Yolanda Sánchez-Palencia

• Professor (Assistant) at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

The lipid content of a high mountain lake (Lake Isoba) allowed the reconstruction of the paleoenvironmental changes and anthropic influence in Northern Spain during the last 550 years. Fatty acids (FAs) and n-alkan-2- ones indicate little degradation of OM. Three units were delimited. During Unit A (ca. 1460 – 1780 CE) high carbon preference index...

Establishing the biogenicity of sedimentary surface textures with unresolved microbial origin is critical to any environmental and geobiological interpretation of clastic settings. Here, some Ediacaran wrinkle structures and associated carbonaceous greywacke samples containing mat fragments rich in ‘bacteriomorph acritarchs’ are investigated. Their...

Resumen: Se presenta el estudio geoquímico orgánico del testigo de un sondeo mecánico de reconocimiento en depósitos lacustres del Mioceno en la provincia de Cuenca, cuya litología está fundamentalmente constituida por calizas, calizas arcillosas y margas, típicos de otras zonas de España central. El estudio pretendía determinar origen y madurez de...

Resumen: Se presenta el estudio geoquímico orgánico del testigo de un sondeo mecánico de reconocimiento en depósitos lacustres del Mioceno en la provincia de Cuenca, cuya litología está fundamentalmente constituida por calizas, calizas arcillosas y margas, típicos de otras zonas de España central. El estudio pretendía determinar origen y madurez de...

Atmospheric concentrations of 18 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were measured in a rural area in northern Spain. Both the gas phase and particulate fraction were determined to evaluate the types and abundance of PAHs taken up by vegetation and the historical record of PAH deposition in an ombrotrophic peatland over the last 300 years. The...

Se presentan algunos resultados publicados de campañas de datación por racemización de aminoácidos (AAR) del Laboratorio de Estratigrafía Biomolecular (LEB) de la Escuela de Minas y Energía de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, en localidades de la Península Ibérica, que se han seleccionado para mostrar la aplicabilidad del método a muestras de...

This chapter extends a previous experience of educational innovation carried out at the E.T.S.I. Minas y Energía of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, deepening the analysis of the impact that training exercises with controlled errors has on learning. Based on the results obtained in the marks of the evaluable tests in three different subjects,...

Objectives To present a new dental specimen that will provide additional evidence for a better understanding of early European Upper Pleistocene hominin morphological variability. Materials and Methods We described the morphology of this human right lower third molar at both the outer enamel surface and the enamel–dentine junction by means of micr...

To refine knowledge about terrace phases and uplift history for a tectonically poor deformed region, we apply the synchronous correlation method to reconstruct the chronology of a poorly constrained sequence of raised palaeoshorelines on the Apulian foreland, southern Italy. This work uses new chronological constraints obtained by amino acid racemi...

In this work, we reconstruct a change in the wind regime and sea level pressure pattern during marine isotope stage (MIS) 5.5. To obtain these results, we studied two elements of the landscape south of the city of Gallipoli (Apulia region, southern Italy), namely, the Carmine-Li Foggi palaeo-littoral ridge (CLlr) and a field of domal-longitudinal f...

Kaolin waste dumps contain a huge volume of material that cannot be commercialized due to the presence of variable amounts of iron minerals, which impart a yellowish color to the kaolin. Elimination of iron from kaolin using either a chemical or a biological method was the aim of this study. The chemical leaching of iron from kaolin was carried out...

The health crisis caused by the SARS-COV-2 virus produced a drastic change in teaching in March 2020, when face-to-face teaching was forced to become online teaching. It led to changes in teaching methodologies, teaching materials and evaluation methods. The objective of this study is to determine which of these changes in the on-site university ha...

Sedimentological, paleobiological, mineralogical, and geochemical analyses of a sediment core retrieved on the seafront of Cartagena Bay were performed after high-resolution sampling. A wide series of dates obtained through radiocarbon and amino acid racemization proved that the Holocene record on the analyzed core began at ca. 7300 yr cal BP. Rein...

In this paper, we conduct a palynological analysis of a high-resolution Holocene record from Cartagena Bay, southeast of the Iberian Peninsula, to establish paleoenvironmental variability of coastal areas in the western Mediterranean region at a centennial-scale over the last 7300 years. Statistical analysis of four palynozones allows reconstructio...

We reconstructed the palaeoenvironmental conditions of Cartagena Bay during the Holocene after a multidisciplinary study to identify natural variations and the anthropic processes of this coastal area. A total of 119 samples were recovered for amino acid racemization dating, 3 for radiocarbon dating (¹⁴C), and four sets of 80 samples for sedimentol...

The coastal zone in which the lagoons of La Mata and Torrevieja (Eastern Spain) developed can be described as a compilation of geo-hazards typical of the Mediterranean realm. This study has focused mainly on those linked to recent tectonics. Extensive use of the amino acid racemization dating method allowed us to establish the evolution of all the...

The Albufera de Valencia is one of the largest lagoon in the Spanish Mediterranean. Two continuous borehole cores reaching depths of 8 and 14 m in the northern part of the lagoon underwent sedimentological, micropaleontological and biological study. The organic content was also analysed, and ¹⁴C radiometric dating and amino acid racemization were p...

Stratigraphy, sedimentology, geochemistry of the basin: Depresión Intermedia (Cuenca-Guadalajara, Spain)

The sodium form of Faujasite Y (Na-FAU) zeolite has been synthesized by the hydrothermal method, and it has been exchanged with ammonium sulphate and later with lanthanum (III) chloride solutions to obtain the La-FAU catalyst. The three zeolites Na-FAU, NH 4 ⁺ -FAU and La-FAU have been characterized by microcrystalline X-ray diffraction, X-ray fluo...

For the first time, the synchronous correlation technique and amino acid racemization (AAR) analyses of Patella spp. and Thetystrombus latus shells are applied to an understudied sequence of raised palaeoshorelines to refine the knowledge about terrace phases and uplift history in the middle-late Pleistocene in a sector of the Apulian foreland (wes...

Here we provide valuable information about the palaeoenvironmental evolution of Southwestern Mediterranean region during the last ca. 320 ka through a biomarker-based study of the longest continuous continental Quaternary record in the Iberian Peninsula. The n-alkane content and δ13C values of these lipids were measured in 300 samples taken from th...

The coastal zone in which the lagoons of La Mata and Torrevieja (Eastern Spain) developed can be described as a compilation of geo-hazards typical of the Mediterranean realm. This study has focused mainly on those linked to recent tectonics. Extensive use of the amino acid racemization dating method allowed us to establish the evolution of all the...

Trace element concentrations in the Cartagena Bay coastal record reveal a contribution of natural processes. However, the influence of anthropogenic factors predominates in the last three millennia, particularly aerosol deposition linked to mining and industrial activities in the area. The coastal record of Cartagena can be considered a preserved e...

La crisis sanitaria producida por el virus del SARS-COV-2 produjo un cambio drástico en la educación en marzo de 2020, cuando la enseñanza presencial se vio forzada a adaptarse a la telenseñanza. Esto produjo cambios en las metodologías docentes, los materiales didácticos y los métodos de evaluación. El objetivo de este estudio es determinar cuáles...

En este artículo se presenta la experiencia de innovación docente introducida en asignaturas impartidas en la E.T.S.I. Minas y Energía de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, basada en el entrenamiento con ejercicios que contienen errores controlados. Se analizan los resultados obtenidos con el empleo de esta metodología y su impacto en el aprendi...

RESUMEN Se perforó un sondeo de 30 m en la Bahía de Cartagena. El doble objetivo del mismo fue obtener datos sobre el antiguo frente marítimo de la ciudad romana y establecer la cronoestratigrafía y evolución paleoambiental. El sondeo (E3) se muestreó con alta resolución. Los sedimentos de la parte inferior (30-11,3 m) con pre-dominio de colores ma...

We reconstructed the paleoenvironmental conditions of the Mazarrón Basin during MIS 7 and MIS 1 based on their alkane and fatty acid contents, their mineralogy and the fossil content of an amino-acid-dated sediment sequence. The n-alkane and fatty acid indices proved to be excellent paleoenvironmental proxies for studying the paleo-hydrogeological...

A multiproxy study based on sedimentology, mineralogy, magnetic susceptibility, organic geochemistry and fossil content allowed to establish the sedimentary evolution of palustrine basins and to study the interplay between tectonic and climatic forcings in the sedimentation and facies arrangement that can be extrapolated to other coal-bearing basin...

Pre- or post-depositional heating of fossil biominerals will impact resulting amino acid dates, but the study on the effects on their amino acids of dry artificial heating of molluscs has not yet been fully tested. Here we report a study on three mollusc species to show how amino acid content can potentially be used to identify archaeological sampl...

We provided valuable information about the palaeoenvironmental evolution of Southwestern Europe during the last 800 ka through the palynological study of the longest continuous continental Quaternary record in the Iberian Peninsula and in the Southwestern Mediterranean region. The SPD core studied here constituted the longest sequence recovered at...

Here we reconstructed the evolution of the Mazarrón Basin during the Pleistocene and Holocene. In this regard, we studied 9 cores with the aim to: 1) define a chronological framework; 2) obtain data on the palaeoenvironment; and 3) establish the relationship with recent tectonics. A total of 158 samples were recovered for amino acid racemization (A...

Tutoring is an essential didactic resource of the learning process, in which students can receive specific attention about particular doubts and understanding problems. However, the personalized assistance to the problems that occurred during the autonomous learning process outside of the classroom has a delay when the tutoring takes place in perso...

In the last decade, many alternative teaching methodologies have been developed, all of them belonging to the framework of educational innovation, with the aim of encouraging students' motivation, adapting to new technologies and improving learning. Specifically, this study focuses on the use of tutorial videos in which the explanation of some topi...

Project Management in engineering fields is being transformed towards an agile management, where the interaction with the client / user and iteration is a constant. For the success of the project, and the resolution of the engineering problem, new learning tools must be considered, where the student must work, among others, creativity competences (...

Tutoring is an essential didactic resource of the learning process, in which students can receive specific attention about particular doubts and understanding problems. However, the personalized assistance to the problems that occurred during the autonomous learning process outside of the classroom has a delay when the tutoring takes place in perso...

Preferentemente en estudios de máster, debe considerarse la aplicación de nuevas herramientas de aprendizaje enfocadas en la realización de proyectos y resolución de problemas de ingeniería, donde los estudiantes desarrollen su creatividad y trabajo en equipo a la vez que se fomente el aprendizaje. Por ello se ha desarrollado la aplicación de la me...

The inter- and intra-crystalline fractions of Littorina littorea periwinkles recovered from archaeological sites in Northern Spain (covering the Azilian, Magdalenian and Solutrean periods) were examined for amino acid composition and racemisation over time. These fractions were found to be composed of similar proteins, as the amino acids and Asx D/...

The inorganic content of the well-preserved 3.2-m record of Las Conchas bog (NW Spain), covering 8000 cal yr BP., was analysed. To study natural vs. human contributions, we applied an innovative approach, namely the sequential study of multivariate statistics (factor analysis followed by clustering of the factor score matrix) and enrichment factors...

This paper presents a detailed geological and geomorphological analysis of the so‐called givoni (low‐relief, mainly gravelly landforms subparallel to the coastline) associated with the MIS 5 terrace in the northern Gulf of Taranto (southern Italy). These landforms can be interpreted as former beach ridges, swash/drift‐aligned spits, or swash/drift‐...

The predominantly carbonate nature of the mountains near the coast of Málaga and Marbella (Costa del Sol, southern Spain) and the presence of springs have favored the formation of travertine buildups during the Quaternary. The geomorphic characteristics of the slopes and the location of the springs have determined the development of three types of...

High school students start their first year at the university with very different levels of knowledge and skills. Chemistry and Technical Drawing are two appropriate examples to study this complex situation. Due to the flexible high school academic curricula and the lack of strict requirements to enter university degrees in the case of, for example...

High school students start their first year at the university with very different levels of knowledge and skills. Chemistry and Technical Drawing are two appropriate examples to study this complex situation. Due to the flexible high school academic curricula and the lack of strict requirements to enter university degrees in the case of, for example...

Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) have been widely used to improve the process of learning. The flipped-classroom technique seeks to encourage the self-learning of the students through online lectures, allowing them to use their time in the face-to-face lessons to apply the theoretical concepts and practical methodologies. In this...

The terrains of the Western Costa del Sol in the westernmost Mediterranean represent an outstanding example of the influence of major tectonic and climatic factors in the development of the landscape. This region belongs to the Alboran domain, which is a small continental lithosphere fragment embedded between the large Eurasian and Africa n plates....

We performed detailed geological and geomorphological analyses on a well-exposed series of marine terrace deposits located along a coastal area from the city of Taranto to the Bradano River in the northern Gulf of Taranto (southern Italy). Absolute dating was performed by applying amino acid racemisation (AAR) to ostracod shells and isoleucine epim...

The Tajo Basin is one of the richest in Mg-clays known around the world. Mg-bentonites, kwon as pink clays and green clays, alter in the Intermediate Unit of the Miocene sediments. In this work, a new approach to the genesis of these bentonites is performed by studying for the first time the biomarkers present in these clays in relation to the mine...

This work presents biomarker content of sediments obtained from a new mud volcano, Subvent MV, in the Gulf of Cádiz. This mud volcano located in the Moroccan margin was discovered, surveyed and sampled during the SUBVENT2. A gravity core (SUBVENT2-TG02) recovered from the top of this mud volcano, at 434 m water depth, consists of recent mud breccia...

ResumenUna de las maneras más útiles favorecer el aprendizaje se produce cuando se realiza visualmente y, más aún, de forma práctica. En asignaturas de ámbito geológico son especialmente importantes las salidas al campo para la comprensión de la materia. Sin embargo, dadas las limitaciones presupuestarias de los centros y temporales de los programa...

El Hito Lake (Castilla La Mancha, South-Central Spain) is an ephemeral saline water mass, with an area of 350 ha, located in the Cuenca province, between the localities of El Hito and Montalbo. The lake is developed on eroded gypsiferous and lutitic rocks of lower Miocene age that formed the bulk of an alluvial-lacustrine infill of this continental...

Here, we sought to reconstruct the Pleistocene and Holocene evolution of Cartagena Bay. Therefore, 16 borehole cores were analysed with the following aims: (1) to define a chronological framework; (2) to obtain data on the palaeoenvironment; and (3) to establish the relationship with human activities, especially focused on the reconstruction of the...

The inter-and intra-crystalline fractions of the topshell Phorcus lineatus recovered from modern specimens and shells from archaeological sites in Northern Spain covering Neolithic, Mesolithic, and Upper Magdalenian periods were examined for amino acid composition and racemisation over time. The main loss of proteins from the inter-crystalline frac...

Background: El Hito Lake is an ephemeral saline water mass present most of the year as a gypsiferous salt pan that is temporarily flooded during rainy periods, when it becomes a refuge for migratory birds such as flamingos and cranes, among others. It is considered an important hotspot of biodiversity and as such is covered by protection status. Pu...

We have studied the abundance of Pb and PAHs in the Villaviciosa estuary record since 1400. Pb concentration rised since 1700, which was accompanied by an increase of PAHs abundance since 1870, with markedly maxima between 1950 and 1990. This could be linked to anthropic pollution due to industrial development, mining and vehicle emissions. In fact...

This study focuses on the mollusc Glycymeris, which is commonly used to date raised marine deposits through amino acid racemisation (AAR). We examined the effect of bleaching and heating on the amino acid composition and racemisation/epimerisation of Glycymeris shells, as well as fossil material sourced from Spain. We show that amino acid compositi...

We determined the lipid distributions (n-alkanes, n-alkan-2-ones, n-alkanoic acids), total organic carbon (TOC), total nitrogen (TN), Ca/Mg and ash content in Las Conchas mire, a 3.2 m deep bryophyte-dominated mire in Northern Spain covering 8,000 cal yr BP. Bog conditions developed in the bottom 20 cm of the profile, and good preservation of organ...

The coastal area between the mouths of the Aguas and Antas Rivers presents a deformed system of raised marine deposits, some of which have been strongly affected by active tectonics. The use of amino acid epimerization dating of Glycymeris shells from raised coastal deposits allowed determining the age of these marine deposits, all of them linked t...

Determination of Rare Earth Elements (REEs) in the waters and sediments of El Hito Lake and its drainage basin was carried out. Distribution maps for REEs concentrations show increasing values in the lake sediments from the center to the eastern edge reaching 166.5 mg/kg. In the drainage basin, higher values were observed with a maximum of 350.9 mg...

The lipid content of three cores from Lake Enol (Picos de Europa National Park, Asturias, Northern Spain) was studied. The n-alkane profiles indicated a major input from terrigenous plants [predominance of high molecular weight (HMW) alkanes) since ca. 1695 AD to the water body, although the uppermost cm revealed a predominance of organic matter (O...

Landwards of a MIS5 bar, a borehole core (SRA) was analyzed to establish the relationship between the lagoonal record and the raised beach deposits in the surroundings of the Antas river mouth and to reconstruct the Pleistocene palaeoenvironmental evolution of the southern Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula. 63 samples were recovered for...

Landwards of a MIS5 bar, a borehole core (SRA) was analyzed to establish the relationship between the lagoonal record and the raised beach deposits in the surroundings of the Antas river mouth and to reconstruct the Pleistocene palaeoenvironmental evolution of the southern Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula. 63 samples were recovered for...

The inter- and intra-crystalline fractions of Patella vulgata limpets recovered from archaeological sites in Northern Spain (covering Neolithic, Mesolithic, Magdalenian, Solutrean, and Aurignacian periods) were examined for amino acid composition and racemisation over time. The calcitic apex and rim areas of the shells were found to probably be com...