Abstract During the late Messinian Period, evaporites were widely deposited in Paleo-Mediterranean Sea and this event is called Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC). The Sorbas Basin, southeastern Spain, was situated near the Bettic Passage connecting the Atlantic Ocean and Paleo-Mediterranean Sea during the early Messinian. Therefore, it is expected that the lower Messinian sediments in this basin record oceanographic changes prior to MSC. In this study, the stratigraphic changes of carbon and oxygen isotopic ratio of planktic and benthic foraminifers were examined to reconstruct paleoceanographic change in this basin. Both the carbon and oxygen isotopic ratios of planktic foraminifers from the Sorbas Basin rage from 0 to 2‰. These ratios are similar to those from the Atlantic Ocean, suggesting that the basin was covered by surface water from the Atlantic Ocean. The isotopic ratios of benthic foraminifers in this basin showed decreasing and increasing trends respectively, and these values were close to those from the Mediterranean Sea. These suggest that the sea floor in this basin was overlain by intermediate and deep waters produced in the central and eastern parts of the Paleo-Mediterranean Sea, and these waters became stagnant due to the increasing salinity.

Normally, in observing birefringence, a transparent calcite crystal is used in air. In this study, we visualized the three optical paths: incident light, refracted light in calcite, and emitted light. Calcite and spirytus (a type of vodka originating in Poland) were used, as they exhibit fluorescence when irradiated with a 405-nm purple laser pointer. In addition, the calcite cleavage rhomb was cut parallel to the principal section, and the aforementioned three light paths were observed from the direction perpendicular to the cut surface. In this experiment, we observed that the ordinary ray follows the law of refraction, while the extraordinary ray does not. We then placed a polyvinyl chloride mirror in parallel with the exit surface and again observed that the ordinary ray follows the law of refraction, while the extraordinary ray does not. These new observation methods will be a useful aid in learning the principles of birefringence and polarization microscopy.

The Urayasu High School is located on reclaimed land which was devastated ground surface failure due to the 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake. The significant 50 to 100 m length 2 open cracks were created and immediately spewed out huge amount of sand and groundwater as a result of soil liquefaction.

We investigated such liquefied area using hand auger and simple dynamic cone penetration testing to reveal subsurface reclamation process and geology. Aerial photographs of different age and historical archives were also provided very useful to recognize for reclamation development.

The two open cracks traced covered rows of piles. Main NNE-SSW trend line reflected to have differentiated to reclamation processes due to land ownership to traditional wetland vegetation to get material for household goods.

Two different types of deposits are distributed which bounded by those rows of piles, east side is mainly composed of dredged homogeneous silt, incompatibility west side is developed clean fine sand with shell fragments.

The ground significantly damaged with liquefaction is strongly dependence of subsurface reclaimed material, rows of piles are especially used the conduit of dewatering and spewed sand, which due to the difference in vibrational characteristics each reclaimed material’s which dredged sand and silt, piles, wooden boards.