Algeria displays various karst landscapes due to its diversity in lithology, relief, age and climate. On 16th June 1988, the northwest of Algeria, a 60 m wide sudden collapse occurred Chelif Basin about 1 km north marginal carbonate platform. Despite this large event visible dissolutions platform, region has not been classified among areas yet. Our study focuses on Messinian carbonates that for...

Biological soil crusts (BSCs) are an important source of organic carbon, and affect a range of ecosystem functions in arid and semiarid environments. Yet the impact of grazing disturbance on crust properties and soil CO(2) efflux remain poorly studied, particularly in African ecosystems. The effects of burial under wind-blown sand, disaggregation and removal of BSCs on seasonal variations in so...

The Buxton-Norlim Limeworks southwest of Taung, South Africa, is renowned for the discovery of the first Australopithecus africanus fossil, the 'Taung Child'. The hominin was recovered from a distinctive pink calcrete that contains an abundance of invertebrate ichnofauna belonging to the Coprinisphaera ichnofacies. Here we describe the first fossil bee's nest, attributed to the ichnogenus Celli...

The carbon-cycle significance of soil carbonate fluxes is subject to large uncertainties because it is not clear precisely how much calcium is derived from atmospheric sources compared with that from the chemical weathering of silicate minerals. In the petrocalcic horizon (calcrete) of a Pleistocene soil from the USDA–SCS Desert Project area near Las Cruces, NM, approximately 1.5 g Ca=cm3 has b...