There is evidence that a subset of fluvial deposits at Aeolis Dorsa, a basin on Mars, preserve incised valleys carved and filled during changes in base level, which was likely controlled by water surface elevation of a large lake or sea. Three low-albedo, channelized corridors, each several tens of kilometers long, contain relict point bars and scooped boundaries at their bases, indicating that the base and lateral extent of each corridor was defined by a migrating, net-erosional river. Above the basal deposits are stacks several tens of meters thick of “inverted sinuous ridges”, which are channel-filling deposits that have been exhumed and topographically inverted. Indicators of avulsions, channel re-occupations, an overall flattening of basal topography, and confinement of inverted sinuous ridges to the dark corridors are evidence of the gradual filling of a valley cut by the basal migrating river. Valley incision and fill are common responses to sea level change on Earth. Aeolis Dorsa is currently open to the northern lowlands of Mars, where an ocean has been hypothesized to have once existed, although a large lake could have also controlled base level. Cross-cutting valleys require at least two episodes of base level fall and rise. The magnitudes of the base level changes are estimated at about 80 meters, based on the thickness of the valley-filling stratigraphy. Meander asymmetry is consistent with a southeastern flow direction, and is supported by a set of branching fluvial deposits 40 km to the southeast which, qualitatively, appear to be deltaic in origin. / text

Master of Science / Department of Geology / Allen W. Archer / The Morrowan middle Bloyd sandstone of northwest Arkansas records a fluvial to estuarine transition in a drowned incised valley system. Lower portions of outcrops contain fluvially deposited, planar-tabular cross-stratified sandstone with a uni-directional southwest paleoflow. Intervals with dune scale, intricately interwoven trough cross-stratification with northeastern paleoflow is attributed to strong tidal and wave influence in the outer estuary. Upwards the middle Bloyd changes into a muddy mid-estuarine interval with heterolithic bedding and a bi-directional northeast-southwest paleoflow. Overlying this interval a marine sand about one meter in thickness can be found containing bryozoan and crinoid fossils. Overlying the middle Bloyd, the marine Dye Shale member of the Bloyd Formation marks the transition to a dominantly marine setting.

Master of Science / Department of Geology / Allen W. Archer / Abstract This study compares the tidally influenced facies found within the Tonganoxie Sandstone Member (Stranger Formation, Douglas Group) (Upper Pennsylvanian) of northeastern Kansas with similar facies directly observed in the upper intertidal mudflats of Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet (Alaska, USA). The two settings contain strikingly similar facies that are characteristic of upper macrotidal estuaries with a strong influence of tidal activities. Identical aspects and features found within both settings include rhythmic vertical variation in stratum thicknesses (cyclic tidal rhythmites), high estimated sedimentation and aggradation rates, and biogenic and physical sedimentary structures (e.g., drag marks, raindrop impressions, arthropod traces and tetrapod trackways, zigzag burrows, runoff washouts, and upright trees, among others). Tidal rhythmites are the most important evidence that is indicative of the tidal influence on the depositional processes of these two study areas. Such cyclic tidal rhythmites have been reported and described from several Carboniferous settings in the eastern USA. Modern analogs to these Carboniferous rhythmites are usually found within upper macrotidal estuarine depositional environments, especially within fluvio-estuarine transitional zones. These environments are distributed over a wide range of modern latitudes. Using cyclic tidal rhythmites as modern analogs for interpreting similar ancient facies is a powerful tool for paleogeographic and paleoenvironmental reconstructions, although it is somewhat a new approach.

A tradição Borda Incisa envolve um debate intenso entre os pesquisadores por uma série de motivos, dentre os quais, por suas cerâmicas apresentarem uma grande variabilidade estilística e morfológica, devido sua ampla distribuição geográfica e sua associação aos contextos de terra preta. Na Amazônia Central o período relacionado às ocupações Borda Incisa é considerado de adensamento populacional e quando as mudanças nas paisagens são mais intensas, associadas aos falantes de línguas Arawak que teriam desenvolvido um sistema regional multiétnico com circulação de cerâmicas e compartilhamento de uma mesma cosmologia baseada na ocupação de aldeias circulares. A Reserva de Desenvolvimento Sustentável Amanã, área focal dessa pesquisa, é uma unidade de conservação localizada na porção central do Estado do Amazonas. O objetivo da dissertação é contribuir para a construção de uma história cultural do Lago Amanã e a compreensão de sua antiga e intensa ocupação pré-colonial. A fase Caiambé é o recorte de análise, a partir do refinamento de suas características estilísticas e contextuais, procura-se compreender seus significados no quadro cronológico da Amazônia Central e suas relações com os complexos culturais anteriores e posteriores a ela. Através de escavações, datações e tratamento do material cerâmico, buscou-se oferecer refinamento da cronologia de ocupação. Alguns dos resultados apresentados são: contemporaneidade de assentamentos, caracterização de sítios com diferentes funções e maior caracterização da tecnologia de produção cerâmica. Com base nessas informações sugere-se a fase Caiambé no lago Amanã representa o ápice da ocupação integral de um território, com a formação de diferentes aldeias e espaços públicos e rituais. / The Incised Rim tradition involves an intense debate among researchers for a number of reasons, among which, for its ceramics present a great stylistic and morphological variability due to its wide geographic distribution and their association with terra preta contexts. In central Amazonia the period related to occupations Incised Rim is considered population density and when changes in the landscapes are more intense, associated with the Arawak language speakers who have developed a multi-ethnic regional system with circulation ceramics and sharing the same cosmology based on occupation of circular villages. The Amana Sustainable Development Reserve, focal area of this research is a protected area located in the central portion of the state of Amazonas. The purpose of this work is to contribute to building a cultural history of the Lake Amana and understanding of its ancient and intense precolonial occupation. The Caiambé phase is the analysis of cut from the refinement of its stylistic and contextual features, try to understand their meaning in the chronological framework of the Central Amazon and its relations with the previous cultural complexes and subsequent to it. Through excavation, dating and treatment of ceramic material, it sought to provide refinement of the chronology of occupation. Some of the results are presented: contemporary settlements, characterization of sites with different functions and improved characterization of pottery production technology. Based on this information it is suggested to Caiambé phase at Lake Amana is the culmination of the full occupation of a territory, with the formation of different villages and public spaces and rituals.

A tradição Borda Incisa envolve um debate intenso entre os pesquisadores por uma série de motivos, dentre os quais, por suas cerâmicas apresentarem uma grande variabilidade estilística e morfológica, devido sua ampla distribuição geográfica e sua associação aos contextos de terra preta. Na Amazônia Central o período relacionado às ocupações Borda Incisa é considerado de adensamento populacional e quando as mudanças nas paisagens são mais intensas, associadas aos falantes de línguas Arawak que teriam desenvolvido um sistema regional multiétnico com circulação de cerâmicas e compartilhamento de uma mesma cosmologia baseada na ocupação de aldeias circulares. A Reserva de Desenvolvimento Sustentável Amanã, área focal dessa pesquisa, é uma unidade de conservação localizada na porção central do Estado do Amazonas. O objetivo da dissertação é contribuir para a construção de uma história cultural do Lago Amanã e a compreensão de sua antiga e intensa ocupação pré-colonial. A fase Caiambé é o recorte de análise, a partir do refinamento de suas características estilísticas e contextuais, procura-se compreender seus significados no quadro cronológico da Amazônia Central e suas relações com os complexos culturais anteriores e posteriores a ela. Através de escavações, datações e tratamento do material cerâmico, buscou-se oferecer refinamento da cronologia de ocupação. Alguns dos resultados apresentados são: contemporaneidade de assentamentos, caracterização de sítios com diferentes funções e maior caracterização da tecnologia de produção cerâmica. Com base nessas informações sugere-se a fase Caiambé no lago Amanã representa o ápice da ocupação integral de um território, com a formação de diferentes aldeias e espaços públicos e rituais. / The Incised Rim tradition involves an intense debate among researchers for a number of reasons, among which, for its ceramics present a great stylistic and morphological variability due to its wide geographic distribution and their association with terra preta contexts. In central Amazonia the period related to occupations Incised Rim is considered population density and when changes in the landscapes are more intense, associated with the Arawak language speakers who have developed a multi-ethnic regional system with circulation ceramics and sharing the same cosmology based on occupation of circular villages. The Amana Sustainable Development Reserve, focal area of this research is a protected area located in the central portion of the state of Amazonas. The purpose of this work is to contribute to building a cultural history of the Lake Amana and understanding of its ancient and intense precolonial occupation. The Caiambé phase is the analysis of cut from the refinement of its stylistic and contextual features, try to understand their meaning in the chronological framework of the Central Amazon and its relations with the previous cultural complexes and subsequent to it. Through excavation, dating and treatment of ceramic material, it sought to provide refinement of the chronology of occupation. Some of the results are presented: contemporary settlements, characterization of sites with different functions and improved characterization of pottery production technology. Based on this information it is suggested to Caiambé phase at Lake Amana is the culmination of the full occupation of a territory, with the formation of different villages and public spaces and rituals.

Several hydrocarbon discoveries in the Marar Formation (Tournaisian and Viséan) were recently made in the Lower Carboniferous strata of the Ghadames and Murzuq Basins situated in SW Libya. Despite large exposures exhibiting thick sections, there is an absence of regional studies focusing on this stratigraphic interval and only rare case studies provide new sedimentary data. More generally, geological knowledge of Carboniferous in North Africa (Saharan Platform) is also understudied when compare to other regions of the world. Detail analyses of the sedimentary record on Saharan Platform may noticeably contribute to refine the current understanding of global geological episodes such as the Late Paleozoic Ice Age. The main aim of this study is to produce valuable field data for both industry and interpretations for assessing academic hypothesis. In order to develop accurate and detail correlations of sedimentary strata over long distances (over 350 km) a primary aims is to define a synchronous key marker horizon that is ideally detectable in both surface and subsurface datasets. A secondary aim is to characterise spatial variability and geometries of sedimentary bodies. Acquired during three fieldwork seasons in the area (along ca 385 km), over 4800 m of sedimentary logging, facies analyses and 800 outcrop gamma ray readings are compiled in this study. I therefore characterise the micro, meso, macro-scale geometries, regional distribution, gamma ray response and mineralogy of the Collenia stromatolites that mark the uppermost part of the Marar Formation. Mainly based on series of detailed sedimentary logging and photographic panoramas, two types of reservoirs facies are described: 1- several metres thick shorefaces sandstones that are continuous for several tens of kilometres; 2- several tens of metres thick incised valley in filled with fluvial sandstones of fewer lateral extend. A sea level curve, produced on basis of the detailed sequence stratigraphic framework of the area, reveals that eustasy almost solely explains relative changes of sea level during the Viséan. Considering the glacial record preserved on northern Gondwana during the same interval, we conclude that the onset of the Late Paleozoic Ice Age is older than uppermost Viséan and more gradual than previously thought.

Late Mississippian, Mauch Chunk Group strata constitute a westward-thinning clastic wedge of strata up to 1000m thick that developed in the Central Appalachian Basin over a ~ 7 million year time interval. Included within the Mauch Chunk Group are multiple incised-valley fills and a distinctive prodeltaic succession of laminated sandstones and mudstones. Calculated estimates of drainage basin areas for incised-valley fills in the Mauch Chunk Group range from > 1,000,000 km2 for the Stony Gap Sandstone to < 100,000 km2 for the Princeton Formation. Drainage area estimates are consistent with detrital zircon geochronology and petrographic data and suggest that the Stony Gap and Ravencliff incised-valley fills were derived from distal, northern and northwestern cratonic sources that dispersed sediment into NE-SW-oriented, longitudinal incised-valley drainages and that the Princeton Formation was derived from proximal tectonic highland sources along the eastern margin of the Appalachian Basin which dispersed sediment into a transverse incised-valley. The Pride Shale overlies the Princeton incised valley fill and records a hierarchy of tidal periodicities is preserved in the Pride Shale. Microlaminated, semi-diurnal sandstone-siltstone/shale couplets record the dominant ebb tide of the day. Up to 17 semi-diurnal couplets are stacked into neap-spring (fortnightly) tidal cycles. Neap-spring cycles are arranged in thickening and thinning that record seasonal cycles driven by the annual monsoon. Total organic carbon (TOC) values are a proxy for annual climatic cycles. TOC contents are higher within intermonsoonal and lower within monsoonal components of annual cycles reflecting, respectively, lesser and greater dilution by terrestrial flux. / Master of Science

This thesis evaluates the nature, provenance, geometry and morphology of incised valley fills to test assumptions made by valley models using ancient examples from well exposed outcrops, in the late Turonian Ferron Sandstone Member of the Mancos Shale Formation in southeastern Utah. The relevance of this work will have particular significance to long wavelength cycles of fluvial landscapes and valley morphology, non-marine reservoir characterization and significant implications for non-marine response to high frequency allogenic cycles such as climate change and changes in relative sea-level. This study illustrates the stratigraphic complexity of valley fill deposits at three levels of spatial resolution. At channel scale within the lower backwater, facies architecture and paleohydraulic analysis are used to predict the degree of shale drape coverage of point bars in a tidally-influenced incised channel. At channel belt scale the study documents a tidally incised, mudstone prone trunk-tributary valley fill and overlying highstand fluvial succession within a stratigraphic framework of fluvial aggragation cycles. 3D photogrammetry models and a high resolution GPS survey are used to restore the morphology of a trunk-tributary valley floor, revealing a surface of tidal ravinement and tidal drainage morphology. At a regional scale, this study radically revises the paleogeographic mapping of the Ferron trunk system, spanning over 1,600 km2. Provenance analysis reveals Ferron Notom trunk valleys were filled at times by sediment from the Mogollon Highlands of Arizona to the southwest, and alternately by sediment from the Sevier Thrust Front to the northwest. Evidence shows the Ferron trunk rivers, previously hypothesized to be an avulsive axial drainage, to be more analogous to Quaternary examples. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

「甲骨塗辭」乃指在甲骨刻辭筆畫中塗以朱、墨，以往學者將之稱為「塗朱/墨」或「填朱/墨」，這類刻辭在刻寫完成之後，以朱砂或墨填入刻痕。其中，塗朱甲骨色彩鮮明奪目，很早就受到學者注意，其目的有美觀、宗教意涵、重要訊息的不同說法。然而，受限於甲骨著錄多為黑白拓本形式、早期彩色印刷不發達，目前甲骨學界尚無學者對塗辭做出專門且深入的研究。所幸，近年來出版之甲骨著錄附有彩色相片，部分甲骨收藏單位架設數位資料庫，如中研院史語所，所能蒐羅之資料備於完善，為甲骨塗辭研究奠定基礎。 本文以「塗朱甲骨」作為主要討論對象，試圖將辭例或形狀完整的塗朱卜辭進行分類。首先於第二章探討塗朱甲骨的年代以及塗朱甲骨的幾項特徵，包含：牛胛骨骨面塗朱卜辭、犯兆塗朱卜辭、塗朱記事刻辭。第三章及第四章則以塗朱甲骨的形態進行討論，分別以顏色及辭例的完整度作為分類標準。以顏色劃分塗朱甲骨可分為三類：僅見塗朱者、朱墨褐三色同版者、朱墨或朱褐同版者。以辭例完整度可分成八類。 / The incised characters on oracle bones rubbed with cinnabar or ink are called cinnabar inscriptions or ink inscription. The vermillion colored cinnabar used on the coloring of oracle bones is said to have religious messages or aesthetic purposes. Previously limited by the immature color printing and computer technology, oracle bones inscriptions were mostly rubbing editions in black and white, and thus there are few in-depth studies on the coloring of oracle bone inscriptions. But now a corpus of oracle bones is taking form, such as editions with color pictures and digitalization of oracle bones images by Institute of History and Philosophy, Academia Sinica. This paper aims to examine the cinnabar inscriptions on oracle bones, discuss their characteristics in different periods, and categorize them into three categories based on colors, and eight categories based on the intactness of the inscriptions.

Esta pesquisa expõe contraposições teóricas e empíricas aos clássicos modelos de ocupação da Amazônia. Através de uma fusão entre base empírica e o corpus de conhecimento atualmente disponível, propõe uma história de ocupação da Amazônia central agenciada por grupos culturais integrados através de um complexo sistema sócio-político, que extrapolou fronteiras étnicas, lingüísticas e ambientais. Este sistema estaria materializado na tradição Borda Incisa e teria se desenrolado ao longo de muitos séculos, com início em torno do anno domini e se estendendo até os séculos XI e XII d.C. A esta intrincada rede macro-regional, que aqui denomino Esfera de Interações, estão ligados elementos como a padronização de um sistema de comunicação, expresso através da cultura material e das formas de usar e organizar o espaço. A cronologia apresentada neste doutoramento também oferece parâmetros para uma reavaliação do uso de conceitos arqueológicos tradicionais, como as fases e tradições. Logra-se maior flexibilização de tais categorias, uma vez que a fluidez de limites é inerente aos conjuntos artefatuais estudados. Na área de confluência dos rios Negro e Solimões, esta história é contada através do entendimento das relações entre as fases Açutuba, Manacapuru e Paredão. / This dissertation offers new theoretical insights and empirical data that supplements some of the classic models of occupation of Amazonia. Through a combination between empirical data and current knowledge, the dissertation proposes a history of occupation of the Central Amazon region that places cultural groups integrated in a complex socio-political system extending beyond ethnic, linguistic and environmental boundaries as its main agents. The material correlates of this system, which developed from around the beginning of the Christian era and reached until the eleventh or twelve century AD, would be pottery and associated contexts of the Incised Rim tradition. This intricate macroregional network, in effect an Interaction Sphere, includes such features as a standardisation of communication systems expressed in material culture and in forms of using and organizing space. The chronology presented in this dissertation also provides pointers to reassess the use of traditional archaeological concepts such as phases and traditions. It employs these categories with some flexibility inasmuch as the sets of artefacts that have been studied show inherent fluidity in their definitions. In the confluence area of the Negro and Solimões rivers, this permits unravelling a history that is based on an understanding of the relationships between the Açutuba, Manacapuru and Paredão phases.