Early metal pollution in southwestern Europe: the former littoral lagoon of El Almarjal (Cartagena mining district, S.E. Spain).A sedimentary archive more than 8000 years old.

A borehole drilling campaign has allowed the study of a former littoral lagoon located next to the harbour city of Cartagena in South-East Spain (close to the Sierra de Cartagena polymetallic ore deposits). This lagoon, which developed during the Holocene, was first a shallow sedimentary marine environment and later evolved into a swampy semi-endorheic basin named "Almarjal" (after the Arab term from the fourteenth century). The lagoon eventually dried out and at present forms part of the substratum of the modern sector of the city urban area.

Enantioenrichment in sublimed amino acid mixtures.

A real amplification of an initial enantiomeric excess can be detected when two amino acids are sublimed at high temperature, even if one of the components is a racemic compound that does not convert into a conglomerate by sublimation.

Asymmetric amplification in amino acid sublimation involving racemic compound to conglomerate conversion.

A straightforward unprecedented sublimation protocol that reveals both conversion of a racemic compound into a racemic conglomerate and subsequent enantioenrichment has been developed for the proteinogenic amino acid valine. The phenomenon has been observed in closed and open systems, providing insight into asymmetric amplification mechanisms under presumably prebiotic conditions.

Solution-phase racemization in the presence of an enantiopure solid phase.

Solution-phase racemization drives the evolution of single chirality in the solid phase by the "chiral amnesia" process first described by Viedma. The current investigations lay the basis for a better understanding of the mechanism of the solid-phase deracemization by uncoupling the chemical rate processes associated with the interconversion of enantiomers in the solution phase from the physical processes associated with solution-solid phase transfer via dissolution and reaccretion of molecules onto crystals. In addition, the enantiomer concentration profiles presented in this work, together with an analytical treatment of the racemization process in the presence of excess enantiopure solid, unequivocally reconfirm the validity of the Meyerhoffer double solubility rule for systems under solution racemization conditions.

Evolution of solid phase homochirality for a proteinogenic amino acid.

The inexorable evolution of solid-phase single chirality is demonstrated for the first time for a proteinogenic amino acid. Enantioenrichment is observed both under attrition-enhanced conditions and without the aid of particle grinding. Differences in the form of the conversion profiles for the process under the two sets of conditions provide suggestions concerning the mechanism of the transformation.

Paleobiology and comparative morphology of a late Neandertal sample from El Sidron, Asturias, Spain.

Fossil evidence from the Iberian Peninsula is essential for understanding Neandertal evolution and history. Since 2000, a new sample approximately 43,000 years old has been systematically recovered at the El Sidrón cave site (Asturias, Spain). Human remains almost exclusively compose the bone assemblage.