The Earth mantle convects on a global scale, coupling the stress field at every point to every other location at an instant. This way, any change in the buoyancy field has an immediate impact on the convection patterns worldwide. At the same time, mantle convection couples to processes at scales of a few kilometers or even a few hundred meters. Dynamic topography and the geoid are examples of such small-scale expressions of mantle convection. Also, the depth of phase transitions varies locally, ...
Feb 08, 20160
The mitochondria of non-bilaterian metazoans display a staggering diversity of genome organizations and also a slow rate of mtDNA evolution, unlike bilaterians, which may hold a key to understand the early evolution of the animal mitochondrion. Octocorals are unique members of Phylum Cnidaria, harboring several atypical mitochondrial genomic features, including a paucity of tRNA genes, various genome arrangements and the presence of novel putative mismatch repair gene (mtMutS) with various poten...
Dec 21, 20150
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Dec 09, 20150
Someday in 2007, the world population reached a historical landmark: for the first time in human history, more than half of the world´s population was urban. A stagnation of this urbanization process is not in sight, so that by 2050, already 70 percent of humankind is projected to live in urban settlements. Over the last few decades, enormous migrations from rural hinterlands to steadily growing cities could be witnessed coming along with a dramatic growth of the world’s urban population. The sp...
Nov 04, 20150
Sponges are simple animals that mostly inhabit the marine ecosystem. The role of sponges in the marine ecosystem and the potential of their bioactive compounds for the pharmaceutical industry have already been reviewed. Because of the extensive investigations of sponges within those two disciplines, marine ecology and chemistry, sponges are among the best-studied Metazoa. Likewise, sponges have been selected as animal models for investigating the origin of the multicellularity because sponges ha...
Oct 20, 20150
Explosive volcanism is one of the most catastrophic material failure phenomena. During magma ascent, fragmentation produces particulate magma, which, if deposited above the glass transition of the interstitial melt, will sinter viscously. In-conduit tuffisites, conduit wall breccias and ash deposited from exceptionally hot pyroclastic flows are scenarios in which sintering by viscous flow is possible. Therefore, understanding the kinetics of sintering and the characteristic timescales over which...
Sep 23, 20150
This dissertation explores the effects of pressure on the magnetic remanence of iron-nickel and iron-silicon alloys relevant to the solid inner cores of the terrestrial planets and Earth’s moon. The Earth’s inner core likely comprises mostly pure iron in a hexagonal close packed (hcp) structure. Experiments on pure iron powder and foil were carried out up to 21 GPa at room temperature. The most important conclusion from this work is that either hcp-iron is ferromagnetic or that a poorly understo...
Jul 17, 20150
Bereits zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts entwickelte Alfred Wegener seine allgemein bekannte Rekonstruktion der Kontinente, indem er die Fragmente kontinentaler Kruste durch Schließung der großen Ozeane entlang ihrer heutigen Küstenlinien zusammenfügte, so dass alle Kontinente zu einer Landmasse vereint waren. Den resultierenden Superkontinent nannte er "Pangäa" (Wegener, 1920). In dieser Rekonstruktion liegen sich Nord- und Südamerika gegenüber und Nordwestafrika grenzt an die Südostküste Nordame...
Jul 08, 20150
Biological carbonate hard tissues, such as the shell of the bivalve Mytilus edulis, are composites of biopolymers and minerals. M. edulis has two distinct layers, the outer layer consists of fibrous calcite and the inner layer is composed of nacreous aragonite. Close to the interface between nacreous aragonite and fibrous calcite, a 1-2 micrometer wide zone exists that consists of granular aragonite. Aragonite granules and tablets as well as calcite fibrous are embedded into matrix biopolymers. ...
May 26, 20150
May 06, 20150
Problem. More than ever, some of the biggest challenges to society involve governance of natural resources. From large-scale resource systems such as the rain forest and oceans to small-scale systems such as lakes or alpine pastures, cooperative efforts are required to ensure sustainable and yet productive use of natural resources. In Switzerland, the management of alpine pastures has for centuries been predominantly organized by local governance institutions, avoiding an overuse of the scarce r...
Apr 30, 20150
The Central Asian Orogenic Belt (CAOB) is one of the world's largest accretionary orogens, which was active during most of the Paleozoic. In recent years it has again moved into focus of the geological community debating how the acrreted lithospheric elements were geographical arranged and interacting prior and/or during the final amalgamation of Kazakhstania. In principal two families of competing models exist. One possible geodynmaic setting is based on geological evidence that a more or less ...
Apr 29, 20150
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Jul 23, 20140
The scientific investigation of the solid Earth's complex processes, including their interactions with the oceans and the atmosphere, is an interdisciplinary field in which seismology has one key role. Major contributions of modern seismology are (1) the development of high-resolution tomographic images of the Earth's structure and (2) the investigation of earthquake source processes. In both disciplines the challenge lies in solving a seismic inverse problem, i.e. in obtaining information about...
Jul 10, 20140
Remote sensing has become an essential tool to improve data collection and spatial analysis in the geosciences. Identification of passive margin structures that are exposed along the Egyptian coast of the Red Sea, and their control on landforms has been hampered by limited data resolution and restricted access to this arid and inaccessible region. A major challenge lies in distinguishing features in the landscape that formed due to long-term tectonic activity and erosion from those features that...
Jun 11, 20140
The study deals with the two main problems in geographical education: How to inform students about a spatial practicing learning and teaching and how to evaluate this form of learning in comparison to theoretical non spatial forms of learning. The classic form of spatial learning is the outdoor excursion. But there are some new and actual alternatives when realizing the former intended aims of a spatial learning, so for instance didactical pathways, field trips or field works, but also the new w...
Jun 04, 20140
May 28, 20140
Seismische Tomographie ist die eindrücklichste und intuitivste Methode, Informationen über das tiefe Erdinnere, von der Kruste bis an die Kern-Mantel-Grenze zu erlangen. Die von entfernten Erdbeben aufgezeichneten Bodenbewegungen werden mit den für ein einfaches Erdmodell vorhergesagten verglichen, um ein verbessertes Modell zu erhalten. Dieses dreidimensionale Modell kann dann geodynamisch oder tektonisch interpretiert werden. Durch die Entwicklung leistungsfähiger Computersysteme kann die Ausb...
Apr 16, 20140
Feb 11, 20140
Summary Problem. Pesticides play an important role in the agricultural production but their misuse affect the health of farmers and workers who manipulate such toxic substances. In the field of occupational hygiene, researches have been working in finding out the most appropriate method to estimate the human exposure in order to assess the risk and therefore to take the due decisions to improve the processes in the pesticide management and to reduce the health risk. Goals. The goal of this resea...
Feb 07, 20140
Jan 15, 20140
In order to increase our understanding of magma mixing processes and their impact on the geochemical evolution of silicate melt we present in the following works, the first set of experiments performed using natural basaltic and rhyolitic melts. In particular, we investigate the interplay of physical dynamics and chemical exchanges between these two melts using time-series mixing experiments performed under controlled, chaotic, dynamical conditions. The variation of major and trace elements is s...
Jan 14, 20140
The evolution of the vertebral column is marked by profound morphological changes that have a strong impact on organismal biology. The vital functions of the axial skeleton range from protecting the neural structures through sustaining the body posture to physiological aspects such as breathing. Archosaurs (crocodiles, birds and dinosaurs), as a group, display a striking variety of body plans and vertebral morphologies. This dissertation aims to contribute to the understanding of the pattern and...
Dec 20, 20130
Dec 18, 20130
