Facultat de Ciències de la Terra

Recent Submissions

Holocene vegetational changes in Northeastern Greenland and its link to North Atlantic Oscillation/Arctic Oscillation 

Osorio Serrano, Rodrigo (Date of defense: 2024-07-05)

[eng] Rapid climate change and its pronounced effect over the Arctic has become a hot topic for both the scientific community and the public, raising concerns about the future of its ecosystems. In this context, Greenland, ...

Geophysical-Petrological Modeling of the Crust and Upper Mantle within the Central Mediterranean and Topographic Implications 

Zhang, Wentao (Date of defense: 2024-11-15)

[eng] The Central Mediterranean region is a highly active seismic zone with unique tectonic characteristics, forming part of the Alpine-Mediterranean belt that extends from southern Iberia to the western Aegean Sea. Applying ...

Unravelling causes and consequences of marine biodiversity changes in East Atlantic and Mediterranean ecosystems 

Veloy Dominguez, Carlos (Date of defense: 2024-10-25)

[eng] Marine communities have been affected by multiple stressors increasing over the last decades, such as overfishing and climate change, resulting in negative effects throughout ecosystems. However, these impacts do not ...

Thermal compensation in marine copepods: long-term ecophysiological implications in Paracartia grani 

Juan Carbonell, Carlos de (Date of defense: 2024-05-17)

[eng] Ectothermic animals are highly sensitive to changes in the environmental temperature. As ocean temperatures rise, a major concern is the potential impact of warming on copepods, which are crucial contributors to ...

The biogeochemical imprint of the Azores Archipelago lacustrine sedimentary infill. A linkage between the climatic effects of the north Atlantic atmospheric circulation and the tectono-volcanic landscape of the triple junction during the late Holocene 

Benavente Marín, Mario (Date of defense: 2024-07-30)

[eng] The Azores Archipelago, strategically located in the central North Atlantic, serves as a key location for analyzing regional atmospheric dynamics. Thus, climate reconstructions derived from from sediments of the ...

Metagenomic Exploration of the Effects of Depth and Temperature on the Microbiome Structure and Function of the Gorgonian Eunicella Singularis and the Cold Water Scleractinia Desmophyllum pertusum = Exploració metagenòmica dels efectes de la profunditat i la temperatura sobre l'estructura i la funció del microbioma de la gorgònia Eunicella singularis i el corall d'aigua freda Desmophyllum pertusum 

Mutlaq S. Binsarha, Mohammad (Date of defense: 2024-10-11)

[eng] Corals are crucial to marine ecosystems, offering varied habitats for microbial communities that, in return, provide essential compounds for coral health and resilience. Numerous factors, such as coral age, species, ...

Delivering insights into diversity and ecology of marine chytrids 

Fernández Valero, Alan Denís (Date of defense: 2024-04-04)

[eng] Current knowledge of marine fungi is limited, marked by gaps in the understanding of their diversity, spatio-temporal patterns, and ecological roles within marine ecosystems. The underexplored nature of specific ...

The potential of carboxylesterase activity in the biomonitoring of marine pollution 

Nos Francisco, David (Date of defense: 2024-02-06)

[eng] Understanding and monitoring the impacts of pollution on marine ecosystems leads the list of challenges of the United Nations Ocean Decade as crucial steps towards achieving a healthy ocean. The marine environment ...

The importance of seasonality at different levels of ecological organization in the marine ecosystem of the Northwestern Mediterranean Sea 

Lloret Lloret, Elena (Date of defense: 2023-05-17)

[eng] From an oceanographic perspective, seasonality has been widely studied, and abundant research exists about low trophic level organisms such as phytoplankton and zooplankton. Nevertheless, at a regional scale, this ...

Transformations and pathways of Southern Ocean waters into the South Atlantic Ocean 

Olivé Abelló, Anna (Date of defense: 2023-03-20)

[eng] The returning limb of Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is partly supplied by the cold-fresh waters that enter through the Drake Passage. Up to the isoneutral 28.0 kg m−3, the mean water inflow through ...

Experimental and numerical study of chemo-hydro-mechanical effects of CO2 injection on permeable limestone 

Vafaie, Atefeh (Date of defense: 2023-07-07)

[eng] Carbon capture and storage (CCS) in saline aquifers is a proven technology aimed at reducing atmospheric CO2 emissions and mitigating the climate change crisis. CO2 injection acidifies the formation water inducing ...

Volcanic risk assessment at Irazú volcano, Costa Rica 

Campos Durán, Daniela (Date of defense: 2023-11-23)

[eng] Irazu is the highest volcano in Costa Rica (3427 m.a.s.l.); it constitutes an andesitic shield, with two main craters at the top and several pyroclastic cones cuspidal, and adventitial on the South Flank. The first ...

No-take fishery reserves for restoring overexploited deep-sea habitats: the case of the Norway lobster Nephrops norvegicus in the northwestern Mediterranean Sea 

Vigo Fernandez, Maria (Date of defense: 2023-10-30)

[eng] In September 2017, a no-take fishery reserve was established in the deep waters of the northwestern Mediterranean Sea, specifically focused on recovering the Norway lobster (Nephrops norvegicus) population. The main ...

Mid-Late Pleistocene glacial dynamics in the Valira valleys (Principality of Andorra). Asymmetries within the Pyrenees and correlation across the westernmost European mountain ranges 

Turu, Valentín (Date of defense: 2023-04-24)

[eng] Many sediment-covered mountain areas affected by the growth of Pleistocene glaciers are over-consolidated. Palaeoglacial conditions are deduced from glacial consolidation and site investigations. Geomorphological evidence ...

Transformations and pathways of Southern Ocean waters into the South Atlantic Ocean 

Olivé Abelló, Anna (Date of defense: 2023-03-20)

[eng] The returning limb of Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is partly supplied by the cold-fresh waters that enter through the Drake Passage. Up to the isoneutral 28.0 kg m−3, the mean water inflow through ...

Reactivity and composition of phytoplankton-derived organic matter: implications for the marine Carbon cycle 

Cabrera Brufau, Miguel (Date of defense: 2023-02-17)

[eng] Marine phytoplankton are responsible for approximately half of the photosynthetic production of organic matter (OM) and oxygen in Earth. The composition and reactivity of phytoplankton- derived OM influences two of ...

Shear Waves Characterization of the Sub-surface: Imaging Active Fault and Critical Zone along the Eastern Betic Shear Zone, SE Iberian Peninsula 

Handoyo (Date of defense: 2023-02-16)

[eng] The Earth System is formed by four components that sustain life: the atmosphere, the biosphere, the hydrosphere and the geosphere. The complex region in which these elements interact is known as the ‘Critical Zone’. ...

Estructura del Massís del Gaià: relacions estructurals amb les fosses del Penedès i del Camp de Tarragona 

Amigó i Mitjana, Jordi (Date of defense: 1986-01-01)

[cat] L'estudi previ d'una part del contacte entre el Massís del Gaià i la fossa del Penedès (AMIGÓ, 1983) va donar com a resultat l'aportació d'una sèrie de dades referents a l'estructura i evolució cinemàtica de les ...

Reconstructing the topography and water level of the Mediterranean Sea during the Messinian Salinity Crisis 

Heida, Hanneke (Date of defense: 2022-12-01)

[eng] During the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC, 5.97 – 5.33 Ma), an environmental crisis unparalleled in recent geological history, thick evaporites were deposited in the Mediterranean Basin associated with major erosion ...

A biogeochemical study of an abandoned Pb-Zn mine in the Aran Valley, Spain; applications of natural attenuation of heavy metals via secondary hydrozincite precipitation 

Greene Giannetta, Max (Date of defense: 2022-03-25)

The Aran Valley in Catalonia (Spain), was the site of large-scale Zn, Pb, Cu, Fe, and Ag mining from the late 19th century until approximately 1950. Although mining activities ceased over 70 years ago, some of the abandoned ...