Search

This paper examines how Estonian and foreign tourists to Saaremaa Island perceive their future experiences in light of a bridge built from mainland Estonia to the island. A logistic regression resulted in six predictors (two demographic and four sense of place scales) of perceived future effects of a proposed bridge on future experience, accounting for 18% of the variance. The six predictors of perceived effects of a potential bridge to the mainland on future holiday experience to Saaremaa Island were nationality, education, socio-cultural context, memory, aesthetics, and wellbeing sense of place scales. Estonians were more positive about the bridge, which supports previous discussions of the essence of home and wellbeing. Wellbeing was the strongest and only positive predictor followed by educational level, memory, socio-cultural context, aesthetics, and nationality, which were all negative. Highlights allude to the predictive power of sense of place on perceived environmental change of development (bridge to island) to future experience among tourists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines normative concepts of community identity expressed by inhabitants of Saaremaa Island, Estonia, via 20 interviews of permanent residents. Community identity is discursively constructed via interpretative repertoire to examine storylines used for constructing the sense of being part of an island community. Community identity relates to infrastructural aspects (roads, bridges); islandness being a key physical, philosophical and psychological component of the island's infrastructure, followed by more specific spatial units such as parish, village, neighbourhood and home. Each infrastructural unit involves a social network and physical environment related to a continuum of normative structure. Effects of a proposed bridge to the mainland influence respondent repertoire on changes of island community identity. Acceptance was the more dominant aspect of islander identity; acceptance by/of the environment determines who-is-who on the island. Normative components of acceptance included 'bodily experience' of individuals, 'community control' and 'community sign-systems.' Constructions of 'we' as islanders distinct from the non-islanders provide a complex view of community identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies on the use of wild food plants have identified various reasons for their use and underlined their importance as an emergency food supply. This work analysed the content of narratives obtained as comments regarding the reasons for using or not using wild food plants mentioned during 48 semi-structured recorded interviews. The results show that past demand for the diversification of food experiences and taste was essential for the consumption of wild plants, while the present concern for the disappearance of wild food taxa familiar from childhood is one of the main reasons for decrease in their consumption. This indicates that people do not really feel that they need to use wild food plants anymore (except for the health benefits), and that they are concerned that their favourite plants are no longer available. The erosion of the practical use of wild food plants is also supported by the very small frequency in which the influence of teachings coming from outside the community was mentioned in discussions of both the past and present, and thus the loss of traditional uses is not really substituted by new uses acquired from elsewhere. Further research is needed to understand lay perceptions of the changes that have occurred in nature, society and the economy, in the context of their influence on the everyday use of wild food plants to appreciate the ways in which knowledge erosion takes place and to find means of retaining this basic knowledge within the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gotland, Åland, Saaremaa, Hiiumaa and Bornholm are five islands in the Baltic Sea which constitute, or have until recently constituted, provinces or counties. Combining perspectives from the fields of island studies and history, this article investigates how regional history writing has contributed to the formation of regional identity on each island since the year 1800. The special geographic situation of the islands - somewhat secluded from the mainland but also connected to important waterways - has provided their inhabitants with shared historical experiences. Due to varying geographic and historical circumstances, the relationship between regional and national identity is however different on each island. While regional history writing has often aimed at integrating the island into the nation state, it has on Åland in the 20th century been used to portray its inhabitants as a separate nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Silurian thelodont Phlebolepis elegans Pander from Saaremaa, Estonia, is one of the most-often illustrated early vertebrates, yet its external morphology has remained poorly known and experts seldom agree about its probable body form. We examined hundreds of articulated specimens from the type locality (Himmiste Quarry) to reconstruct its morphological features. We found that a reconstruction published more than four decades ago by A. Ritchie was the best available till now. We disagreed mostly in that the mouth is not terminal, but subterminal, and there is a slight development of a rostrum dorsal to the mouth. The pectoral fin originates close behind the orbits, but is otherwise similar to Ritchie's reconstruction. We also found the caudal fin to be much larger, more flexible and more symmetrical (though not perfectly symmetrical) than earlier reconstructions, with a large dorsal lobe and an even larger ventral lobe, and a fin web supported by slender 'ray-like' scale-covered lobes. The shape, number and location of the branchial openings are notably still not certainly known. Our preferred morphological features are represented by an artist's restoration. With this revised understanding, future representations of Phlebolepis elegans can be based on more reliable information and its morphology can be compared more accurately with that of other early vertebrates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The Wenlock–Přidoli sequence has been subdivided and mapped offshore Saaremaa in the Baltic Sea by means of high resolution seismic reflection profiling. The most striking and consistent seismic reflectors correlate with contrasting lithological boundaries of the Silurian regional stages, the Jaani/Jaagarahu (S8), the Jaagarahu/Rootsiküla (S10), the Rootsiküla/Paadla (S11), the Paadla/Kuressaare (S12), the Kuressaare/Kaugatuma (S13) and the Kaugatuma/Ohesaare (S14) stages, which often coincide with erosional disconformities on Saaremaa. The shallow-shelf Silurian sequence that crops out on Saaremaa is also exposed in the closest offshore area of the island. Due to the westerly to south-westerly increasing erosional cut below the Baltic, the deeper facies varieties that are concealed in southern Saaremaa, are revealed and exposed at the seafloor towards Gotland. This is particularly well expressed in the Jaagarahu Stage, which undergoes a facies change with significant increase in thickness on the basinal slope of the Baltic Silurian Basin, both onshore and offshore Saaremaa. The Silurian sequence overlying the Jaagarahu Stage does not show any considerable thickness or facies changes neither below nor offshore Saaremaa. Offshore Saaremaa, seismic reflectors limiting new deeper facies subunits in the Jaagarahu Stage become either successively or simultaneously exposed inside the Vilsandi (S8–S9) respectively the Maasi–Tagavere (S9–S10) seismic units towards Gotland. These outcrop patterns were largely formed by two different erosional agents that during different time periods have played a considerable role in the formation of the present day Baltic Sea depression. Hence, the gradually south-westerly deepening cuesta landscape formed by the Cenozoic erosion, namely the Silurian Klint and the plateaus north and south of it, discloses progressively deeper part of the Baltic Silurian Basin. The deeper facies subunits are exposed rapidly by the submeridional erosional incisions of the Pleistocene glaciers. Except for the erosional component, there appears also a distinct tectonic factor in the genesis of the present Baltic Sea depression. Today, the coeval Silurian rocks that once were formed in separate facies belts, i.e. in different depth intervals of the same sedimentary basin on Saaremaa and on Gotland, are presently located at about equal altitude. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In-situ minor, trace and rare earth element (REE) compositions have been measured in conodonts from the lower Silurian Vesiku Bone Bed (Estonia), with the aim to visualize and to quantify conodont apatite elemental geochemistry, to evaluate compositional differences between conodont histologies, and to evaluate the use of conodont chemistry as a palaeobiological or palaeoenvironmental proxy. Tissue-selective analyses of minor, trace and rare earth element compositions of albid, hyaline, and basal tissues demonstrated significant chemical offsets among these histologies. The albid tissue had the lowest REE and trace element concentrations, suggesting crystallinity-determined better resilience to diagenetic alteration as documented in previous studies. Conversely, the basal tissue had highest concentrations of REEs and many trace elements, except for Sr that showed an opposite trend. The higher concentrations in albid and hyaline tissues supports the in-vivo Sr incorporation by conodont crown. Nonetheless , the obtained SN-normalized REE patterns were uniform through all the analyzed conodont taxa and different tissues, implying common diagenetic history. Absence of a Ce anomaly, and defined negative Eu anomaly indicate reducing conditions during early burial. These results validate current interpretations of the palaeoenvironmental conditions during the deposition of Vesiku Bone Bed and bolsters the use of REEs in Palaeozoic marine vertebrates as an important palaeoenvironmental proxy. • REE from conodont apatite reflect palaeoenvironmental conditions of Vesiku bone bed. • Conodont element histologies show differences in REE concentrations. • Inter-tissue Sr compositions supports in-vivo Sr incorporation by conodont crown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]