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Drowning unconformities are a frequent feature of carbonate platforms and generally express the incapacity of shallow marine ecosystems to adapt to abrupt sea level rise and/or palaeoenvironmental change. During the late Hauterivian and early Barremian the Helvetic carbonate platform experienced a major drowning phase documented by the phosphate and glauconite rich Altmann Member. It has been shown that a drowning unconformity in the form of a hardground at the base of the Altmann Member on the Pilatus summit (central Switzerland) results from a complex polyphased diagenetic history that includes two main phases of phosphogenesis. Using carbon isotope stratigraphy biostratigraphy and sequence stratigraphy the correlation of this drowning unconformity from the Helvetic domain with more distal and more complete sedimentary archives allows reconstruction of the sequence stratigraphic context of the drowning surface and also an estimation of the amount of time represented by the episodes of condensation. Unconformities associated with the Altmann Member drowning phase developed during transgressive episodes when strong currents arrived onto the previously subaerially exposed platform and periods of phosphogenesis may have lasted up to 2·8 Myr. Variations in trophic levels and hitherto less well known intervening emersion phases played an essential triggering role for the Altmann drowning phase. High resolution studies of drowning unconformities unravel the diversity of palaeoenvironmental parameters involved in the unfolding of such crises during the evolution of carbonate platforms.

Detailed sedimentological and sequence stratigraphic analysis of Carboniferous (Tournaisian to Moscovian) strata exposed in the north-western Murzuq Basin and southern Ghadames Basin, western Libya, provides new insights into the sedimentary response of the northern Gondwana margin to climate and sea-level change. The Lower Carboniferous Marar and Assedjefar Formations can be divided into five depositional sequences of 3rd order. In total 27 facies types are defined, grouped into four facies associations: offshore shales, shallow marine clastics, fluvial sandstones and marine carbonates. The bulk of the Lower Carboniferous interval is dominated by an alternation of offshore shales and shallow marine clastics, which were deposited during the transgressive and highstand systems tracts. The clastic deposits mostly consist of laterally persistent coarsening and thickening upward cycles with a common succession from basal hummocky cross-stratified sandstones to ripple-laminated sandstones, capped by multidirectional cross-stratified sandstones. Within the lowstand systems tracts, lenticular sandbodies have been identified, which vary in thickness from 1.5 m (ca. 40 m wide) to 50 m (ca. 1.5 km wide). These are interpreted to be fluvial channel complexes based on their geometry, erosive base, and presence of thick stacked sandstones with unidirectional planar and trough cross-bedding, the absence of bioturbation and occurrence of land plant fragments. These channel complexes mostly cut down into offshore shales, and are interpreted to be bound at the base by sequence boundaries. Palaeogeographic maps generated for each lowstand system show the location and palaeoflow direction of these fluvial channel complexes. They are interpreted to represent large incised valleys filled with thick fluvial sandstones. Their identification and distribution indicates repeated exposure of large areas of western Libya, most-likely controlled by major eustatic sea-level changes. The Assedjefar Formation exibits a gradual decrease in coarse clastic sediment supply throughout the Serpukhovian and by the Bashkirian and Moscovian during the deposition of the Dembaba Formation a carbonate depositional system was established. Limestones are dominantly made up of a heterozoan fauna (brachiopods, crinoids, bryozoans, gastropods) and are mostly preserved as shallow marine storm and coastal deposits. It is hypothesised that a local increase in aridity and/or the gradual erosion and decreasing topography of the hinterland mountains, with the resulting reduction in discharge, controlled this shift from clastic to carbonate deposition. Available data indicate that the Murzuq Basin was interconnected with the Ghadames Basin at this time and is a postdepositional basin with respect to the Carboniferous interval. The sedimentological and sequence stratigraphic data from the present study offer new insights into the depositional setting and facies distribution in the Carboniferous, and the recognition of major incised fluvial systems has significant implications in the search for potential Carboniferous hydrocarbon reservoirs in the Murzuq, Ghadames, and Illizi Basins.

Characterization of a new family of G protein-coupled receptors is reported. Expression of these receptors is associated with endothelial lineage. Cloning of the Xenope X-msr receptor allowed to show that embryonic expression of this receptor occurred in the heart and developing primary blood vessels. Furthermore, within these cardiovascular structures, expression was restricted to the endothelial layer. Because structural similarities with the human orphan receptor h-APJ were found, the msr/apj receptor was cloned in mice. This showed that embryonic expression of this receptor was also confirmed to endothelial precursors. Thus, this receptor is the orthological equivalent in mice to the amphibian receptor X-msr. Molecular phylogenesis studies showed that the X-msr, msr/apj, and h-APJ receptors shared considerable homology with two CXC chemokine receptors, namely LCR1, whose name was recently changed to CXCR4, and RDC1, which is structurally similar to the CXCR2 receptor. The human h-APJ receptor is a co-receptor for entry of the HIV into T cells, a property associated only with CXC chemokine receptors in the lymphocyte population. These data suggest that this new signaling system may participate in endothelial precursor migration during developmental angiogenesis and in endothelial cell migration and proliferation during neoangiogenesis in adults.