The peculiar characteristics of dust toxicity are discussed in relation to the processes taking place at the particle-biological medium interface. Because of surface reactivity, toxicity of solids is not merely predictable from chemical composition and molecular structure, as with water soluble compounds. With particles having the same bulk composition, micromorphology (the thermal and mechanic...

Neocarus proteus sp. n., is described from caves and the surrounding epigean environment of ferruginous outcrops (Cangas) in Minas Gerais, Brazil. In addition, some notes about development in this species are presented. Neocarus proteus is the only species in the genus that has smooth or barbed genital setae and that carries coronidia on the basitarsi, tibiae and genua of legs II-III. Females c...

Clay, as a rock term, describes a soft, loose, earthy material containing particles with an average grain size of less than than 0.004 mm (4 mm) in the Wentworth grain size scale and less than 0.002 mm (2 mm) in most soil investigations. Clay is composed mostly of clay minerals, but may also contain quartz, feldspar, carbonates, ferruginous material, and other non-clay materials. All clays, apa...

Because animals require oxygen, an increase in late-Neoproterozoic oxygen concentrations has been suggested as a stimulus for their evolution. The iron content of deep-sea sediments shows that the deep ocean was anoxic and ferruginous before and during the Gaskiers glaciation 580 million years ago and that it became oxic afterward. The first known members of the Ediacara biota arose shortly aft...