Konservat-Lagerstätten from the Upper Jurassic lithographic limestone of the Causse Méjean (Lozère, southern France): palaeontological and palaeoenvironmental synthesis

Since the 1980s, the Upper Jurassic lithographic limestone of the Causse Méjean (southern France) has been known by local naturalists to yield fossils. However, until the beginning of the 21st century, this plattenkalk remained largely undersampled and scientifically underestimated. Here, we present the results of two decades of prospection and sampling in the Drigas and the Nivoliers quarries. We provide the first palaeontological inventory of the fossil flora, the fauna and the ichnofauna for these localities. The fossil assemblages show the co-occurrence of marine and terrestrial organisms. Marine organisms include algae, bivalves, brachiopods, cephalopods (ammonites, belemnites and coleoids such as Trachyteuthis), echinoderms, decapod crustaceans (ghost shrimps, penaeoid shrimps and glypheoid lobsters) and fishes (including several actinopterygians and a coelacanth). Terrestrial organisms consist of plant remains (conifers, bennettitaleans, pteridosperms) and a single rhynchocephalian (Kallimodon cerinensis). Ichnofossils comprise traces of marine invertebrates (e.g. limulid trackways, ammonite touch mark) as well as coprolites and regurgitalites. Given the exquisite preservation of these fossils, the two quarries can be considered as Konservat-Lagerstätten. Both lithological features and fossil content suggest a calm, protected and shallow-marine environment such as a lagoon partially or occasionally open to the sea. Most fossils are allochthonous to parautochthonous and document diverse ecological habitats. Similarly to other famous Upper Jurassic plattenkalks of western Europe such as Solnhofen, Cerin or Canjuers, the Causse Méjean is a key landmark for our understanding of coastal/lagoonal palaeoecosystems during the Kimmeridgian–Tithonian interval.

Charity and grace

This essay attempts to reconcile charity with grace, the central concepts of two thinkers whose views may seem irreconcilable to many: Donald Davidson, an analytical philosopher and the most distinguished follower of Quine; and Julian Pitt-Rivers, an Europeanist anthropologist, who wrote at length on Spain and Southern France. The latter's historicist exegesis of gracia points to basic aspects of human experience that are also salient in the reduction to basics that Davidson carried out concerning interpretation and truth. For Davidson, in the face of ultimate indeterminacy, interpretation is made possible due to the rational accommodation that charity sparks off. For Pitt-Rivers, gratuity highlights how processes of personal interaction depend on the drawing of shared trajectories: that is, not only do I have to grant others charity to make sense of them, I also have to frame others as subjects with a future by relation to myself as already in existence. The paper proposes that human interaction involves processes of sensemaking that integrate shared intentionality (i.e. the credit with which we respond to the indeterminacy of meaning) with shared experience (i.e. the debt implicit in the ultimate underdetermination of the world's entities). Thus, it brings both concepts together under the label of charis, their common etymological root, suggesting that the dynamic it represents is a broader feature of life itself.

Documents on History of Russian Naval Emigration in Regional Archives of Southern France: Problems of Search and Study

The article deals with the problem of identifying, describing and introducing into scientific circulation documents and materials on the history of the Russian naval officers who lived in the region of southern France in the 1920s—1930s. The relevance and novelty of the research is due to the introduction into scientific circulation of documentary complexes of regional, local and departmental archives containing information about the Russian naval emigration in France. The author draws attention to the specifics of identifying archival documents within the framework of the research topic. Attention is paid to the peculiarities of the collection of funds in the French archives. It is shown how knowledge of this specificity makes it possible to find and identify the required materials in the absence of thematic collections and indexes. The results of a study of archival collections and funds discovered by the author in regional, local and departmental archives containing information about the history of the Russian naval emigration in southern France are presented in the article. Contrary to the ideas of the marginality of this topic that have developed in French historiography, the potential of its development on the basis of the materials identified by the author is demonstrated. A review of the discovered archival funds is carried out from the point of view of the prospects for the reconstruction of collective and individual biographies of Russian naval officers-emigrants. The author’s classification of the identified documentary complexes is proposed.

Increasing Resource Efficiency of Bauxites Using LIBS

The EU aluminium production from, e.g., bauxite is one of the backbones to support Europe’s green and digital transition. In support of sustainable bauxite exploration and mining, Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) was used on the major facies of the karst bauxite deposits of SODICAPEI (Southern France). Our results showed that LIBS is a very promising technology to define the bottom and top layer of bauxite ores and to access critical parameters crucial for bauxite mining and processing. First LIBS tests were made on scandium standards to find appropriate Sc emission lines for future applications.