Johannes Kentmann (1518–1574), medical doctor in Saxony, friend of Conrad Gesner, described 11 mineral specimens from Hungary and altogether 30 from the Carpathians in the printed catalogue of his mineral collection (1565, Zürich). Some of the specimens were collected during his diplomatic legation to Hungary in 1550–51. This catalogue is the first record of scientific mineral collecting in Hungary.
Stable isotope parameters (δ 2 H, δ 18 O, d exc ) of event-based and monthly composite precipitation collected between 2003 and 2009 in the south-western sector of Lake Balaton displayed the normal seasonality typical for mid-latitude continental sites. Fluctuation in δ 2 H and δ 18 O values of monthly composite precipitation in the SW Balaton Region closely followed the monthly values reported from the surroundings, especially Zagreb (Croatia) situated ∼150 km southwest-ward. The amount-weighted annual mean isotope parameters of precipitation ranged from −8.30 to −7.25‰ for δ 18 O-ann, from −58.8 to −52.2‰ for δ 2 H-ann: and from 5.7 to 7.7‰ for d exc -ann depending on which observation site and 12-month subperiod is selected in the SW Balaton region between March 2008 and November 2009. The Local Meteoric Water Line (LMWL) was determined using ordinary least squares-, reduced major axis-, and precipitation-weighted least squares regressions. A preliminary estimate for precipitation-weighted LMWL based on monthly composite data of the 2006–2009 period in the SW Balaton Region is δ 2 H = 7.35(±0.16) × δ 18 O + 2.14(±1.41) is practically identical with the LMWL determined with the same methodology for Zagreb in an overlapping period reinforcing the isotope hydrometeorological similarity between these regions. This linearized approximation of the δ 2 H–δ 18 O covariance can be used as a benchmark for modern precipitation in isotope hydro(geo)logical studies in the SW Balaton Region.
In 2006 the three Major Communities of the Holy Sepulchre Church in Jerusalem, concerned over the Church's stability in the event of a major earthquake, requested a technical evaluation of its structure, inviting a research team from Florence University. The present article is an essay review of the book (G. Tucci, editor: Jerusalem. The Holy Sepulchre. Research and Investigations, 2007–2011 ), which published the main results of this research. Historical documents and images are reviewed, followed by engineering details of the seismic vulnerability analysis, embedded in a rich geological and geotechnical context. It is suggested that further studies in construction history, providing details on material and workmanship, and using the tool of archaeoseismology can reveal whether parts of the church, affected by destructive earthquakes, did ever collapse or not.
AbstractThe Budapest Tree-Ring Laboratory (BTRL) is a fully equipped dendrochronological laboratory, established in 2002 at the Department of Paleontology and currently hosted by the Department of Physical Geography, Eötvös University, Budapest, Hungary. The lab has the proper sampling equipment for field work, a sanding workshop to prepare tree-ring samples for measurement and measuring-stages with software for recording and analyzing tree-ring data. Throughout the first 20 years of activity the BTRL collected and analyzed ∼360 living and ∼470 relict samples (including historical and subfossil material) from more than 33 sites distributed mainly in Europe but including a few localities in Asia. The most represented genera are Quercus and Pinus, both among the living and the relic subsets. Open access publication of the essential ancillary scientific information of the stored material will make the sample archive of the BTRL an actual national research infrastructure.
AbstractA new series expansion-based method, the Combined Geoelectric Weighted Inversion (CGWI) procedure is presented and tested by using synthetic and in-field measured datasets. The method is an improved version of the Combined Geoelectric Inversion (CGI) robustified by involving Cauchy-Steiner weights in an Iteratively Reweighted Least Squares technique. The new procedure is compared to the Fourier series expansion-based 1.5D and the CGI methods as well as to the broadly applied RES2DINV inversion procedure. The field measurements are performed during stone exploration in an active quarry on the south-western slopes of the Mátra mountains, in northern Hungary. It is shown that the CGWI method gives stable and robust parameter estimation with acceptable accuracy. The comparison with other inversion methods is based on data distances, estimation errors and correlation parameters calculated on the base of the parameter correlation matrix.
