Juan Ramon Vidal-Romani

Universidade da Coruña | UDC · Faculty of Science

Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) ages of young coastal dune ridges have allowed getting more knowledge on the deposition and erosion of coastal dune systems in NW Spain letting us the reconstruction of the coastal evolution of this area from the Marine Isotopic Stage (MIS 8) until the present times. Dating young sediments is challenging due...

The coast of Galicia (NW Spain), about 1,700 km long, is formed by cliffs and deep estuaries (Rias) flooded during the Late Holocene and the most characteristic sediments are sand and gravel deposits. Sandy sediments (aeolianites) are the most widespread along the entire coast and they are due to a massive aeolian accumulation that began at the end...

Origin of the archipelago of the Cíes Islands and the Ría de Vigo. Most of the existing data is now submerged by the sea but rocks, sediments and forms located on the surface, and geophysics and underwater surveys have made it possible to obtain images of the relief of the islands and the estuary, by artificial intelligence (AI) that describes the...

Ever since geology has existed, attempts have been made to understand the Earth by looking at the granite rocks on its surface. There are two ways to tackle this task. Some look at the rocks and interpret how they were formed. Others look at the forms and from them interpret how and when they were formed. Although they are different ways to achieve...

Caves are frequent in some granite massifs, that are very common in the NW of the Iberian Peninsula. Water trickling through joints and discontinuities of granitic massifs is the cause of the formation of speleothems that have been related to the biological activity of several organisms. They can be usually found in the water output of fissures, sh...

The geology of Galicia has very specific characteristics. It is made up of very old elements, from the end of the Precambrian, which have been intensely deformed and agglomerated in bands that correspond to the collision zone between several lithospheric plates. These rocks between 750 and 305 million years ago formed an agglomerated isotropic base...

The dissolution of a rock by water is known as karst with two modalities: exokarst, when the water acts only on the surface of the rock mass, and endokarst, when the water enters through the mass, taking advantage of the discontinuities (stratification, faults, fractures). ),opened. The best known cases develop in carbonate and evaporitic rocks (ca...

Historically, the greatest difficulty in geomorphological work is the absolute dating of geomorphological surfaces, which reaches its peak when the surface has no coating at all. In this case, the only criterion is either creative imagination or the use of stable cosmogenic isotopes or, if this is not possible, radioactive isotopes, because as long...

The Atlantic coast of Galicia (NW Spain) is a high-energy environment where shingle beaches are currently developing. These coarser sediments alternate with sandy deposits which are also considered as beaches typical of a low-energy environment. The physical association of both types of sediment with contrasted sedimentary significance raises probl...

The Ria de Coruña (NW Spain) is a wide estuary recently formed by the flooding of the Mero fluvial valley lowlands during the last postglacial transgression. During the last glacial episode , with the sea level located more than 100 m below the current one, the final section of the Mero river and lateral tributaries contributed numerous deposits th...

Galician Rias are fluvial valleys that were flooded during the last marine transgression in the Atlantic margin. The study of fossil dunes in the Cies Islands, a small archipelago in the mouth of the one of the rias (Ria de Vigo), allowed us to reconstruct the coastal evolution from the end of the Late Pleistocene to the present day. During this pe...

The Atlantic coast of Galicia (NW Spain) is a high‐energy environment where shingle beaches are currently developing. These coarser sediments alternate with sandy deposits which are also considered as beaches typical of low‐energy environment. The physical association of both type of sediments with contrasted sedimentary significance raised problem...

The geological terrains included in this field-trip are formed by a single type of rock: granite s.l.. In the scientific literature it is given different names: Traba Granite, biotite, circumscribed, or late, as it is the last to form of all the granites in Galicia. The texture of the rock, the appearance of the 3 minerals that make up granite; qua...

Pseudokarst caves develop in many types of rocks and the subterraneous landscapes they present are the results of the interaction of different processes. Some factors generate collapses conditioned by tectonic structures or as a result of water erosion, other biometeorize the rock and make it soluble, and still others produce deposits that fill the...

RESUMEN: Existen cuevas en prácticamente todos tipos de rocas (solubles y no solubles), en Galicia, aunque hasta hace pocos años, apenas había referencias a cuevas desarrolladas en cuarcitas. En este trabajo se recogen los datos de 70 cuevas localizadas en cuarcitas en la mitad oriental de nuestra comunidad. Se trata de cavidades ligadas a la estru...

The paper “Chronology of four climbing-dunes outcrops on the Atlantic coast of Galicia (NW Spain) linked to the sea-level fall during the MIS6 and MIS4 isotopic stages” presents for the first time the age of fossil eolianites from the Atlantic coast of Galicia. They are formed by siliciclastic sandy sediments covering a large surface area but with...

Las Islas Cíes han constituido un obstáculo para los intensos vientos costeros del Atlántico Norte, especialmente durante las fases glaciares del Cuaternario. Al final del último glaciar el mar descendió más de 100 m por debajo de su nivel actual. Este descenso transformó el archipiélago en un relieve emergido de 300 m de alto, capaz de deflectar e...

Cronología finipleistocena de los depósitos fluviales costeros en la desembocadura del Río Ulla en la Ría de Arousa (Galicia, NO de España) mediante datación OSL Late-Pleistocene chronology of coastal fluvial deposits at the mouth of the Ulla River in the Ría de Arousa (Galicia, NW Spain) by OSL dating Abstract This work establishes the age of an o...

Cies Islands have been an obstacle to the intense coastal winds from the North Atlantic, especially during the Quaternary glacial cycles. At the end of the Last Glacial period, the local sedimentary-record shows that sea-level decreased more than 100 m below present level. This sea-level drop transformed the archipelago into an emerged relief 300 m...

A depositional age is established for the first time for the fluvial-coastal deposits of the Mero River in the Ría de Coruña by OSL, related to glacioeustatic oscillations during the last glacial transgression (Upper Pleistocene).

OSL dating of coastal-fluvial deposits in the Ría of Coruña: chronology and geomorphological implications.

Abstract: Since the first scientific mention of the form tafone (though not giving this name) in the Guadarrama Sierra (Spain) in 1864, its origin has been considered to be due to exogenous processes. In 1883, the present Corsican term (tafone) is started to be used, and in 1888 the first drawing of the honeycomb structure of a tafone from Orense (...

We will talk about Global Warming and its effects on the Galician coast. For some scientists the last is running out interglacial, with a warmer climate than it was 15,000 years ago when the last glacial period ended. Everyone tries to know where sea level rise will come, something that obviously worries more to those who live on the coast than to...

Granite massifs often contain caves, with dimensions ranging from a few meters up to 1,000 m, also referred to as pseudokarst. The speleothems in such caves are mostly composed of either Si-rich (commonly opal-A) or Al-rich authigenic mineraloids. Whereas the formation and geochemical composition of opal-A biospeleothems have been studied and are f...

This work establishes the age of an outcrop of fluvial deposits located at the current mouth of the Ulla River in the Ría de Arousa (Galicia, NW Spain), at +40 m and +30 m above present sea level. The deposits are formed by braided siliciclastic materials. Although they have been known for a long time their age had never been determined, being cons...

Many of the so-called corestones have been developed from rocky blocks that have been apparently affected by subsurface physicochemical weathering that results in lamination, granulation, and eventually a puggy or stiff clay. The truth is that weathering takes advantage of a previous deformation structure and does not create it by weathering.

The absence of not soluble rocks does not imply the absence of caves. Thus, in the granite and ganiodorite rocks of the NW and W of the Iberian Peninsula, in the provinces of A Coruña, Cáceres, Lugo, Ourense and Pontevedra, and in the Northern Region of Portugal, interesting caves have been studied, some even reaching 1562 m of topographic developm...

The paper by E. Méndez-Quintas et al. (2020) aims to give an interdisciplinary overview of the lower Miño River terrace record in NW Iberia by combining geological and archaeological data. The authors also pretend to re-interpret the geological-geomorphological evolution of this river by presenting new data and by comparing them to data published i...

En nuestra excursión hablaremos el Calentamiento Global y sus efectos en la costa gallega. Para algunos científicos estamos en un Cambio Climático o una Emergencia climática. Otros, menos drásticos, opinan que se está acabando el último interglacial con un clima mas cálido de lo que era hace 15.000 años cuando terminó el último periodo glacial. Tod...

We will talk about Global Warming and its effects on the Galician coast. For some scientists we are in a change Climate or a Climate Emergency. Others, less drastic, think that the last interglacial is ending with a warmer climate than which was 15,000 years ago when the last ice age ended. Everyone tries to know where the sea level rise will go, s...

Las Potras de Montehermoso is the first large boulder granite cave system studied in the Province of Cáceres, in the western part of the Iberian Peninsula. This system is characterized by its subterranean canyon and well developed erosion forms (potholes, furrows, runnels, channels, scallops, etc.). During the topographic works carried out in this...

In the present study, Paleozoic Variscan orogenesis was a model of the oroclinal flexion accompanied by extensive magmatism, which could be divided into the following two types: post-tectonic and syn-tectonic tonalite granite, and leuco-granite which were controlled by the tectonic characteristics of the intrusions. It was observed that a very high...

Many of the so-called corestones have been developed from rocky blocks that have been apparently affected by subsurface physicochemical weathering that results in lamination, granulation, and eventually a puggy or stiff clay. The truth is that weathering takes advantage of a previous deformation structure and does not create it by weathering. Resum...

The Sulu Orogen preserves the Neoproterozoic tectonic-magmatic events, corresponding to the breaking up of the Rodinia supercontinent. The ages and petrogenesis of meta-igneous rocks in the Liansandao area in the northern Sulu orogeny are not well-constrained. This study reports zircon U-Pb ages and Hf isotopes of these rocks from the Liansandao ar...

Palynological, geochronological, and sedimentological analyses were conducted on samples from different depositional units of well-preserved marine, fluvial and palustrine sedimentary deposits from Vila Nova de Gaia located at the northwestern Portuguese coast. The studied deposits occur on two terraces: Terrace A—Lavadores (18 m to 33 m) and Terra...

The nine morphological types of caves developed in plutónicas rocks that have been defined so far. Erosion canyon roofing are the largest and have greater longitudinal development. There are twelve cases of cave systems located in the W and NW of Iberian Peninsula and located lither in Spain, (A Coruña, Cáceres, Lugo, Ourense and Pontevedra), and i...

The tafone-type cavities in the granitic-gneissic rocky outcrops of Rio de Janeiro had so far gone unnoticed by researchers despite being frequent forms in the rocky outcrops of the area in both the coastal and adjacent mountainous areas. Little has been discussed, until now, about the origin of these forms in Brazil usually attributed to sub-soil...

The geological history of the Artabro’s Gulf has two distinct aspects: the lithology that is essentially made up of rocks of allochthonous unit (2) materials and autochtonous unit (1) contemporary from the collision that gave rise to the Pangea continent 350 million years ago and that are grouped into three units. The Betanzos Unit (slates, phyllit...

Since the end of the Pleistocene, 12,700 years ago, dramatic effects are taking place all along the coastline of Galicia essentially due to a continuous rise in sea level along the coast with an average rate between 3mm and 3.5mm per year, which means an ascent from the beginning of the Holocene of approximately 40.95 meters. The immediate effect h...

The nine morphological types of caves developed in plutónicas rocks that have been defined so far. Erosion canyon roofing are the largest and have greater longitudinal development. There are twelve cases of cave systems located in the W and NW of Iberian Peninsula and located lither in Spain, (A Coruña, Cáceres, Lugo, Ourense and Pontevedra), and i...

The granitic rocks occupy approximately half of the surface of the Iberian Northwest. During Prehistory they were the preferred substrate for the development of engravings or petroglyphs. Of the different types of petroglyphs, senso lato, described in the literature some are of undoubted anthropic origin (zoomorphs, weapons, human figures, idolifor...

It is an exceptional document that includes the field work notes of the Mining Engineer Guillermo Schulz who, between 1832 and 1834, made the first geological map of Galicia, Northwest of Spain. The geological map made was the first modern geological map made by Spain. It contains data from rural Galicia in 1832, becoming an ethnographic document t...

It is an exceptional document that includes the field work notes of the Mining Engineer Guillermo Schulz who, between 1832 and 1834, made the first geological map of Galicia, Northwest of Spain. The geological map made was the first modern

Scientific materials necessary to make the journey of a field trip in the cove of Aldán (Cangas, Pontevedra, Spain). Corresponds to the activity called Geolodía 2018 of May 13 that is carried out simultaneously throughout Spain. The granitic morphology is described and information is provided on the origin of the Galician estuaries (rías).

The transition from hunting and gathering to farming involved profound cultural and technological changes. In Western and Central Europe, these changes occurred rapidly and synchronously after the arrival of early farmers of Anatolian origin [1; 2 ; 3], who largely replaced the local Mesolithic hunter-gatherers [1; 4; 5 ; 6]. Further east, in the B...

Data S1. Dataset of Ancient Samples Used for Population Genetic Analyses, Related to Figures 1, 2, and S3 and STAR Methods

Data S2. Results of the Outgroup f3 Statistics for the Romanian Genomes, Related to Figures 2 and S3 and STAR Methods

The granite caves of Partovia (Ourense, Spain) are studied, in the two types existing in the area: blocks caves and tafone. Age of formation, genesis and morphological characteristics are analyzed. The relationship between his exposure and the performance of Alpine Orogeny in Galicia is analyzed. Archaeological data associated with them are studied...

The transition from hunting and gathering to farming involved profound cultural and technological changes. In Western and Central Europe, these changes occurred rapidly and synchronously after the arrival of early farmers of Anatolian origin [1–3], who largely replaced the local Mesolithic hunter-gatherers [1, 4–6]. Further east, in the Baltic regi...

Elba, la que viene de las montañas, ha sido el nombre celta elegido para los restos de una joven a la que sorperendió la muerte viajando con 3 uros hace 9300 años en un camino de montaña entre Courel y Ancares (Galicia, España). El volumen 39 de CLXL presenta los datos morfológicos y cronológicos de la cueva donde se encontró a Elba. También se pub...

En este trabajo se presentan los primeros resultados de un estudio de paleogenética realizado en los restos óseos de Elba, la mujer mesolítica de Chan do Lindeiro (Pedrafita do Cebreiro, Lugo). El estudio se realizó a nivel de ADN mitocondrial completo y de marcadores nucleares relacionados con rasgos fenotípicos, como pigmentación y tolerancia a l...

La Sima del Uro (NW, España) es una cavidad que aunque desarrollada en calizas, tiene unas características morfológicas definidas por la actividad tectónica reciente en la zona. En ella se ha descubierto un cualitativamente importante yacimiento paleontológico finiholoceno que no corresponde, como es habitual en la zona, a una cueva de hibernación...

Resumen En este trabajo se presentan los primeros resultados de un estudio de paleogenética realizado en los restos óseos de Elba, la mujer mesolítica de Chan do Lindeiro (Pedrafita do Cebreiro, Lugo). El estudio se realizó a nivel de ADN mitocondrial completo y de marcadores nucleares relacionados con rasgos fenotípicos, como pigmentación y tolera...

Weathering involves important processes that alter the original structure, texture and chemical components of rocks and minerals. Bulk changes produced by weathering in granitic rocks have been studied by several methods, including chemical weathering indices. They are based on the assumption that some ions are more easily leached from minerals in...

Grytgrottan at Bankekind. The cave is most probably formed by methane wentings during the period of deglaciationof the area. The obtained age of dated speleothems in Stalaktitgrottan, Grytgrotteområdet, S. Sweden is very similar to that obtained in the soda straw studied before (Grottan 1.2016). That means, that around 9480 - 9680 BP, there was a g...

Seventy U-Th ages from six stalagmites from the Cordillera Cantábrica in northwestern Spain indicate deposition during interglacial, but not glacial, stages over the last 550 kyr. Stable isotope data and petrographic observations suggest that, within each interglacial, conditions typically progressed from drier to wetter. Consideration of the most...

Weathering involves important processes that alter the original structure, texture and chemical components of rocks and minerals. Bulk changes produced by weathering in granitic rocks have been studied by several methods, including chemical weathering indices. They are based on the assumption that some ions are more easily leached from minerals in...

This book provides an explanatory account of the landforms and landscapes developed on granitic rocks. Granite is exposed over about 15% of the continents and is thus of an areal significance comparable to the carbonate rocks. But whereas there are many texts concerned with karst landscapes few books bring together the collective wisdom of granitic...

Sintesis de la historiamgeológica de Galicia, NW España

Siliceous, opal-A speleothems of the Chimalacatepec lava tube system in central Mexico are characterized here for the first time. Morphologically, they can be classified into cylindrical and planar, and display a wide array of shapes, inner textures, and locations within the lava tube. All speleothems analyzed here are composed of opal-A, and their...

The Albarellos Cave is a boulder granite cave system characterized by its subterranean gigantic and well developed erosional and depositional forms: potholes larger than 5 m in diameter, and a depth of 11.5 m, erosion tunnels and coalescent concavities constitute the subterranean gallery. The cave is being surveyed and studied. This paper presents...

SUMMARY Grytgrottan, in the county of Östergötland, S. Sweden, is a system of caves formed between boulders partly filled by glacial clay. The boulders are formed by a granitoid and syenitic bedrock. In one of the caves a large number of speleothems are found. Chemical analyses shows that these are formed by calcite, and thus are real stalactites,...

In several caves in areas of granitic rocks mainly situated north of the Danube River in the southern Bohemian massif speleothems of rather small dimension but remarkable morphology were identified. Being sometimes similar in shape, their genesis is, however, entirely different from that of speleothems in karst caves. So far coralloid, tabular as w...

Caves offer fascinating possibilities for astrobiology to explore rock-based, dark, chemolithoauthotrophic ecosystems in the subsurface, on Earth or on other rocky planetary bodies such as Mars. Most of the caves explored so far are however based on limestone, which accounts for only ~10 % of the rocks on Earth but has so far not been found on Mars...

Caves offer fascinating possibilities for astrobiology to explore rock-based, dark, chemolithoauthotrophic ecosystems in the subsurface, on Earth or on other rocky planetary bodies such as Mars. Most of the caves explored so far are however based on limestone, which accounts for only ~10 % of the rocks on Earth but has so far not been found on Mars...

The Serras of Queixa-Invernadoiro and Gerês-Xurés in the NW of the Iberian Peninsula are two small mountain massifs located at low altitude that were glaciated in the Pleistocene. The prevailing granitic lithology was a problem for mapping glacial forms (in many cases interpreted as banal granite forms) and for the identification of the tills (misu...

Six stalagmites from northwestern Spain record deposition during the interglacials of the Holocene MIS 1 and Upper Pleistocene MIS 5, MIS 7, and MIS 13. The stalagmites come from three caves, Cova Arcoia, Cova Paleira, and Cova Tara, in the Serra do Courel in Galicia, in northwestern Spain. Culling of 83 U-Th ages leads to 70 accepted ages, 69 of w...

Up to now, the A Trapa system is the largest cave formed within granite blocks in the Iberian Peninsula, the second in Europe and the fifth worldwide. The cave is associated with a reverse fault, and its development, morphology and evolution seems to be influenced by the fault dynamics and the successive movements of blocks toward the axis of the v...