it also suggests that the need for self-insurance may force poor households to choose less efficient crops or production strategies than wealthier households even in good years. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of these results for equity, efficiency, research, and policy.     

Milling Cereals/Legumes and Stamping Bread in Mauretanian Tamuda (Morocco): An Interdisciplinary Study

African Archaeological Review - Recent archaeological excavations (2016–2019) in the city of Tamuda (northern Morocco) yielded evidence of commercial milling and bread-making facilities dated...     

From deep to shallow fluid reservoirs: evolution of fluid sources during exhumation of the Sierra Almagrera,Betic Cordillera,Spain

The combination of structural, geochemical and palaeotopographic data proves to be an efficient tool to understand fluid transfers in the crust. This study discriminates shallow and deep fluid reservoirs on both sides of the brittle–ductile transition under an extensional regime and points out the role of major transcurrent fault activity in this palaeohydrogeological setting. Palaeofluids trapped in quartz and siderite–barite veins record the transfer of fluids and metal solute species during the Neogene exhumation of the Sierra Almagrera metamorphic belt. Ductile then brittle–ductile extensional quartz veins formed from a deep fluid reservoir, trapping metamorphic secondary brines containing low‐density volatile phases derived from the dissolution of Triassic evaporites. During exhumation, low‐salinity fluids percolated within the brittle domain, as shown by transgranular fluid inclusion planes affecting previous veins. These observations indicate the opening of the system during Serravalian to early Tortonian times and provide evidence for the penetration of surficial fluids of meteoric or basinal origin into the upper part of the brittle–ductile transition. During exhumation, synsedimentary transcurrent tectonic processes occurred from late Tortonian times onwards, while marine conditions prevailed at the Earth's surface. At depth in the brittle domain, quartz veins associated with haematite record a return to high‐salinity fluid circulation suggesting an upward transfer fed from a lower reservoir. During the Messinian, ongoing activity of the trans‐Alboran tectono‐volcanic trend led to the formation of ore deposits. Reducing fluids caused the formation of siderite and pyrite ores. The subsequent formation of galena and barite may be related to an increase of temperature. The high salinity and Cl/Br ratio of the fluids suggest another source of secondary brine derived from dissolved Messinian evaporites, as corroborated by the δ³⁴S signature of barite. These evaporites preceded the main sea‐level drop related to the peak of the salinity crisis (5.60–5.46 Ma).