Lietuvos pajūrio geologinės sandaros pažinimas, jo geologinės raidos žinojimas, čia vykstančių geologinių procesų suvokimas neabejotinai buvo, yra ir bus ypač aktualūs. Tyrimų objektas apėmė kelių dešimčių kilometrų pločio Baltijos jūros pakrantės ruožą žemyniniame krante, Lietuvai priklausančias šiaurines Kuršių nerijos ir Kuršių marių akvatorijos dalis. Absoliutaus datavimo metodų taikymas nuosėdų ir moliuskų liekanų amžiui nustatyti, iškastinių moliuskų liekanų apibūdinimas, nauji paleobotaninių tyrimų rezultatai bei kita gausi geologinė informacija leido patikslinti Baltijos paleobaseinų vandens lygio (kranto linijos) kaitą vėlyvajame ledynmetyje ir holocene, sudaryti seriją paleogeografinių rekonstrukcijų – kartoschemų skirtingų Baltijos jūros raidos stadijų baseinams. / The Lithuanian coastal area represents a specific region of great economic and rcreational importance. This research has been focused on a few tens of kilometres of the wide continental coastal sector, the northern parts of the Curonian Spit and the Curonian Lagoonal area. The geological material and results of absolute dating collected from numerous sediment samples have served as the basis for the essential specification of the boundaries, age, genesis and palaeo-sedimentation conditions at different Baltic Sea development stages.

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This thesis compares selected beings of Baltic folklore within a nearer Balto-Slavic areal after analysing them. It defines the term "chthonic" in accord with the current traditions and supplements it with additional traits, which it verifies afterwards. Using these traits the thesis consequently determines the chthonic properties of the beings. The comparations begin with velnias/velns, a being with assumed chthonic character, which is confirmed. The core of the thesis is dedicated to aivataras, whose mythopersonyma and appearance are examined first, followed by its functionality i.e. the plots it figures in. According to the plots aitvaras and its Baltic variants are compared with East- and West Slavic beings with focus at the plots of Czech demonologic fables. This establishes aitvaras and its equivalents posses strong serpentine traits and a relation to the revered spirits of dead ancestors. The results of this comparison are compared to previous research and some differing conclusions are presented, among them a proposal of a possible etymology of the mythopersonymum "aitvaras". No significant difference on the functional level has been discovered between the terms "aitvaras" and "kaukas". The last chapter concerns itself with the being called "laumė" and to her similar female deities and...

The Lithuanian coastal area represents a specific region of great economic and rcreational importance. This research has been focused on a few tens of kilometres of the wide continental coastal sector, the northern parts of the Curonian Spit and the Curonian Lagoonal area. The geological material and results of absolute dating collected from numerous sediment samples have served as the basis for the essential specification of the boundaries, age, genesis and palaeo-sedimentation conditions at different Baltic Sea development stages. / Lietuvos pajūrio geologinės sandaros pažinimas, jo geologinės raidos žinojimas, čia vykstančių geologinių procesų suvokimas neabejotinai buvo, yra ir bus ypač aktualūs. Tyrimų objektas apėmė kelių dešimčių kilometrų pločio Baltijos jūros pakrantės ruožą žemyniniame krante, Lietuvai priklausančias šiaurines Kuršių nerijos ir Kuršių marių akvatorijos dalis. Absoliutaus datavimo metodų taikymas nuosėdų ir moliuskų liekanų amžiui nustatyti, iškastinių moliuskų liekanų apibūdinimas, nauji paleobotaninių tyrimų rezultatai bei kita gausi geologinė informacija leido patikslinti Baltijos paleobaseinų vandens lygio (kranto linijos) kaitą vėlyvajame ledynmetyje ir holocene, sudaryti seriją paleogeografinių rekonstrukcijų – kartoschemų skirtingų Baltijos jūros raidos stadijų baseinams.

As drivers of biogeochemical cycles and nutrient recycling, such as carbon turnover, the microbial community is essential in sustaining functioning ecosystems. Together with the metazoan community, the microbial community constitute the majority of all life in the benthos. Environmental change in biotic and abiotic factors may influence the dynamics of these communities, for example through a sorting or driving effect on the community structure through assembly processes. Environmental change, e.g. change in dissolved oxygen concentration, salinity and temperature, can directly or indirectly affect community composition. How, in what way, and to what extent, benthic bacterial and meiofaunal community composition in the eutrophied, brackish benthic environments, in the Baltic Sea sub-basin the Baltic Proper, respond to environmental change is understudied, both at local and seascape scale. This thesis aimed to study and understand the effects of environmental variation on the diversity and biogeographic patterns of Baltic Sea sediment bacterial and meiofaunal communities. A further aim was to understand the links between the different community levels by studying the interaction between meiofaunal- and macrofaunal communities in relation to environmental variation. Community diversity was analysed along a latitudinal transect of national environmental monitoring stations in the Baltic Proper using a framework of metapopulation and metacommunity theory. The analyses were based on environmental genomics, with high-throughput sequencing, bioinformatics and statistics. The total community genome was analysed using phylogenetic marker gene fragments as a proxy for taxonomic diversity, to investigate diversity, community structure and dynamics. Salinity and oxygen were found to be the main abiotic environmental drivers of benthic community composition and alpha- and beta-diversity patterns. Furthermore, macrofauna-meiofauna interactions were significantly more complex in higher salinity environments. Results also showed that both enhanced environmental gradients and dispersal following a major inflow of saline and oxygenated water from the Atlantic Ocean, influenced the composition of sediment bacterial communities at the seascape scale of the Baltic Sea, as shown by a reduced beta-diversity and increased alpha-diversity, and the development of a significant distance-decay of community similarity. This study also identified strong metapopulation dynamics of the benthic sediment bacterial communities with many satellite and a few core taxa. The outcomes from this study contribute to the understanding of how environmental variation and environmental change relate to changes in Baltic Sea benthic community diversity and composition, and important factors and processes governing community dynamics.

Convective snow bands develop commonly over the open water surface of lakes or seas when cold airgets advected from a continent. Enhanced heat and moisture fluxes from the comparatively warm waterbody trigger shallow convection and an unstable boundary layer builds up. Relatively strong wind canorganize this convection into wind-parallel quasi-stationary cloud bands with moving individual cells.Depending on various factors like the horizontal wind, the vertical shear or the shape of the coast, thosecloud bands can form of different strength and structure. When the air mass meets the coast orographicforcing causes horizontal convergence and vertical lifting intensifies the precipitation at the coast. If thewind direction stays constant for several days a single snow band would accumulate its precipitation ina very restricted region and cause locally a significant increase in snow depth. This process leads in thecold season repeatedly to severe precipitation events at the Swedish east coast. Large amounts of snowalong with strong wind speeds can cause serious problems for traffic and infrastructure.Two different cases of convective snow bands in the Baltic Sea area were selected to simulate theassociated atmospheric conditions with a total of five different model systems. The atmosphere climatemodel RCA has been used independently at default settings as well as with increased resolution on avertical and a horizontal scale and furthermore coupled either to the ice-ocean model NEMO or the wavemodel component WAM.Comparing all models the crucial parameters like wind, temperature, heat fluxes, and precipitationvary generally in a reasonable range. However, the model systems show systematical differences amongthemselves. The strongest 10 meter wind speeds can be observed for both RCA models with increasedresolution. The RCA-WAM simulation shows its wind enhancement during the snow band event witha time shift to the other models by several hours. The mean directional wind shear above the Gulf ofBothnia, the snow band’s region of origin, is for all models small. The warmest sea surface temperaturesare reached by the RCA-NEMO simulation, which as a result also stands out for its most intense heatfluxes in both sensible and latent heat. Both high resolution RCA models as well as RCA-NEMO givethe most remarkable local precipitation rates. The original RCA and RCA-WAM simulate significantlyless snowfall. Local comparison with SMHI station measurements show that the models represent thetrend of wind, temperature and precipitation evolution well. However, all models decelerate the air masstoo rapidly when meeting the coast. Moreover, it remains a challenge to simulate the exact time andlocation of the extreme precipitation.The coupling of the atmosphere model with the ice-ocean model as well as the increased resolution ofthe atmospheric component have been observed to show great improvements in the model performanceand are suggested for future research work to be used in combination with each other for the regionalmodelling of convective snow bands in the Baltic Sea area.

The costal populations of perch (Perca fluviatilis) in some parts of the Baltic Sea have been in decline for about two decades. Recruitment failure in the early larval stages has been put forward as a possible cause and the decline has also been suggested to coincide with increases in three-pined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) densities. The aim of this study was to study the effects of growth and survival of newly hatched perch larvae in the presence of the three-pined stickleback, and if possible determine the main mechanism behind any negative effects the perch may suffer under such conditions. Using large scale experimental ponds as a controlled habitat, an experiment was conducted where perch larvae were being exposed to sticklebacks under four different stages of their development. Results showed that the three- spine stickleback can have a strong negative effect on the survival of young perch. This effect was strongest in the earliest stage of perch development and decreased as they grew bigger. The zooplankton densities didn't differ between the controls and stickleback treatments, suggesting that the young perch didn't suffer from food limitation. Instead predation was identified as the main mechanism behind the high mortality. The results of this study highlight the potential danger of the observed patterns of decreasing predator populations in conjunction with increasing populations of smaller prey species in the Baltic Sea.

Teleseismic data recorded by broad-band seismic stations in the Swedish National Seismic Network (SNSN) have been used in a suite of studies of seismic wave conversion in order to assess the structure of the crust and upper mantle beneath the Baltic Shield. Signals of seismic waves converted between P and S at seismic discontinuities within the Earth carry information on the velocity contrast at the converting interface, on the depth of conversion and on P and S velocities above this depth. The conversion from P to S at the crust-mantle boundary (the Moho) provides a robust tool to constrain crustal thicknesses. Results of such analysis for the Baltic Shield show considerable variation of Moho depths and significantly improve the Moho depth map. Analysis of waves converted from S to P in the upper mantle reveals a layered lithosphere with alternating high and low velocity bodies. It also detects clear signals of a sharp velocity contrast at the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary at depths around 200 km. Delay times of P410s, the conversion from P to S at the upper mantle discontinuity at 410 km depth, were used in a tomographic inversion to simultaneously determine P and S velocities in the upper mantle. The polarisation of P410s was also used to study anisotropy of the upper mantle. Results of these analyses are found to be in close agreement with independently derived results from arrival time tomography and shear-wave splitting analysis of SKS. The results presented in this thesis demonstrate the ability of converted wave analysis as a tool to detect and image geological boundaries that involve sharp contrasts in seismic properties. The results also show that this analysis can provide means of studying aspects of Earth’s structure that are conventionally studied using other types of seismic data.

The purpose of my research is to investigate the processes and mechanisms of semantic change in two basic colour terms: green in English and zielony in Polish. My research methodology focuses on existing English and Polish corpora, namely the British National Corpus, the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the National Corpus of Polish. I analyze my data both synchronically and diachronically (comparing two periods of time: 1985-1994, 2001-2010). My study also evaluates the use of corpus evidence for the purpose of investigating the processes of semantic change. Various factors have caused the Basic Colour Terms (BCTs) green and zielony to form metaphorical and metonymical meanings that have been conventionalised in English and Polish respectively. These processes have long played an important role in our understanding of the surrounding world. Investigating semantic changes in these two colour terms and two periods of time is key to my cross-cultural research, and this entails answering the questions: Why do green and zielony develop different senses? What are the similarities and differences between these two colour terms? How have these two terms developed and might they develop new senses in future? Are metonymy and metaphor the only mechanisms of semantic change in green and zielony? The semantic change of each colour term is shown through a network of meanings, where all the different meanings of green and zielony are presented together with their stages of development in the form of codes. Additionally each stage is a separate prototype. The aim of the network is to show the etymological prototype and various senses (new prototypes) developing from this original sense. Moreover the number of occurrences of each prototype might indicate which meaning or meanings are most common or even central in a given language at a certain point in time. The network of meanings is a visual representation of semantic change and processes involved in it. A very detailed analysis of corpus examples provides an insight into the uses of green and zielony in English and Polish respectively. The data are analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Such an approach offers a thorough analysis of the two terms in question.

The border between Russia and Estonia has undergone significant changes in the past two and a half decades from a border between two Soviet republics to an international border and external EU border. In the public discourse and the scholarly literature, this border has been characterised as a battlefield shaped by divergent geopolitical visions and evaluations of the shared past. While Estonia has sought to distance itself from Russia and condemns the Soviet past as an occupation, Russia derives pride from its historical role in liberating Europe in World War II and continues to hold on to positive memories of the Soviet past and its role in the Baltic states. The thesis looks at how these official narratives have been negotiated locally in the once united border towns of Narva and Ivangorod in the Russian-Estonian borderland. Based on an extended fieldwork stay and the analysis 58 life-story interviews with people living on both sides of the border, it examines how people living in the borderland position themselves in the context of shifting narrative and structural frameworks. How do they re-evaluate the relations to the other side and reconsider their memories of the shared past? In examining these questions, the thesis seeks to make two general contributions to existing literature: it brings together the fields of border studies and memory studies to explore the reconfiguration of both temporal and spatial orderings in the making of a border. Secondly, it outlines a model for studying border change that focuses on the interrelations between the vernacular and the official level. The first part of the thesis looks at the politics of temporal orderings in the borderland and explores how people belonging to different ethnic groups and generations remember the past in the context of changing borders. It shows how people in part reproduce the polarised narratives mobilised at the official level but also how local experiences and generational change lead to a diversification of temporal orderings. The second part of the thesis explores the politics of spatial orderings in post-socialist memories. It looks at how by remembering the past people both reproduce and undermine borders; it demonstrates that it is not simply the memories of a shared past but also new inequalities following the establishment of the border that shape the ways in which people relate to their cross-border neighbours. Overall, the thesis provides a complex and differentiated account of border change in which different temporalities and spatialities at the vernacular and official levels can interact, interrelate and stand in opposition to each other. It shows that although people living in the borderland experience constraints and even powerlessness in the face of changes in the border, they have an active role in negotiating the changes and develop multiple responses to official narratives. It demonstrates how by appropriating official narratives and relating them to their own purposes, people articulate local concerns and make claims for belonging, recognition and state care in the face of the changes.