Xavier Devleeschouwer

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences · Geological Survey of Belgium

More than 5,500 carapaces, valves and fragments of ostracods, were extracted from 48 samples collected in the stratotype of the Terres d’Haurs Formation (= Fm) and in the very base of the stratotype of the Mont d’Haurs Fm, at the Mont d’Haurs, close to Givet. Fiftytwo species belonging to several assemblages of the Eifelian Mega- Assemblage have be...

Terra Nova, 24, 310–317, 2012 The Zumaia section, the most complete and representative section of the early Palaeogene (hemi)-pelagic succession of the Pyrenees, is widely acknowledged as a key reference for the Palaeocene–Eocene boundary. New high-resolution δ13Corg of the Zumaia section (−23.8 to −28.8‰) confirms the position of the Carbon Isotop...

To provide a new insight into the diagenetic versus detrital origin of the magnetic susceptibility variations in ancient carbonate sequences, a study was conducted within four Frasnian–Famennian platform carbonate sections from Germany, France and Morocco. The study includes along-section magnetic susceptibility and carbonate content measurements c...

Urban resilience is critical to allow cities to withstand the challenges of the 21st Century. One factor that is often overlooked in such assessments is the role of the subsurface. A novel methodology called the Urban Geo-climate Footprint (UGF) has been developed to classify cities quickly and comprehensively from geological and climatic perspecti...

The natural cross-section of the Durbuy Anticline represents an archetypal anti¬cline and is a classical site used for the education of geology and geoscience students from Belgium and neighboring countries. It was scientifically described as early as 1807 and is the subject of one of the oldest geosite studies in the world, thus serving as a key...

This study assesses hydrogeological hazards in the Saint-Vaast region, Belgium, impacted by three decades of deformation post-coal mine closure. Using Persistent Scatterer Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PS-InSAR) applied to 30 years of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data along with geological investigations and 13 years of piezometric we...

Manuscript under review submitted to "Cities" Journal related to the Urban Geo-climate Footprint tool.

Spatio-temporal ground-movement measurements and mappings have been carried out in the Campine coalfield in Belgian Limburg since the closure of the mines to document post-mining effects. MT-InSAR measurements are compared to groundwater head changes in the overburden and to height data from the closest GNSS stations. Radar interferometry is used t...

The persistent scatterer radar interferometry technique (PS-InSAR) has revealed ground displacements since 1992 in Saint-Vaast (Wallonia, Belgium), where an old drainage adit allows mine water discharge to the Haine river. As far as our knowledge goes, the Saint-Vaast area has already been affected at least twice, by a clogging rupture in the drain...

Abstract for a poster presented at 11ISCPP. In the last few years, the ‘Carrière de Lompret’ quarry (Chimay municipality, Belgium) has become one of the most frequently visited mineral and fossil collecting spots in Belgium. The amazing richness and diversity in geology, mineralogy, and palaeontology of the middle and upper Frasnian limestones and...

Le « Calcaire d’Etrœungt », extrême sommet du Famennien, reconnu historiquement par Gosselet, fait l’objet d’une représentation détaillée, avec positionnement des niveaux qui ont fourni des faunes, dans les coupes de la carrière du Parcq à Etrœungt, stratotype historique, et dans celle de la tranchée d’Avesnelles, proposée antérieurement comme para...

In the heart of the Fagne, halfway between Chimay and Couvin, lies Lompret, one of the most beautiful villages in Wallonia. This village with its seemingly modest appearance, bordering the meanders of the 'Eau Blanche' river, boasts a very rich cultural and historical past. beyond its status as a landmark of the region's cultural and historical her...

The empirical power law relation (PR) between resonance frequency (f0), obtained from H/V spectral ratio analysis of ambient noise, and sediment thickness (h), obtained from boreholes, is frequently used in microzonation studies to predict bedrock depth. In this study, we demonstrate (i) how to optimally construct a PR by including the error on the...

R script used to make and analyse the accumulation-dilution cycles signal (Figs. 1, 3, 4, 13 and 14) in the article

R script to process the CIP1 signal

Supplementary materials to article: Wouters, Sébastien, Michel Crucifix, Matthias Sinnesael, Anne-Christine Da Silva, Christian Zeeden, Miroslav Zivanovic, Frédéric Boulvain, et Xavier Devleeschouwer. 2022. « A Decomposition Approach to Cyclostratigraphic Signal Processing ». Earth-Science Reviews 225 (103894). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2...

R scripts used to process the ODP 926 greyscale signal

R scripts used to process the ODP 926 magnetic susceptibility signal

Sedimentary rocks can record signals produced by highly complex processes. These signals are generated by a progressive deposition of sediments which can be affected, mainly through the climate system, by regular astronomical cycles (i.e. Milankovitch cycles), and by irregular oscillations like the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Also, usually throug...

The LASUGEO project: monitoring LAnd SUbsidence caused by Groundwater exploitation through gEOdetic measurements.-PS-InSAR (Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar) data allow measuring slow-moving ground deformations with high spatial resolution.-In Belgium, most of the subsidence is related to fluctuations of water pressure in aquifers (Figure 1...

PS-InSAR observations using multi-sensor radar data acquired by ERS 1-2, ENVISAT ASAR, and Sentinel-1A satellite sensors operating in C-band, have shown various land subsidence rates in different zones of the Antwerp area along the Scheldt River and in the harbor zone during the 1992 to 2021 period (Declercq et al. 2021). The LOS velocity values ca...

This century is the “century of the cities”, where rapid urbanization and greater global connection present unprecedented urban challenges and concentrates risk in urban areas making them increasingly vulnerable (Coaffee & Lee, 2016). The need arises for urban planning must be asked to fully incorporate an understanding of the sub-surface into the...

Land subsidence affecting several towns at the joining limits of the Belgian Provinces of East Flanders, Antwerp, and Flemish Brabant is followed during the last three decades. ERS 1-2, ENVISAT, TerraSAR-X, and Sentinel 1A satellites SAR scenes were processed from 1992 till October 2020 to map the land subsidence evolution. The subsidence correspon...

We present a workflow to conduct a full characterization of medium to coarse-grained igneous rocks, using portable, non-invasive, and reproducible approaches. This includes: (i) Image Analysis (IA) to quantify mineral phase proportions, grain size distribution using the Weka trainable machine learning algorithm. (ii) Portable X-ray fluorescence spe...

The coupled effects of climate change, sea-level rise, and land sinking in estuaries/alluvial plains prone to inundation and flooding mean that reliable estimation of land movements/subsidence is becoming more crucial. During the last few decades, land subsidence has been monitored by precise and continuous geodetic measurements either from space o...

The StratigrapheR package proposes new concepts for the generation of lithological logs, or lithologs, in R. The generation of lithologs in a scripting environment opens new opportunities for the processing and analysis of stratified geological data. Among the new concepts presented: new plotting and data processing methodologies, new general R fun...

A new manual for StratigrapheR, and a few pointers for geologists wanting to start coding in R

StratigrapheR is an open-source integrated stratigraphy package. It is available in the free software environment R (https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=StratigrapheR) and is designed to manage the large amount of data needed to perform cyclostratigraphy. As this discipline can be carried out by visual analysis on lithological observations and by ti...

Depositional changes are studied in three sections encompassing the Danian–Selandian transition, Loubieng (France), Zumaia (Spain) and Sidi Nasseur (Tunisia), using magnetic susceptibility as a proxy. Additional rock-magnetic analyses are used to avoid ambiguous interpretation of magnetic susceptibility. The magnetic susceptibility, measured on 90...

To establish an astronomical time scale, it is useful to perform a visual inspection of the lithological evolution, together with proxies record. It allows to have a clear understanding of the expression of Milankovitch cyclicity. However, performing such an inspection can be challenging due to the large amount of data and high spatial resolution r...

The section of “Fleury-la-Rivière” is located to the East of the Paris basin in the Champagne area. The studied section is the well famous underground galleries of the “Cave aux Coquillages” related to an old wine cave of the Legrand-Latour champagne. A 5 cm sampling resolution interval along a 10 m thick sequence is the results of high resolution...

Societies rely on a secure, responsible and affordable supply of resources to meet their basic needs, in order to live life in a safe and healthy environment. The natural resources from the subsurface, i.e. groundwater, geo-energy and raw materials, represent essential elements in this provision. Safety from catastrophic events, such as those linke...

Calculating thickness variations of soft sediments above bedrock is important for site effect characterisation, earthquake ground motion amplification and for hydrogeological and geothermal purposes. In case seismic array instru-mentation is not available and hence shear-wave velocity profiles cannot be obtained, other correlation techniques need t...

New detailed lithological, sedimentological, chemostratigraphic data were obtained from exploration drilling samples on the C5 carbonate-dominated formation of the Neoproterozoic Lukala Subgroup (former Schisto-Calcaire Subgroup) from the West Congo Belt (WCB) in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This formation records the last post-Marinoan sea-le...

The time series of Synthetic Aperture Radar data acquired by four satellite missions (including ERS, Envisat, TerraSAR-X and Sentinel 1) were processed using Persistent Scatterer interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) techniques. The processed datasets provide a nearly continuous coverage from 1992 to 2017 over the Brussels Region (Belgiu...

ERS, ENVISAT and TerraSAR-X Synthetic Aperture Radar scenes covering the time span 1992–2014 were processed using a Persistent Scatterer technique to study the ground movements in Merchtem (25 km NW of Brussels, Belgium). The processed datasets, covering three consecutive time intervals, reveal that the investigated area is affected by a global sub...

In this paper, we have tested the application of magnetic susceptibility measurements in Cu-Ag-Zn-Pb-(Fe)-mineralized carbonates of the BIe subgroup (Democratic Republic of Congo) as an efficient tool for regional and global high-resolution stratigraphic correlations in the Neoproterozoic marine carbonates. To achieve this goal, we integrate the lo...

The abandoned Loubieng quarry located close to Pau (France) encompasses the Danian/Selandian boundary (DSb). The section could be subdivided into three parts: i) the basal part of the section consists mostly of Danian whitish carbonate beds with only scarce and thin marly layers, ii) several limestone/marl alternations at the uppermost part of the...

In this paper we formulate answers to three important questions related to Givetian carbonate records and their use for reconstructing million-year-scale past palaeoenvironmental changes. First, we provide detailed illustrations of the fascinating diversity that shaped a significant shallow reefal platform during early to late Givetian time in the...

The abandoned Loubieng quarry located close to Pau (France) encompasses the Danian/Selandian boundary (DSb). The Danian consists of an alternation of almost horizontally-bedded limestone layers and tiny marl intercalations. Marls with few thin limestone beds are observed in the Selandian. A very short-term hyperthermal event at the very base of the...

Geologica Belgica Conference Proceedings VOLUME 2 (2016) 5th International Geologica Belgica Congress 26-29 January 2016 - Mons, Belgium GB2016 MOTHER EATH Conference programs & abstract book

1. igcp-580 project – application of magnetic susceptibility on palaeozoic sedimentary rocks Quantitative magnetic susceptibility (MS) measurements have become widely used in the sedimentology of rocks from the Recent to the Palaeozoic. The basic principle of the technique is the following: MS measurements on sedimentary rocks are considered as a p...

Limestones at the Puech de la Suque Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) of the Givetian–Frasnian boundary show a drastic change towards much higher magnetic susceptibility values in the Givetian rocks. Different rock magnetic parameters indicate that ferromagnetic minerals are the main controlling factor. The ferromagnetic fraction...

Recent opening of the La Thure quarry in Western Belgium allowed the collection of new data from a poorly outcropping area of the Belgian Frasnian platform. The studied section covers an interval extending from the falsiovalis to hassi s.l. Zones. Sedimentological analyses allowed the reconstruction of depositional settings in the northwestern part...

The Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point for the base of the Selandian Stage is defined in the Zumaia section (Spain) at an abrupt change in lithology (base of Itzurun Formation), which coincides with the onset of a negative carbonate carbon isotope shift. However, this lithological change is not always very well expressed in other sections...

The International Geoscience Program project IGCP- 580 (started in 2009), focuses on the application of magnetic susceptibility (MS) as a paleoclimatic proxy on Paleozoic sedimentary rocks and on the characterization of the magnetic susceptibility signal. Here we provide a summary of the scientific targets behind the project and a summary of the or...

Le « Calcaire d’Etroeungt», extrême sommet du Famennien, reconnu historiquement par Gosselet, fait l’objet d’une représentation détaillée, avec positionnement des niveaux qui ont fourni des faunes, dans les coupes de la carrière du Parcq à Etroeungt, stratotype historique, et dans celle de la tranchée d’Avesnelles, proposée antérieurement comme par...

In order to meet the requirements established by the European Directive (2006/118/EC) on the groundwater protection, the Geological Survey of Belgium (GSB) has started a new Geographic Information System (GIS) project called Hydrobrux. The aim is to create a thorough three-dimensional geological model of the subcrop of Brussels. The latter will be...

Ostracods from the Sourd d’Ave section have been collected in the Moulin Boreux and Fort Hulobiet Members (Fromelennes Fm., Givet Group) and in the Pont d’Avignon Member (Nismes Fm., Frasnes Group). Ostracods collected in the Fromelennes Fm. by Milhau (1983a) and in the Nismes Fm. by Casier (1987a) have been also reviewed. Forty-four ostracod speci...

Afin d’évaluer la structure et les caractéristiques des réservoirs géothermiques profonds hennuyers, une étude géologique suivie d’une campagne d’exploration géophysique ont été réalisées en 2012. La campagne géophysique consiste en l’acquisition de deux profils sismique réflexion d’environ 20km. Les réservoirs visés sont : l’aquifère profond des c...

Approximately 870 carapaces, valves and fragments of ostracods were extracted from 26 samples collected in the Hanonet Formation (= Fm) and Trois-Fontaines Fm in a section located along the southwestern rampart of the historically entrenched military camp at the Mont d’Haurs (Givet, France). Forty-eight species belonging to the Eifelian Mega-Assemb...

About 1,200 ostracods were extracted from 64 samples collected in the upper part of the Trois-Fontaines Formation (Fm) and in the base of the Terres d’Haurs Fm in the Rancennes quarry located along the western rampart of an historic entrenched military camp at the Mont d’Haurs (southern part of the Dinant Synclinorium, Ardennes Department, France)....

A comparison between microfacies and magnetic susceptibility (MS) curves has been performed at the Givetian-Frasnian transition in southern Belgium. The MS curve is subdivided in four magnetic sequences. Most of the section has MS and MF curves anti-correlated. Hysteresis parameters reveal a low coercivity mineral of magnetite type phase and a high...

j.brixko@aide.be; a.timmermans@aide.be 4 120 Rue de Gelbressée, BE-5024 Marche-les-Dames -Belgium, Julien.Vanneste@belgacom.net ABSTRACT: Radar interferometry (PSInSAR) technique has been applied in and around Liège. Hundred and two radar images from ERS1/2 and ENVISAT were used and around 34,000 Permanent Scatterers were identified. Average annual...

Zircon crystals were examined in order to assess the volcanic origin of three Kbentonites of late Frasnian age. The levels L3 and L6 were sampled in the Lion quarry (Frasnes-lez-Couvin, Belgium). They belong to the lower rhenana conodont zone. The SS layer, from the Steinbruch Schmidt quarry (Germany), belongs to the upper rhenana conodont zone. Th...

In the Harz Mountains (Germany), three Late Devonian sections, Aeketal, Hühnertal and Kellwassertal, were analyzed for major- and trace-element concentration. The inorganic geochemical data were used to determine the environmental conditions, associated with the deposition of the two Late Frasnian black Kellwasser horizons in a submarine-rise envir...

Radar interferometry (PS technique) has been applied in and around Brussels. The total area investigated is equivalent to 900 km. The ERS1/2 data sets covering the time span 1992-2003 have been exploited. Seventy-four scenes were used and around 173000 permanent scatterers (PS) were identified and could be used for time-series analysis. Several gro...