A frotheria is one of the most remarkable hypotheses in mammal evolution. It suggests that one-third of the orders of placental mammals form an ancient group that evolved on Africa when that continent was isolated from others through plate tectonics (1). Although this hypothesis has been predicted by molecular clock studies (2), evidence for it has emerged only in the last 3 years from phylogen...

The visualization of spatial information for wayfinding assistance requires a substantial amount of display area. Depending on the particular route, even large screens can be insufficient to visualize all information at once and in a scale such that users can understand the specific course of the route and its spatial context. Personalized wayfinding maps, such as μMaps are a possible solution ...

[1] Fluid distribution in convergent margins is by most accounts closely related to tectonics. This association has been widely studied at accretionary prisms, but at half of the Earth’s convergent margins, tectonic erosion grinds down overriding plates, and here fluid distribution and its relation to tectonics remain speculative. Here we present a new conceptual model for the hydrological syst...

Terrestrial vertebrates show striking changes in species richness across topographic gradients. For mammals, nearly twice as many species per unit area occur in topographically complex regions as in adjacent lowlands. The geological context of this pervasive biogeographic pattern suggests that tectonic processes have a first-order impact on regional diversity. I evaluate ecological, evolutionar...

[1] Although Mars is currently not tectonically active, it may have experienced plate tectonics early in its history. The southern hemisphere of Mars possesses a thick crust which probably renders the lithosphere positively buoyant. In this paper we present numerical and scaling arguments which show that if the area of positively buoyant lithosphere grows beyond a critical fraction ( 50% for Ma...

The Earth is likely to have acquired most of its water during accretion. Internal heat of planetesimals by short-lived radioisotopes would have caused some water loss, but impacts into planetesimals were insufficiently energetic to produce further drying. Water is thought to be critical for the development of plate tectonics, because it lowers viscosities in the asthenosphere, enabling subducti...

Archaeologists and historians working on topics such as agricultural technology, resource distribution, settlement patterns, raw materials procurement, artifact analysis and natural disasters are automatically involved in geological questions. The geologic history of the Japanese Islands is, therefore, of basic importance to our enquiries, but those interests are poorly served by the current li...

The transition between the two structural regimes of the Walker Lane and the Basin and Range allows for complex transtensional fault interactions. NWtrending dextral shear in the Walker Lane and WNW extension in the northern Great Basin imparts enhanced extension and pull-apart basins that bring about structural controls for geothermal systems. The Carson Sink is the surface expression of this ...

Deciphering relationships among the orders of placental mammals remains an important problem in evolutionary biology and has implications for understanding patterns of morphological character evolution, reconstructing the ancestral placental genome, and evaluating the role of plate tectonics and dispersal in the biogeographic history of this group. Until recently, both molecular and morphologic...