ALBERT

Description: Unicellular protozoans are among the oldest fossils which we can recognize from the Precambrian. Presumably, foraminiferal ancestors were among the earliest of them, but had not yet benefitted from being sheltered by a biomineralized test. During the earliest Cambrian the first agglutinating foraminifera made their first appearance in the geologic record. These “primitive” forms built their test of foreign particles held together by an organic cement. This organic cement may have been secreted by the foraminifer in cytoplasmic vacuoles as is the case with Recent agglutinating foraminifera. Yet, the capability to biomineralize calcite did not evolve until after another 60 million years when the fusulinids developed their microgranular wall. Calcitic cemented agglutinates occur even later, at the base of the Carboniferous. Thus, in the fossil record the agglutinated foraminifera occur as a twofold group with a rather distinct evolution.

Description: The Earth's stress field is composed of 4 sub-fields that are induced by 1. the gravitational force (impacts, etc; geodynamic theories on the expansion or contraction of the globe); 2. the centrifugal force of the spinning Earth (models on continental drift explaining the equatorial Alpine-Himalayan collisional mountain belt and longitudinally orientated rifts or oceans); 3. thermal convection (plate tectonic model); 4. tidal forces (extended plate tectonic model). A standard global stress field results from a combination of these four sub-stress-fields. From the existence of six otherwise inexplicable geodynamic phenomena, it has to be concluded that the standard global stress field of the present can only be an instantaneous (still) photograph of a field that constantly migrates eastwards relative to the Earth's continents. This disclosure can be explained with an extended plate tectonic model, in which the Earth's surface is subdivided by the circum-Pacific ring of subduction zones, into a Pacific area and a continental or Pangaea area with intra-Pangaea oceans (Atlantic, Indian Ocean, etc.). The Pangaea area in turn is subdivided into a North Pangaea area and a South Pangaea area. Due to the off-centre rotation of the spinning Earth around the gravitational centre of the Earth-Moon (-Sun) system (tidal forces), the lower mantle, the Pacific basin, area or state (Pacific crust = lower mantle?), the remaining states that together with the Pacific state compose the Wilson Cycle of ocean opening and closing (Rift/Red Sea state, Atlantic state, Pacific state, Collision/Himalayas state), the ocean sequence of which is permanently arranged from E to W through 360° around the globe, and the standard global stress field as an expression of the Wilson Cycle, are constantly displaced eastwards relative to the upper mantle, the continents or the North and South Pangaea areas with Intra-Pangaea oceans, completing one full turn around the globe in 200 to 250 my (principle of hypocycloid gearing). The continents migrate westwards around the globe and around the Pacific basin in the N and S hemispheres, through sequences of plate tectonic settings of the Oceanic or Wilson Cycle that possess distinct regional stress fields as parts of the standars global stress field, or else the continents are subjected to eastward migrating sequences of settings with distinct regional stress fields as parts of the Wilson Cycle/standard global stress field. By rotations and N-S migrations of the individual continents dissected in all directions by groups of parallel structural planes (fracture systems) through the standard global stress field, the orientation of which is aligned with the spinning Earth's axis and equator and that constantly migrates eastwards relative to the continents, the amount and nature of stress (compression, tension, shearing) a given fracture system is subjected to is constantly altered and the tectonic activity may gradually be transferred from the system under consideration to another fracture system, with slightly different strike directions. Every 400 to 500 my or each Pangaea Cycle (two complete W-E/E-W displacements around the globe between the continents/Pangaea areas with Intra-Pangaea Oceans/upper mantle on the one side and the lower mantle/Pacific basin/ sequence of ocean states and local stress fields of the Wilson Cycle and the standard global stress field on the other) the inhomogeneous standard global stress field is reversed in the N-S direction. Any model proposing the long-time existence of extended lineaments or fracture systems that do not end at the margin of the respective continent or at an orogen/suture zone/former continental margin, in the event of being older than the respective orogenesis, but which cross the surrounding ocean or the younger orogen and continue in the neighbouring continents or former independent continents or even encompass the whole globe, and which puts foreward simultaneous tectonic activity along the whole length of such lineament or fracture system and proposes their longevity or permanent existence, contradicts the physical laws that are the foundation of plate tectonics and mobilism.

Description: Marine biological resources in general and biological resources of the deep sea and the deep seabed in particular are threatened by a variety of human activities. Those activities considered marine scientific research and related activities such as scientific sampling and bioprospecting can pose a threat to the conservation of these biological resources if performed in an unrestricted manner. Whether legal rules on marine scientific research should be applicable to highly commercial activities such as bioprospecting is doubtful. The current legal regulations provided by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and the Convention on Biological Diversity are not designed to provide for an adequate regime on the protection of biological resources in areas located outside national sovereignty. As a result, a new treaty on the protection and sustainable use of marine biological resources located outside national jurisdiction is necessary and must focus upon a common heritage approach. An institutional framework for such a regime can either be newly established together with an agreement or be established by an existing institution e.g. the International Seabed Authority.

Description: A new method is presented for rapid and selective enrichment of radium in natural samples using 225Ra as a chemical yield tracer. The new technique allows a complete separation of the target nuclide from the sample matrix with high separation factors for thorium and uranium. The use of EmporeÔ Radium Rad Disks combines the easy handling of column chromatography with the high selectivity and rapid extraction kinetics of solvent extraction chromatography. Following this new chemical approach, eluates are obtained which are well suited for a-spectrometric analysis of Ra, Th and U.